The Allagash Wilderness Waterway

We all survived Ben's first trip on the Allagash! 4 days and 3 nights in the wilderness of northern Maine. Pouring rain, giant deer-flies and tiny No-See-ums couldn't break his spirit or that of the other 10 brave souls dumped off on Umsaskis Lake last Friday morning. We were actually quite lucky, weather wise. We lived with the constant threat of rain but got very little until the last day on the river. You knew that the region had been getting more rain than normal just by how swollen the river was. On our last trip down, there were many places where you had to jump out of the canoe and drag across the shallow river bed. But not this trip. We cruised down the river at a record pace, easily covering the planned 15 or so miles for each day. It was nice to be able to set up camp after a good hard day of paddling and still feel like you had some energy left to enjoy the late afternoon/evening around the camp. We saw upwards of 10 moose on the trip, almost all in the first 2 days. Some were in the water, eating grass off the river bed and some were watching us from the shore. Lots of ducks, loons and canadian geese, but surprisingly no deer.