Bus Life Paddling Weekend: Dead and Kennebec Rivers

I loved my summer bus life; yet summer wanes here in the Northeast.  

Well..it waned.  Came and went.  Sadly.

However, it’s still nice to get out and do summery things.  Even if it’s fall.

And fall in Maine can be gorgeous with the foliage, crisp air (albeit occasionally TOO crisp) and blue sunny skies.

So we decided to take the skoolie over to the Forks for the weekend

The Forks

The Forks lie a jaunt down Route 201, about halfway between Skowhegan and Canada.

The Forks and their staunch rivals the West Forks lie at the confluence of the Kennebec and Dead Rivers.  The Kennebec river is born from Maines idyllic Moosehead lake, spends its childhood flowing through East and West Outlet down to Indian Pond where it spends its brooding adolescence.  It bursts on adulthood flowing out of the dam at Harris station at varying low levels based on apparent whimsical fancies of Brookfield Energy that regulate the dam.  Fortunately for boaters, a water flow agreement guarantees 5000 Cubic Feet per Second from 10:00am to 1:00am every day during rafting season.  (May to October).

This typical rafting flow produces Class IV whitewater.  The large standing waves and strong currents dashing through the Kennebec gorge provide a roller-coaster ride.  They can result in a long swim if you find yourself outside of your boat, but the rocks are deep so there’s not much risk of smashing yourself!

At Carry Brook, almost halfway down, the river widens and loses some of it’s vertical drop.  From there down to the bridge at Route 201 you find one Class III rapid at Black Brook, then Class II and I.

As a result of the daily flows and deep water, the river flows crystal clear and cool.

The Dead River, on the other hand, only releases from Flagstaff Lake several times a year.  Thus, the accumulated silt turns the water a finer shade of brown.  The river tends to be wider and shallower than the Kennebec.  Moreover, the top tends to throw more Class III rapids at you and then throw the Class IV rapids of Big Spruce and Big Poplar near the end.  

Friday

Julie worked a 12 hour shift on Friday, so I spent the afternoon stocking and packing the bus.  This operation usually works much better as a team effort.  Julie, the more organized one, makes, checks and maintains the packing list.  I pick things up and put them down.

I make lists, then occasionally forget to add something to it or forget to check off that last item that I was going to take care of but then get itching to hit the road and drive off neglecting it. 

Nevertheless, we fired up the DT466E at 7:30 and began our journey Northwest.  After a challenging day at work, Julie was able to take advantage of the bedroom space in the bus and settle down for a nap while I navigated Friday night traffic.  It wasn’t too bad, I had the tunes cranked (Julie could sleep through a Civil War battle) and we pulled in to what would be our base camp around 10:00pm.

Just downstream from the confluence of the two rivers, an old rafting company that we used to work for had its base.  Though the company itself no longer exists, one of the co-owners still maintains the property and generously makes it available to paddlers like us.  

We find this beautiful riverside spot a great place to roll-up, plug in, and enjoy the sights and often the company of other boaters that the area attracts.

After winding down with a cup of wine, we drifted off to sleep in our queen-sized bed, readying ourselves for our day on the Dead.

Bus Life Saturday

I’m usually an early riser.  I make the early bird feel inadequate.  I’m not sure how my body wired itself to do this, but I usually wake around 4:00am without an alarm.  I dedicate my morning routine to decaf hazelnut coffee (my construction friends make fun of me but I don’t care), studying Spanish (Sick of shoveling snow from my deck I’m resolved to spend winters paddling in South America soon) and other intellectual pursuits (writing blog posts!)

However, this routine necessitates an early bedtime as well. Since that didn’t happen, I stayed in bed until 6:00.  Holy cow the day was almost over!  But it was cold outside (frost!) and warm in bed, so I didn’t drag myself out until the sun had risen. 

And a good thing, too…it was chilly out there!  

Breakfast

But we needed to assemble and bake breakfast in time to catch our ride to the put in on the Dead at Spencer stream, so I fired up some hot drinks and got going.  

I couldn’t find my French press travel mug at first, so I opted for Chai Tea instead, (my construction friends would make fun of me again) then got to work on breakfast.

