Trip Reports

Tony Allred and Baltimore paddlers spearheaded a trip to the North Branch release Sunday 30 August.  Streamside flora suggested that summer is coming to an end.  The Joe Pye weed was past peak but still lined the river with big dusty purple flower heads. It combined well with several different goldenrods and red cardinal flower.  Other late season flowers were there: white boneset, white snakeroot, a brilliant yellow sneezeweed, a blue mint that I can't remember the name of without the family botanist at hand.  Both winterberry and ninebark are heavy with fruit and the winterberry is already coloring bright red.

The beaver lodge in the big eddy below the traditional lunch spot is abandoned and now only a few interlocked  branches with neatly chewed ends remain. The lodge on the bank down stream on river left is in good shape.  Zillow listed no info on sales or valuations.

There were comments that the paddling was an excellent contrast to the COVID-19 options that everyone has been running over and over and over this year.  Tony arranged for spectacular weather, bright sun and cool temps, more like Montana than the mid-Atlantic.  Paddlers were Tony, Peter, Johanna, Carrie, Laura and John, four experienced and two first time North Branch paddlers.  All paddled elegantly.  There are several new trees down in the river.  Watch for strainers.  None surprising, all potentially dangerous.

The social distance shuttle was arranged with two masked paddlers per vehicle with windows down.  Level of precautions taken by paddlers seemed to correlate with apparent age.  Parking lots were crowded but not jammed and it was easy to maintain distance on the river and at put-in and take-out with a little patience. 

Fine day on the river.