Leave no trace

[CowboyHippy]

No big news but in addition to winter camping I am a big fan of paddlesports...part of my appeal has to do with the lessened impact of it. quickest example is take 20 people down a 10 mile trail and take those same 20 people down a 10 mile river. provided neither groups litter it's a fair bet that the hikers will have left some sort of trace.

I also find it more relaxing and a bit easier mode of travel, if you wish it can facilitate fishing and or swimming. you can sit back and coast and still travel.

this being said we have had a wonderful winter where i live, plenty of snow bot the rivers only froze over for a couple months and now we can enjoy quicker currents of the spring flows. here is a damn handy site i check about every thursday and friday in preparation for weekend trips. it's updated fairly often (about every 4 hours on some rivers) lets you know wether things are terribly low, terribly high or average. this is for michigan but in the upper right corner you can switch to other states



stream flow chart (http://waterdata.usgs.gov/mi/nwis/rt)

[LIBRA]

thats cool! Neat chart.

I went tubing once down a river, it was one of the worst experiences of my life,lol what we thought would be a nice lil float down river turned out to be a 10 hour nightmare, we went through rapids, my ass was so banged up I couldnt sit for weeks. We had to walk some parts, and paddle with our hands like crazy in others. Very unprepared. I had to make a femine hygene product out of my shirt because low and behold my lil friend just had to come with no notice. We had a search crew looking for us, oh lets see what else, cuts, bruises. This was years ago and I was with Kris's dad he was a totall JERK the entire time, it wouldnt have been so bad if he wasnt, cause the whole thing was my idea. We ended up getting out of the water, it was dark and walking miles through the woods soakin wet, tired and nasty to the road with our tubes, no one stopped,lol BUT our search crew drove by and rescued us!!! First thing they asked is what happend to my shirt,lol there was a huge piece missing,lol Luckily we heard cars or we could have been lost in the woods till day break. Oh ya one other thing I blew out my sandals, so I was barefoot.

So ya, sorry to thread jack but that soured me, next time I need to be a lil more prepared.

[CowboyHippy]

thats cool! Neat chart.

I went tubing once down a river, it was one of the worst experiences of my life,lol what we thought would be a nice lil float down river turned out to be a 10 hour nightmare, we went through rapids, my ass was so banged up I couldnt sit for weeks. We had to walk some parts, and paddle with our hands like crazy in others. Very unprepared. I had to make a femine hygene product out of my shirt because low and behold my lil friend just had to come with no notice. We had a search crew looking for us, oh lets see what else, cuts, bruises. This was years ago and I was with Kris's dad he was a totall JERK the entire time, it wouldnt have been so bad if he wasnt, cause the whole thing was my idea. We ended up getting out of the water, it was dark and walking miles through the woods soakin wet, tired and nasty to the road with our tubes, no one stopped,lol BUT our search crew drove by and rescued us!!! First thing they asked is what happend to my shirt,lol there was a huge piece missing,lol Luckily we heard cars or we could have been lost in the woods till day break. Oh ya one other thing I blew out my sandals, so I was barefoot.

So ya, sorry to thread jack but that soured me, next time I need to be a lil more prepared.

does not sound plesant

if you do some looking on the usgs site you can find topt maps that indicate rapids and elevation changes