Canoeing rivers is a trip - includes related article - Recreation

American Forests, May-June, 1992 by Dave Carty

The first set of rapids was a cakewalk--just a chute that bottomed out in a couple of minor haystacks. George, Russ, John, and I had portage around them, then stopped for lunch on the bank just below. But I couldn't stop sizing them up, figuring a line. "

"I think we can run that sucker,"

I finally announced. Russ and John glanced up from their sandwiches. George smiled. George, I decided, had what it took to go with me. After lunch, George and I slipped the canoe into the river 100 yards upstream and glided gently toward the drop. I rose halfway out of my stern seat at one point to get a bearing on the broken water ahead, but there was no need; we had aligned the little boat perfectly, and a moment later the bow shot out squarely over the center of the lip. George and I paddled twice, and then we were through and digging in below the last haystack, whipping the 16 footer around in the eddy below.

By the time we reached the bank, Russ and John were already donning their life jackets for a try of their own. I grabbed my camera and fired several frames as they shot past. The subsequent photos recorded what for the life of me I can't recall seeing: Russ howling with glee in the stern and John in the bow, a hand on either gunwale, gritting his teeth.

At least once a year, I make time fro a canoe trip. Where I live in southwestern Montana, canoeable rivers aren't scarce, but that's true nearly everyplace. There's probably not a spot in the entire U.S. that isn't within a half day's drive of a floatable river, and almost anyone who has ever been on an overnight canoe trip will drive a lot longer that a half a day to go on another one.

For those who crave solitude, it is easier to find on a river--on short notice--than nearly anywhere else. If it's the clamoring sounds of human enterprise that you would escape,

I submit that trees--those wonderfully profuse plants that grow along most rivers and block views of housing developments and power stations-do a superb job of buffering sound. You may be a dozen yards from someone's backyard, but if you can't hear or see the company, you remain distanced from it in mind and soul.

Although it's tempting to go overboard with accessories, all you really need are a canoe, a sleeping bag, and food. For some reason, many canoeists are also backpackers, and in most respects, backpacking gear is excellent for float trips, particularly if you'll be gone for a week or more and weight is a consideration.

But one of the nice things about canoeing as opposed to backpacking is that weight isn't as big a consideration, especially on the overnighters and three-day-weekend trips that most of us take. Canoes, for all their feminine curves and racy lines, can haul a lot of freight. Therefore, I reserve tiny stoves, claustrophobic sleeping bags, and organic freeze-dried food for roughing it. The last thing I want to do on a float trip is eat bird seed. Call me old, call me weak--but please call me for dinner.

I was in my late 20s when I built my first canoe--a 16-foot plywood job that made it through several trips before I sold it to a fisherman for $75. I can't remember much about the way it handled, except that it was extremely heavy when not in the water.

If I learned anything about boat construction from that project, it didn't sink in, and the next boat I bought--which I still own--was a boxy, 16-foot, bright red, fiberglass Sawyer, the primary virtue of which was its cost: $250, barely used. It had been won by the previous owners in a grocery-store raffle (it took me a week to peel the Coke Is It! promotional stickers off the sides). Turned out they were terrified of the water, particularly the water in the Missouri River, which flowed a few hundred yards from their home.

That little boat has been good to me. It has stood up to everything but an ex-buddy's 200-pound girlfriend, who happened to be sitting in the bow when the boat slammed into a rock. An hour's work with fiberglass cloth and resin patched the resulting hole good as new, and it hasn't leaked since.

Still, for someone interested primarily in canoe camping, there are better outfits. Generally, the longer the boat, the easier it paddles. An l8-footer will carry all the gear you can use and cut a snappy wake with a minimum of paddle work.

Choice of construction material is up to you. Kevlar (a tough plastic) is tops, but only upper-echelon yuppies can afford a boat made of the stuff. The low-end polyethylene boats handle like bathtubs, but they're nearly bulletproof and relatively cheap. Aluminum canoes are probably last on the desirability list, but like the poly boats, they're cheap and easy to find at garage sales. Most folks settle on some type of fiberglass construction, which is modestly priced ($500 to $1,000) and durable.

Recently, I've been eying plans for an 18-foot cedarstrip canoe, a boat as beautiful as it is impractical and I've just about convinced myself I won't put a hole in the thing with the first rock I hit. Remember, although a state-of-the-art cruising machine is nice, the main idea is to get out on the water, and to that end, almost anything will work.