Northeast Rivers Celebrates 7 years!

The Northeast Rivers program started on the 9th with yet again another fantastic group. It's always a little extra special to watch this group show up at camp. They are most often veterans of our whitewater program and are returning in hopes of truly honing their paddling skills. At the end of the program they will have paddled the best whitewater available in the greater northeast: the Kennebec, Dead, Rapid, Hudson, Ottawa, Penobscot, Black, and Gatineau to name a few.

I just received an email from our campsite manager at the Big Eddy on the Penobscot River. This is where they've been for the past week. Here are the entries:

Penobscot,July,Thursday the 10th

Chewonkis Big Eddy Campground

After a 3 hour long ride, we were really excited at the sight of rapid water. We set up near Big Eddy , which we paddled along with Big Eddy Rapids. We wanted to get in our kayaks so bad that the camp was set up in basically 10 minutes. Nate and Kim ,though, restrained our "kayaking pulsies",emphasizing the need to respect certain rules. Once we FINALLY got in the water,we went through all the basics: wet-exit,T-rescues,rolls-. Then we went through a section of rapids, to get back our old reflexes. Indeed, most of us hadn't kayaked for at least a year. After an afternoon of kayaking, we went through our first dinner,in camp, our first fire, our first "washin the dishes"...Though the rapids we went through today were fine, they were much too short and easy. Can't wait for more !

Quote"No exclusive relationships. If you want to have one, you have to have it with the WHOLE group." Ben Hering

Hadrien Hering

Penobscot July Friday 11th

We woke up late today and began with a late breakfast. We had egg ,potato, sausage and cheese goulash.

After breakfast we went up to the Little Eddy and worked on the 5 basic paddle strokes. To practice we worked on surfing at the end of the Heaters.We then kayaked Little Eddy. We had lunch that consisted of hummus wraps and bricks. After lunch we paddled Troublemaker. Ben Hadrien,Charley and Jed got into Troublemaker and surfed it up. We had pizza dinner. We are ready for some more shredding tomorrow.

Jed

July 12th Penobscot

B-Fast had some Bagels and Oranges. Then hit the river. We had a long day of paddling.Started with Big Eddy Rapid , then downstream through Big Amberjack and had lunch. We ran all 3 drops and everyone nailed it. Hadrien got his hand roll for the first time. Then hit Nesowdahunk Falls to finish off the day.Went back to camp and cooked some chowder and went to the Pot-Luck dinner with the 4 other CHewonki groups.

Quote " We don't read, we're kayakers, the only thing we read is rivers" Kim

Charlie

More paddling photos to come shortly