canoe

Canoeist Don Starkell Dies

Don Starkell, who claimed to have paddled more miles than any person in history, died of cancer Saturday at his home in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the Winnipeg Free Press reports. He was 79. The famously stubborn canoeist is best known for paddling 12,000 miles with his son Dana, from their home near Winnipeg to the mouth of the Amazon. The 1980 open canoe journey earned the Starkells a place in the Guinness Book of World Records. It was but one episode in a life of canoeing and kayaking that spanned nearly 75,000 miles.

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5 Steps

01.24.2012 // 0 Comments

Though wood-and-canvas canoes look great and paddle even better, few people have bothered to build them since the early 20th century. They’re not all that easy to build, and lighter, stronger materials have only become more readily available. Even fewer people take them on long expeditions.

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Seldom Seen Floats

01.20.2012 // 0 Comments

The naturally flowing streams of the arid American West are all about timing. Hit that window just right, and you’ll be grinning like a kid playing hooky from school. So be vigilant.

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Seldom Seen Floats: San Francisco River, New Mexico/Arizona

01.18.2012 // 0 Comments

Flanked by pine-covered escarpments and lined with strands of sycamores, cottonwoods, and willows, the sparkling-clear San Francisco is a major tributary of the Upper Gila River, but a complete unknown to most paddlers—possibly because catching the river with navigable flows is difficult at best, and possibly because combat boating skills are a prerequisite to safely traverse this extremely remote stream. Three years ago, when we decided to explore the San Fran, we were met by a lonely land of inaccessible high mountains, rugged canyons, and stark ridges, and a river that tested our fortitude. In between quiet pools were long stretches marked by swift currents and boulder-garden rapids. Great fun. However, what required all our attention, all the time, was the threat of strainers and downed trees often completely blocking the tight channel. Not so fun. That said, the San Francisco ranks near the very top of my favorite ephemeral streams.

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Seldom Seen Floats: Little Missouri Scenic River, North Dakota

01.18.2012 // 0 Comments

Cruise through the pastel landscape of North Dakota badlands, past Teddy Roosevelt’s historic ranch site, and through truly remote high plains grassland habitat. The year I went, I got frustrated interpreting the gauge and called the National Park visitor’s center. It must have been a slow morning, because the ranger put the phone down, walked over to the riverbank, and came back with the first-hand flow report. Side hikes abound (as long as rains haven’t turned the trails to gumbo). Think owls, cottonwood bottoms, coulees, and coal seams. White pelicans, desert bighorn sheep, and petrified trees punctuate the miles. Beware, the Little Missouri can brim with water one week, and go dry the next. Choose your window wisely and the reward will be a very quiet and surprisingly scenic week in the land where a few buffalo still roam.

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Seldom Seen Floats: Escalante River, Utah

01.18.2012 // 0 Comments

After two trips down the Escalante, I have nearly exhausted my supply of superlatives (Unbelievable! Incredible! Stunning!) when trying to describe this rarely paddled wild jewel in southern Utah’s red-rock canyon country. And I do mean rarely paddled. I bided my time for more than a decade before catching this semi-arid stream with enough water to carry my canoe through the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. It was well worth the wait. Just when you think that the looping, river corridor can’t get any more spectacular, you careen around a tight bend and are amazed, again and again. Sheer sandstone walls, streaked with magnificent patterns of desert varnish, tower 1,000 feet overhead. Inviting side canyons abound.

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Seldom Seen Floats: Upper Gila River Wilderness Run, New Mexico

01.18.2012 // 1 Comment

About 45 miles north of Silver City, N.M., lies the Upper Gila River “Wilderness Run,” so-called because most of this splendid stretch lies within the half-million-acre Gila Wilderness Area. A friend and I snagged this trip in March a few years back, when we found the tight, twisty stream to be delightfully boat-able after a brief period of snowmelt in the four mountain ranges around it. Starting near the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument visitor’s center, the river winds through absolutely gorgeous wilds that few have seen, an area rich in forested canyons, natural springs, boulder garden rapids, and an abundance of birds and wildlife. But not people. If you’re looking for solitude, this is definitely the place to go.

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Seldom Seen Floats: Dirty Devil River, Utah

01.18.2012 // 0 Comments

It took me a decade to hit the Dirty Devil window. I drooled over the quadrant of canyon country it scribes through, full of side slots and sandstone slickrock and Butch Cassidy hideouts. Some years it would be a bare trickle, no more. Once it came up, but I dallied one day and missed it. But last spring the snowpack was deep, spring break landed right, the river gauge was coming up nicely. We made the leap, drove 700 miles, and found ourselves in mid-March, camped all alone at the end of a four-wheel-drive road, perched above the braided, murmuring stream running about 220 cfs.

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Seldom Seen Floats: Smith River, Montana

01.18.2012 // 0 Comments

Instead of racking the canoe up for the year, how about sneaking in a fall float full of remote limestone canyons, sweet camping, and outrageous trout fishing?

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Seldom Seen Floats: Verde River, Arizona

01.18.2012 // 0 Comments

Flowing through some of the most stunning and desolate reaches of Arizona, the Verde is one of the Southwest’s finest whitewater runs, and one of its best-kept secrets. Located midway between Flagstaff and Phoenix, the Verde—Arizona’s first (and so far only) National Wild and Scenic River—tumbles south through three national forests, offering in places virtually non-stop technical whitewater amidst stark, lonely hills, towering cliffs and arid Sonoran Desert terrain bristling with cacti, including the giant, treelike saguaro. Pretty and peaceful pools alternate with long stretches of rock-dodging Class II-III rapids. There’s great hiking up hills and in side canyons with ancient cliff dwellings and pit house ruins. Roaming through the remote countryside are javelinas, river otters, mule deer, coyotes and mountain lions, as well as nearly 300 species of birds.

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