Pushing Upriver

A couple more days of big winds have passed and the sun comes out, still windy, but not as bad.  I wake with a, rare for me,  headache, which means that I am going to be sick for a day or two, or that I have a headache.  In case it is the former, I go canoeing.

I put in on the Mattabasset, choosing it because it lies low in the land and only the strongest of winds would ever penetrate enough to be a bother.  I head upstream to continue exploring beyond the old railroad bridge where I last turned around.  The forest is eastern hardwoods, with a lot of that being beech trees, the large ones with the trunks gone white in the upper reaches.  The wind has knocked down some of the leaves, but fall colors remain well enough.

remains of a railroad trestle

The river goes as a series of deep enough sections with short gravel bars that have to be waded...just enough water on them for the canoe to not touch as I pull it along.  At the old railroad bridge I have to portage over boulders and debris that has been captured by the constriction.  Then, more wading, paddling, wading, and paddling.  But, it's not long past the big highway when I start running into log jams.  And the view ahead is more of the same, gravel shallows and log jams.  The farther reaches will have to wait for some snow melt and spring rain.

there is sporadic beaver sign