We decided a simple stove top would suffice for our lifestyle.  A full oven would occupy too much space and when necessary we can bake in a Dutch Oven.

Dutch Ovens, big metal pots with feet and lipped lids, make baking outside easy and tasty.  Hard to beat that!

Essentially, you prepare food and chuck it into the Dutch Oven.  The set the pot on top of a ring of charcoal briquettes, place another ring of briquettes on top, then sit back and enjoy a beverage of choice…often dictated by the weather and time of day.

Today’s menu featured pecan encrusted French Toast. 

Here’s the recipe:

Pecan Encrusted French Toast in a Dutch Oven

• Several slices of older bread that’s going to to get stale anyway so you might as well eat it
• 2 eggs per person
• A cup (or so) of milk
• 1/4 Cup (or so) of sugar
• 1 Tablespoon of Cinnamon
• 1 Cup of Pecans
• Kate’s butter  (the best!)
• REAL Maine Maple Syrup!

Light 23 charcoal briquettes

Coat the Dutch Oven with butter or cooking spray

Slice and rip the bread into bite-sized pieces

Beat the eggs and add the milk to the mixture

Pour the egg-wash mixture into the Dutch with the bread

Stir in the sugar, cinnamon and pecans

Set 8 briquettes within a circle radius of the Dutch  (I prefer setting them on a flat rock if one’s available.  Use a pair of long tongs to move the briquettes)

Set the Dutch Oven on top 

Set 10 briquettes on top of the Dutch lid

You should have 3 extra briquettes.  Use them to substitute any recalcitrant coals that seem to be floundering.

Make another cup of tea or coffee and enjoy bus life!

The Ride to Put-in

One of the perks for working at Northern Outdoors comes from hopping on the commercial trip bus when there’s room to avoid:

1.) driving the bus (again) down bumpy roads that can rattle a kidney loose

and

2.) having to shuttle vehicles at the end of the day when there are beverages to be enjoyed.  In fact, we could paddle right up to our base camp spot!

So, we stood out on the road around 9:00am with our thumbs out and bare legs enticingly dangled.  It worked and the bus  picked us up for the 45 minute ride down the Enchanted Road to the put-in at Spencer Stream.

So, while the drive was bumpy as Julie and I perched on a water cooler in the back of the bus, the scenery was spectacular!  The fall foliage, while not quite peak, flashed some maple reds and birch yellows.  A few partridge scurried from their dust baths on the dirt road, and the ridges stood tall against a crystal blue sky.

We rumbled into put-in, inflated the “shredder,” our 20 pound cataraft.  (It’s an incredible boat that we’ve carried all over the country and even Ecuador one winter).  It was even our wedding limo as we splashed down the Kennebec years ago with PBR cans dangling off the back.  Our neighbors had made us “Just Married” shirts.  I was “Just” and Julie was “Married” but in all the pictures her shirt was wrinkled so we spelled “Just Marred!”

The Dead Run

We slipped the boat into the 3500 cfs of water at the put-in stairs and paddled into the eddy across the river to wait for the rest of the trip.

3500 cfs constitutes a medium level.  Not overly big or intense, but still worthy of respect.  The Dead river often hides holes difficult to judge from upstream. Since I don’t paddle it that often I’m often unsure whether the upcoming feature would be a great surf spot or a keeper hole.  Thus, whenever possible I prefer to paddle it with other people that can fish me from the drink should I find myself in the midst of an “out-of-the-boat-experience!”

We naviated the currents and rocks without incident, however, caught a few surfs and enjoyed the fall colors of the ridges flanking the river.  When we reached the end of the rapids we enjoyed a few turkey wraps as we floated by the confluence of the Kennebec to our take-out just above Crusher Pool.

Apres-Boat

I had erred in my clothing choice for the day.  I wore a drytop on my top half but only one layer on my legs.  While I didn’t really notice the chill while paddling, it came to my stark attention while putting away gear!

So I bundled up, made some more hot tea, and “released the hound!” our 2-year-old Plott Hound named Ola.

