Memorable trips by canoe - Part 1

By DENNIS APRILL
Outdoors Columnist

May 04, 2008 05:22 am

— Spring has to be the season of rebirth for die-hard canoeists and kayakers, all sick of looking at ice-bound waters since last December. I am one of them.
Water levels, especially in the Champlain Valley, are a little high right now, giving me time to reflect on some interesting canoe trips I've made locally over the past two decades. What follows is not a field-guide approach to each, but a reflection of trips still open to canoeists today who may want to give them a try. This will be the first of an ongoing series throughout the summer.
The AuSable Delta
Starting in the Champlain Valley, the classic flatwater canoe-wildlife observation float is the AuSable River Delta situated between Plattsburgh and Keeseville. My wife, Kathy, and I canoed the loop to and from the AuSable Point State Campground in July 2002, a time of extensive forest fires in Quebec. On that hot July day, with winds coming at first down from the north, there was a smoky mist covering the sun, and the smell of wood smoke was in the air.
We left our vehicle at the AuSable Point State Campground and entered the upper mouth of the Ausable River, paddling upstream a little over a mile to the point where the main stem of the river came into the delta.
Ducks were plentiful along the shore throughout; I trolled a spoon in one section and caught and released a small bass. Except for the railroad bridge that bisects the wetland, the only signs of civilization we found were cans that were either washed down in the spring freshets or carelessly dumped.
All went well when we entered the lower branch and worked our way downstream another mile-plus, that is until we came to a very choppy Lake Champlain. We still had a mile or so to go. The wind was now out of the south, so it meant paddling broadside to it or quartering to the southeast at an angle until we cleared a point to our north. Only then could we let the wind push us to the campground.
Kathy was not too thrilled with the prospect of going out onto such a choppy lake, but we had no other options. After a few tense moments of paddling, we finally cleared the point, our 16-foot Mad River Kevlar Explorer riding the rough seas well. As we got to the campground, I heard a big sigh of relief from my wife. The moral of all this: Be prepared for anything when canoeing on Lake Champlain; a river trip down to the lake may be a quiet one, but Champlain can get rough at any time.

Solitude on the St. Regis
In 2000, not long after the state closed that controversial land deal with Champion Paper Company, miles of the St. Regis River were opened to canoeists. My daughter Karalyn, then 13, and I were among the first to paddle the stretch from Indian Rocks, 12 miles west of Paul Smiths, downstream to a take-out on the Blue Mountain Road.
This was a two-vehicle trip; we dropped our SUV at the Blue Mountain Road parking area and were shuttled back to Indian Road by Department of Environmental Conservation personnel who were working on portages and boundaries in the newly-opened-to-the-public area.
For the most part, the St. Regis meandered through marshland, and we saw the occasional duck and Canada goose. Because it was late May, the most abundant wildlife were blackflies and mosquitoes -- literally clouds of them. We had headnets and gloves and were covered up, so we managed.
As we paddled, Azure Mountain stood like a marker to the north; even when we got into a small oxbow, we knew which way to go by checking out the mountain. Nearing the end, we made a short .3-mile carry just before the trail to the parking area and our vehicle. Since then I'm sure many hundreds have canoed this stretch of river. At that time, however, it was a novelty that Karalyn and I remembered long after the bug bites healed.

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