Canoeing the Eel

My parents host a couple of annual canoe trip on the Eel river in Northern California and we try to make it whenever we can. This year was no exception and we made it for the first one in mid June. Despite the fact that the river was the lowest I had seen (in the 20+ year span that I know of) everyone seemed to have a good time. The girls started out in an inflatable canoe, which turned out to be more work than expected. We started out too late in the day and ended up fighting the afternoon wind. We ended up tying the girls inflatable to our canoe and pulling them down the river. That made the rapids a bit tricky since the girls were so light that they basically passed us whenever we scraped bottom.

We started down the river on the 14th and camped out on one of the river bars for two nights before finishing out the trip. Becky and I flipped our canoe twice during the trip and managed to get quite a bit of our stuff wet as well as losing our pirate flag... I broke my fishing pole on our 2nd spill which put a bit of a damper on my spirits. I ended up getting a loaner pole that belonged to one of the kids and managed to still catch 2-3 fish (sadly pike minnow - an aggresive species that has all but wiped out the trout/salmon/steelhead population in many NW rivers). Still I find it very relaxing to spend time alongside the river and practice my fishing skills despite the lack of good eating fish.

We were treated to live music and excellent food in the evenings. The girls had a whole group of kids to play with and they spent the entire 2nd day running and playing in the sand. On day 3 we packed up and hit the river again. We deflated the kids canoe and they jumped in one of the regular canoes for the rest of the trip. My sister Maria basically ended up paddling solo for most of the trip with all the girls (and sometimes her dog) in the canoe - I was really impressed - it was a lot of work even with 2 paddlers in our canoe fighting the wind.

Everyone was a bit tired and ready for a hot shower by the time we made it home to Brookings.

I really want to start a tradition of kayaking/canoing the Chetco river in Oregon as well. The setup for the trip is near perfect. There are several campgrounds and river bars along the way that make for a variety of possible trips. The Chetco River Inn is located right near the put in point and you can potentially run the roughly 18 miles of river all the way to Brookings Harbor if we want to make a multi-day trip out of it. The weather up the Chetco is almost always nicer than on the coast, so even when it's foggy at the Harbor it's sunny and warm up the river.

I really enjoy being on the water and could see starting a river guide service here someday. That all depends on what happens over the next few years of course, but I can still daydream...