Steve’s report last night was that the logging road cut east and petered out in a swamp full of angry beavers, so we figured the best course of action this morning was to put in and hope for the best.
By the river gods’ good graces, we got it.
We woke up to a gorgeous sunny day and a complete collection of dry gear, and we packed up early and lined the boat over the last little spit of rapids below our campsite. We climbed aboard, said a prayer to the river spirits that we wouldn’t hit anything too big to run, and crossed our fingers that we might actually make it to the confluence.
SMOOTH. FUCKING. SAILING.
One or two minor rips around big rocks, and one or two blind turns that made us a little uneasy since we weren’t sure exactly where we were on the map, but otherwise GORGEOUS. Remote swamplands; evergreen forests lined with cattails and short mossy banks into the trees; a few young moose who were exceptionally startled to see us; ducks all around. THIS is the romantic wilderness paddling experience people envision when they plan this sort of thing.
Within an hour we’d connected with the Daaquam. We shrugged out of the top halves of our dry suits and revelled in the warm sunshine and our pleasantly quick cruising speed. Every so often one of us would break our happy contemplative silence by shouting “OH MY GOD. WE’RE CANOEING.”
Roughly two and a half weeks later than originally planned, we cruised into Ledge Rapids Camp at 1:15… having covered about thirteen miles in less than two hours. (Sometimes floodwaters are terrifying, and sometimes they’re absolutely magical.) We called it for the day, hung the dry suits up to air out, and parked it on the front porch of the cabin to relax in the sun and kick the rest of the scotch.
I’m in shorts. We’re no longer worried about running out of food; there aren’t ice chunks in the water; all the rapids we’ve hit have been so far under water that they barely register as blips on the radar.
AND WE SAW PEOPLE!! Three guys in a pair of boats stopped in to sign the register, and one of them was a local river guide who made helpful notes on our maps and told us that everything from here to Big and Big Black Rapids should be no big deal at these water levels. They had a fresh weather report: clear and sunny for the next three days. BRILLIANT. He also let us know there were beds available at his family’s bunkhouse/restaurant in Allagash (the Kelly Camp and Two Rivers Lunch) if we wanted to splurge for a night or two once we got downriver.
All of this would have been amazing from a normal viewpoint, but given the three weeks of absolute hell we went through to get here this is downright SUBLIME. We’re both so happy/relieved/grateful to be here, to have each other’s company, and to be in this delightful weather and stupidly pretty scenery.
OH MY GOD. WE’RE CANOEING.