Our friends have a trailer for transporting ATVs and used it to borrow my recreational kayaks for a Saco river trip. Another family of friends were up there visiting also and they brought their rec kayaks also so we had 8 boats. All the kids wanted to paddle, so we had 2 dads and 6 teen to 20-somethings for the trip. Our host, Kim, knew of a few put-in/take-outs nearby on the Saco, but didn't know the river distance between them till I gave her a nice AMC Saco River map listing all the needed information.
Our rec boats are all the same brand and model so they fit perfectly, seven across, up on edge across the trailer and barely needed to be strapped in. There was even room for my whitewater boat behind the other seven and space for all the paddles and life jackets. The trip to the river was short, so we piled 10 people into Kim's Yukon XL and she took us to the put-in along Route 5 in Fryeburg.
The put-in spot was great, with a little park to drive into and unload all the boats and gear without being on the side of a road. We distributed PFDs, paddles and water bottles to everyone and before a picture could be taken, the kids were on their way down the river. It took a while to all get moving at the same comfortable pace, but there's little to worry about with this gang that have been kayaking together for 7 or 8 years. I was the only one to wear my PFD...I just didn't have anyplace else to put it in my whitewater boat so it was easiest to just put it on.
It didn't take long for Steve to get comfortable. The air and water temperatures were very nice for May.
The kids came prepared and had a few squirt guns.
They even went out and bought some inner tubes at Renny's in Bridgton before the trip. One of the girls demonstrated excellent balance, standing up in her boat and then plopping into an inner tube without tipping over.
What do you do with your boat while you're sitting in a tube? Tow it of course.
And the tubes also made a comfy foot rest.
The 7.5 mile stretch of river we paddled had tons of campsites along the sandy shores, some with porta-potties and some without. There were plenty of drinking games in progress at the campsites. People at this site were playing beer pong.
The river was flowing at a comfortable speed of 1 to 1.5 miles per hour, so active paddling was optional.
We were in Maine. They don't have those new fangled stand up paddle board things up there. Who needs them anyway.
Steve takes a camera in the boat with him too. Some of these pictures were his. He got a shot of me from close up.
I was worried we wouldn't have cell phone service at the take-out, so I estimated we'd be done by 3:00pm just in case, so Kim could be there to pick us up. It turned out the phone worked fine which proved useful when Kim got distracted and lost track of time. She got there in about ten minutes from the time we called. Just enough time to organize the boats and gear. The take-out at Route 302 had an even bigger park for loading and unloading...it even had a trash dumpster. Must be the spot all the campers use to leave the river.
Here is a topo map of the area with our track highlighted.
A few specs from the trip:
Launch time: Noon
Take-out time: 3:00pm
Total Distance Paddled: 7.5 miles
It was to nice to take a leisurely float down a river for a change of pace. Glad we didn't have to paddle much because going straight in a whitewater boat is a bit of a challenge in flat water.
Norm