She was thrilled to get off the bus and run around, so we walked her down the riverside to Crusher pool, let her get in a brief swim and some more running around before returning to the bus to prepare dinner.

Dinner

Tempting the taste buds that night were adobo rubbed chicken breasts, grilled avocados filled with homemade salsa and topped with slices of cheddar cheese with a blueberry lemon dumpcake for dessert!

Recipe

Adobo Rub

•  2 tablespoons salt
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• 2 teaspoons ground black pepper
• 1″‰1/2 teaspoons onion powder
• 1″‰1/2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 2  teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon chili powder

Mix all the spices together and put in an extra spice jar.  Spill a third of it all over the spice drawer while driving on bumpy roads for extra mixing.

Rub as much spice as you can handle on the chicken breast then grill them until they are done but not dry.

Homemade Salsa

• A bunch of tomatoes from a neighbor who had too many.  Let’s say for proportion sake…8.
• One large white onion chopped
• 4 cloves of garlic minced
• 1 bunch of cilantro chopped
• 1 Jalapeno seeded and finely chopped
• Juice and zest from one lime
• A splurge of olive oil
• 1/4 Cup Cumin
• 1/4 Cup Chile Powder
• 2 Tablespoons Allspice
• 2 Tablespoons Salt
• 1 Tablespoon Black Pepper

Splurge the olive oil on the bottom of a large fry pan or pot.  Enough to cover the bottom and a bit more.

When the oil begins to shimmer, add the onions then dry your eyes because they were too pungent.

After 2 or 3 minutes, add the garlic and Jalapeno

Cut the tops off the tomatoes and pulse them in a food processor or hand chop them if you like work and not power tools.

Add the tomatoes 

Add spices

Simmer until enough water evaporates to get to the consistency where salsa juice doesn’t dribble down your beard and onto your sweatshirt that you just washed.

Avocados

Cut the avocado (or avocados if you really like avocados) in half and remove the pit

Spray with olive oil  (or just rub them)

Salt them

Place them on the grill pit side down for a few minutes until grill lines appear.

Flip them over and spoon the homemade salsa into the pit holes

Cover with cheese

Enjoy beverage of choice while the avocado and chicken cook!

Blueberry Lemon Curd Dumpcake

• 2 Cups blueberries
• 1 jar of lemon curd
• 1 box yellow cake mix
• 3 eggs (usually..whatever the cake mix calls for)
• 1 12oz can of lemon lime soda

Light 23 charcoal briquettes

Place parchment paper on the bottom of the dutch oven

Cover the bottom with fresh Maine blueberries (Sponsorship?  Hello?)

Cover the blueberries with lemon curd

Mix the cake mix with eggs and soda, then pour over blueberries and lemon curd

Set Dutch Oven over 8 charcoal briquettes evenly spaced

Place 12 briquettes on the lid evenly spaced

Mix margarita or other drink of choice.  Margaritas, however, go really well with lemon curd and blueberries.

Saturday Evening 

We lit a campfire to take the chill off.  I was still in what I call my fancy pants (fleece-lined, wind-proof, water-resistant pants) and wool hat!

But it was nice being outside by the fire watching dinner cook.

We kept an eye on the chicken and avocados and took them off the grill and wolfed them down.  Paddling is hungry work, afterall.  One of the cool things about Dutch Oven cooking is the fluidity of the time space continuum.  Since briquettes contain a finite amount of heat and the lid traps moisture, you can leave Dutch Oven contents on the coals (for the most part) until you are ready to eat them without them burning.

So we finished up eating and our friend,Christine, showed up for a rousing game of pinochle in the “breakfast nook” part of the bus.

After the first game, I fetched the dumpcake for a dessert break. Boy, was it good!  I love the blueberry / lemon combination!  

Then we played a second game.  I won’t get into the score…but often I attribute my card-playing luck to hypothetical sacrificial goats.  And, to appropriate a line from the movie A River Runs Through It, the goats have been good to all of us today, but they’ve been especially kind to me!”

Bus Life Sunday

I can’t say that I leapt out of bed on Sunday either.  

It was cold!  

