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Post by tickles on May 18, 2012 7:46:12 GMT -5
I was thinking the same thing. I did phone the insurance people and they said it was not a fire or theft so they could not cover it. They did say something to the effect that the next policey up might have covered it with some creative wording.
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Post by dbradford on May 18, 2012 22:37:04 GMT -5
Best of luck if you go on a recovery mission If not, you definitely have great memories!
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Post by tickles on Jun 5, 2012 18:41:43 GMT -5
The Rescue mission.
After feeling like a looser that lost a boat we decided to go back the first weekend of June to go boat hunting.
A few weeks ago Jim Strang from Katahdin Air was kind enough to do a fly over of Webster stream and he said our boat was a few miles down from where we tipped in the middle of the river.
In my mind I was pissed that we did not go get it after I flipped I really feel like we just gave up to early. We were back at the hotel drinking before we even started to suffer. anyways more on that later.
After much more research about how to drive into Webster lake, Talking to 3-4 rangers 3-4 game wardens And some guides from the north Maine woods group we had some good directions to drive into Webster lake and only need to portage about 2km down to the water.
The roads in are very good, There is one chain gate that you need to park at and then portage down from. If you are desperate you could just lift up the chain and drive under it Anyways the walk in sucked but it was not to bad as it was mostly down hill.
Webster lake was beautiful there is one camp site in Baxter park and two in the Allagash water way. The lake is basically split in half the Allagash camp sites are rarely used and not checked at all.
If you tell the Telos gate that you are staying at one of the Allagash camp sites they want $180 for 3 people for two nights.
I started crapping my pants. The gate Keeper after asking us where we were from, Said OH YOUR the Canadians, they said they would have stuck up for us and ended up just charging us a entry/exit fee as we could have been staying at the Baxter campsite on the lake.
So it turned out to be $60 bucks for three of us to enter and exit the Allagash waterway.
The water Level @ Grindstone this weekend was a reasonable 1600CFS@Grindstone I would say Webster would be perfect around 2000CFS@Grindstone as it really was rocky but no dragging otherwise Webster stream was much more fun this time lots of rocks to dodge and fast water. Last time there were no rocks showing at all and it was just to fast to navigate period.
After heading down stream in a 18 foot Grumond for awhile we started to get worried knowing every Km we went down river was a Km we would need to line the boat back up stream.
Finally we see this monster tree in the middle of the river that my boat was supposedly stuck on but alas no boat until i see it on the shore with all the dry bags opened up.
WHOOPEE!!!!!!!
We scoot over and find a fisher man opening every dry bag there and rummaging through everything. Dumping everything out. So I reach in one of the dry bags pull out my wallet and show him my drivers license and claim salvage rights then and there.
He said he was just going to drag it into the woods and Pin it on his GPS and let the Rangers know. Basically if we were one hour later we probably would not have found the boat if he dragged it into the woods.
I gave him Some MRE's and a bottle of rescued booze for dragging my boat out of the river for me and we were on our way.
Lining the boats up Webster stream proved to be a chore no nice river bottom and slimy and slippery. It probably took 2-3 hours to get our boats back to Webster lake.
All of my gear was there My spray skirt helped to keep everything together, and most of it is salvageable if I can get 1 month of river stink out of it:)
Basically this would have been a fun trip the first weekend of June but Going the first of may was just to Early and to cold.
Even if we did find my boat after we tipped there is no way we could have got it out of the middle of the river with out freezing or dyeing, so we did the right thing..
Now if only I can con my friends into running this route this fall at lower water of course:)
Tickles
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Post by tickles on Jun 5, 2012 18:43:09 GMT -5
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Post by dbradford on Jun 6, 2012 19:24:55 GMT -5
Congrats on finding your boat and gear!
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Post by tickles on Jun 9, 2012 19:04:00 GMT -5
Thanks DB
I am going to sell the Old Town and I have a Mad river on order. I am hoping It will be a little more Whitewater capable.
I must say I love The people, and this website. Otherwise I would just be watching TV and eating chips:)
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Post by hosehound on Jun 9, 2012 20:07:57 GMT -5
congratulations on a sucesful recovery,,,,timing is everything,,,
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Post by Ken Corbett on Jun 10, 2012 8:50:55 GMT -5
Tickles,
What type of Mad River do you have on order? I had a Freedom. It had a v-shaped keel that supposedly promoted stability, but it caught rocks and wore out down to the inner mesh. My current boat has a rounded hull, so it handles rocks and low water more forgivingly. The Mad River Explorer is a good boat too. But there must be other MR boats...
Ken
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Post by tickles on Jun 10, 2012 16:10:07 GMT -5
I am going to try out The Legend 15, They say its good for class 3 water,and can be a paddled solo or tandem. I see you always liked your Mad River Canoe, All though you seem to swim quite often:) I am going to put some skid plates on to see if I can make it last a little longer. They happened to have one in Moncton and on sale too. I'll let you know how it works out or you can try it if you like. I guess I really have not had a disaster trip when you read stuff like this. The original Voyeurs must have had large gonads:) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coppermine_Expedition_of_1819%E2%80%931822
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