Earle here:
Down the Connecticut River from Bloomfield was almost like a race. Traveled 9 miles in an hour and a half. Riding the strong current like the wind, carried them to about the Maidstone railway trestle crossing. Then water began to slow, backed up behind the Guildhall dam. Found the Ammonoosuc and turned to upstream travel again. Good paddling, but had to work at it. Took out in Groveton, turned out to be the wrong side. Couldn't find the campsite and they were looking for the NFCT kiosk for direction. Someone came up to them in a pick up and asked if they needed help. Turned out he was an NFCT worker. Knew exactly where they needed to go and even offered to give them a ride in his truck. The campsite turned out to be not that great. No flat spots for a tent, swampy and very buggy. I guess the hotel right across route 3 looked turned out to be pretty accomodating. Apparently the paddling dutch couple came to the same conclusion and also turned up there following Chris and Meghan's lead.
Continuing upstream from Groveton the Ammonoosuc was fair going. A mixture of paddling and wading. Current fairly strong. Above Stark the river was better and they were able to paddle most of the time. Turned out to be very hard going though against the current. Their mileage goal to complete this stretch in one day was not realistic. Only seven miles to the Frizzle campsite on Sunday instead of seventeen miles. Than today they had hoped to be across the portage to the Androscogin and be up that river a ways to camp. Instead they are about halfway across at Cedar Pond campground. This has put them about a day behind.
Tuesday they will finish the three mile portage, than be onto the Androscogin. This will be either very hard upstream paddling or taking the canoe for a walk along the road.
Small disaster did strike today, probably due to all the hard upstream paddling. BROKEN PADDLE! One of our reliable Old Town paddles finally quit. A small spot of varnish wore through, not being repaired had led to a weak spot and hairline fracture in the wood. Back up paddle on board enabled them to keep going. This would put the trip at risk though with no further back up and long miles in Maine with no ready outfitters beside the river. Fortunately this happened only a day before they were to meet Meghan's grandparents to help shuttle them up part of the Andro. We were able to set them up with two spare whitewater paddles that should be rugged enough to survive the remaining journey.
Posted by Earle
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