Someone stopped by my office late Wednesday to ask about a meeting on Friday. When they left I dug the memo out of my deleted emails so I would be reminded. In doing so I noticed the meeting date of 10/2. Friday, 10/2? That date sounds familiar. Meeting my *ss. I have a couple of vacation days scheduled and I'm outa here noon on Thursday.
That night on the way home I had to stop to pick up camp food for a couple of days, instant brown rice, powdered gravy, canned chicken and ham, sandwich, breakfast and snack stuff. Then I had to find and pack clothes, camping gear and stuff. Then I had to decide whether to take the sea kayak, the 11 or 14 foot canoe. Since I have easy access to the ocean, I have a mental thing about taking the kayak on fresh water. I usually take the 14 footer when I'm canoe camping and/or with someone else. That left the 11 footer, even though I didn't know for sure where I was going yet. In the rush, I knew I was forgetting some things (like going to the bank) but what's life without a little adventure?
I had the option of heading northeast to Maine, north thru New Hampshire or northwest into Vermont. Since I'm headed to Maine next week and I live in New Hampshire and haven't spent much time in Vermont I headed that way. I've always wanted to do Lake Champlain and this might be my last chance to do so.
I was buffeted around by some pretty heavy winds the whole way up route 89 during the 4-5 hour drive. I pulled into Grand Isle State Park in the town of Grand Isle on the island of Grand Isle in the northern part of Lake Champlain around 5pm with the wind still blowing. After setting up camp I dug out the beat up old Radio Shack weather radio. NOAA was indicating 20-35 knot winds and 3-4 foot waves for Friday. The 11 footer has about 1 inch of freeboard when I'm leaning and that didn't sound like a whole lot of fun for me.
I went down to the lake for a while before it got dark. The whole area was covered by white caps but there weren't any waves. The water was just about at the high water line so I sat down and waited for the tide to change <g>. I was also hoping for a sight of Champy, Lake Champlain's version. of Nessie, the Loch Ness monster. Hey! If those guys in the northwest can have Sasquatchs <sp> why can't we have lake monsters here in the northeast? Big Foot's running around down in the Everglades too, isn't he? I didn't see any souvenir stands or T-shirts so I don't know how serious they really are about Champy.
Anyway, after an hour or so I hadn't had a glimpse of Champy and the tide hadn't changed any, so with great disappointment I went back to camp. I did get a nice picture of purple, pink, white, gray and black clouds over an island with a mountain range in the background and the moon peaking out above the clouds. It reminded be of route 95 between the George Washington Bridge in NYC and Newark, NJ with all the oil tanks, etc. There were always people along the highway at sunset taking pictures of the pollution. It sure was pretty.
The wind howled all night and the temperature dropped into the low 30's and I thought about the long johns I had forgotten. Of course I woke up at 2am and had to pee. What do real men do? Do they put on their shirts and vests and pants and socks and shoes and coats and hats and gloves and go trudging down to the outhouses with their glaring lights, cold floors and even colder toilet seats to say nothing of the mess and the smell. Or do they just step outside in their shorts and let fly at the nearest bush? What do real women do? I know I'm not partial to exposing my bare butt to the elements and the cold and creepy, crawly critters that lurk out there in the dark waiting for a tender morsel to munch on or a place to lay their eggs.
Friday morning I headed back up route 89 to the Missiquoi National Wildlife Refuge near the Quebec border. This is primarily a marshy wetland and contains a large blue heron rookery and lots of other terns and ducks, etc. nest there in the spring. I was headed for the Missiquoi River that runs along route 78 for a while then heads off into the marsh for 4-5 miles to Missiquoi Bay.
The river is about 100-150 feet wide and only a couple of feet deep in most places and lined by trees on both sides as it winds north through the refuge. This kept me fairly well protected from the wind and what wind I did get was from behind. I had been pretty disappointed in the fall foliage on the way up and there wasn't much color along the river either.
I saw about 10-15 blue herons along the river, though. They were quite different from the blue herons in New Hampshire. Down there, when you spook them, they just fly away with quiet dignity. Up north they flew away quacking(?) like they were really p*ssed off. There were a fair number of some kind of ducks that were smaller and brighter than female mallards. There were a number of blinds marked off along the river so I guess a large number of birds migrate through there too.
I came out of the river into a channel through the marsh grasses and entered the lake. Quebec was only a couple of hundred yards away so I just let the wind push me in that direction. It's difficult to determine where one country stops and another starts. The scenery doesn't seem to alter or change color or anything. I think they ought to paint dotted lines, like on the highways, across the water and trees to indicate where the border is. They could paint solid lines where they don't want you to cross. Of course some scam artist would probably paint lines in the shape of a huge funnel to suck you into some tourist trap or something.
I had hoped to find some Canadian Ballast Rocks ™ to sneak back into the US. I figured I could get 5-10 of them into my 350 pound capacity canoe without exceeding its limits. I also hoped to hang half a dozen over the side to provide additional stability and prevent rocking if those 3-4 foot waves showed up. These additional stones would not count as weighted capacity because that only applies to the weight carried inside the canoe and these would clearly be outside. I had considered carrying more on the outside but I was afraid they might add too much drag for the long trip back to the put in.
I guess the whole area had already been mined out. All I saw was some depressions where some huge boulders might once have stood. The immediate area was covered in rock dust and small stone chips. It looked as if they had brought in convict labor to make little rocks out of big rocks and there wasn't much left for an innocent tourist like me to take home as a souvenir L . This was an obvious case of strip mining at it's worst.
Quebec really isn't a part of Canada anymore anyway, is it? They don't seem to think so. They speak a different language, all their signs are in French, etc. Didn't I hear somewhere it was against the law to have signs in English in commercial places in Quebec? Must be great for tourism.
Anyway, I turned to head back, right into a 10-15 knot wind. Now 10-15 knots is one thing in a sea kayak and a double bladed paddle. It's something else entirely in a canoe with a single blade, especially for a tired old man out in a canoe for the first time that year. It took about 45 minutes to paddle back to the river.
It had taken me an hour and a half to paddle down the river and took about another two and a half to paddle back up again. The trip back was uneventful with some big black clouds forming overhead but only a few sprinkles along the way.
Saturday and the extended forecast was for more wind so I gave up. I felt I could have handled the wind ok in the sea kayak but it would have been too much for me in a canoe on exposed waters. While the area was pretty with not too much development, there was nothing spectacular, and nothing that would justify the risk nor the effort.
So Saturday morning I broke camp and headed towards the southern end of Lake Champlain. I crossed the border into New York state and stopped at Crown Point and Fort Ticonderoga. Crown Point was mostly granite ruins but Fort Ticonderoga was well preserved and/or restored with lots of cannons and and a nice museum.
I was headed to the narrow portion of Lake Champlain where there are supposed to be some interesting cliffs but developed an attitude problem riding behind a little old lady driving about 20 MPH. After half an hour of that I finally around here but a mile or so later ran into her older brother driving a 300 foot RV at the same speed. By the time I got around him I was so hyper I couldn't enjoy anything so headed home.
I passed the Pico and Killington ski areas on the way and finally saw some decent foliage. NOAA had been giving updates on where the peak foliage areas were. I guess that up until then I was in a state other than the ones they were reporting on because it looked pretty much like mid-September where ever I was.