Yep, it sure seems like a lot of stuff, doesn't it? Every Memorial Day Weekend (and Labor Day weekend) go into the woods on Friday afternoon/evening, put in on Saturday morning, canoe all day Sat, camp along the river's edge Sat night, canoe all day Sunday, camp along river's edge Sunday night, then canoe 'til about noon on Monday, take out and drive back home. So we have to take 8 meals worth of food, 3 days worth of water/soda/wine/beer/liquor, and all the camping gear it takes to pull something like that off. We did a rough calculation and figured that each 2-person canoe loads another 180lbs or so of gear/provisions at the beginning of the trip. We could pack lighter by taking less complicated meals (we eat REALLY good on the river), less alcoholic provisions (we enjoy a drink or two..or three), but if we did that...most of us wouldn't go.
This time we went to one of my favorite destinations, Eagle Rock, VA. It's on the James River (close to the beginning of the river). It's just a beautiful trip with gorgeous scenery and not many people at all. It takes about 5 hours to get there from here, but it's well worth the drive.
We only do little class I stuff, because we wouldn't want to do much more than that with fully loaded canoes and hungover paddlers. Although the Eagle Rock trip does have a class II ledge that has sent at least one canoe bottom-up each time we've done it. We didn't flip this time, but you're always prepared for it.
I'll try to post some of our canoe trip picts in the camping section.
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