We haven’t installed the heater in the bus yet…I mean it’s not even October…but there was a heavy frost on the ground.  The digital read-out on the hot water heater read 33 degrees, which I mistook for the outside temperature.  Later on I learned that temps had dropped to 23 that night!

No wonder I wasn’t in a hurry to leave the covers!

The river called, however, so eventually I braved the cold, lit the stove (with my breath showing) and made my hazelnut coffee and tea for Julie.

Breakfast

For breakfast that morning we planned a favorite from Julie’s family: Dutch Baby Pancake.  It’s this custardy, pancake concoction that goes great with homemade yogurt, honey and fruit.  My favorite combination takes the form of mangos and blueberries but we used all the blueberries in the dumpcake.  

I’ll have to plan better next time.

Dutch Baby Pancake Recipe

• 1 Cup Flour 
• 1 Cup Milk
• 1 Teaspoon Vanilla
• 4 Eggs
• 1/4 Teaspoon Salt
• 1/2 stick butter
• Sliced apples for the bottom (optional)
• Your own special blend of cinnamon and sugar

Light 27 Charcoal Briquettes

Beat the eggs together

Mix eggs, flour, milk, vanilla and salt

Place 10 briquettes evenly spaced under the Dutch.

Let the Dutch get screaming hot (400 degrees or so…probably take 5 minutes)

Add butter (and optional apples) to the Dutch and replace lid

After a couple of minutes (after the butter melts but before it scorches) add the batter quickly then sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.

Get the lid back on before the Dutch cools

Bake for around 30 minutes

Smother with yogurt, honey and fruit

Sit back and relish the fact that you’re living the good life eating delicious food in a skoolie

So we had breakfast.  Oh, I forgot to mention, we cooked bacon in the skoolie on the stovetop because a skoolie smelling like bacon is just better.

Kayaking the Kennebec River

After an outstanding breakfast I assembled my gear and kayak and stood by the road again waiting for a bus.  A different bus.  A green one.  One that would again bring me to the river put-in without the need for post-river-running-shuttling.  

We arrived at Harris Station before the release had even begun.  The siren warning of rising water levels echoed across the water as I sat on the rocks looking up at the dam looming over the put-in.  

The water quickly rose from 350 cfs to 1500 to 5000.  With the commercial trip rafts coming down to the water’s edge, I otter-slid myself off the rocks, into the river, and paddled down to one of the first features on the river: The Taster Wave.

I surfed this wave for awhile, carving back and forth, then off the wave, then using a rope dangling in the water at the bank to pull myself back upstream to surf again.  When the rafting trip passed me, I peeled out and followed.

I ran Rock Garden rapid and checked out the gorgeous fall foliage there, then rode up over the 12-foot wave called Big Mama, avoiding Goodbye Hole, caught a piece of Whitewasher and almost flipped myself trying to wave hello to Albert the photographer standing on the rock.  Then over the Big Kahuna wave and through the Lower Alleyway to Cathedral Eddy.

I tried to cartwheel over a wave in Z-Turn rapid, then got upside down on the eddyline and floundered around a bit before I righted myself and floated by the next surfwave.  Oops.

Then paddled down through Magic Falls Rapid, Swimmers Rapid and then stopped for a while at Endless Summer wave working on my cartwheels that I had screwed up at Z-Turn!  

Julie planned to pick me up with our bus at Carry Brook takeout, so I moseyed on downstream, climbed the 32,452 stairs, (not really that many but feels like it), and met my lovely bride.

After changing into dry clothes and storing my kayak in the back of the Skoolie garage,” we headed back downstream to Moxie Falls.

Moxie Falls

Moxie falls, the highest waterfall in Maine, tumbles through a narrow ravine a few miles upstream of the Route 201 Bridge.  Located just off the Moxie Gore road, the trailhead winds down about a through the woods to Moxie stream.  The trail, especially at the top is wide and relatively flat…almost groomed gravel.  At the halfway point, the trail gets a little bumpier with roots, and down near the falls stairs provide a stable descent (or ascent if you’re on your way out!)

We met many people and dogs (Ola was thrilled) on our hike down.  Again, the picturesque fall day provided a pleasant backdrop to our bus weekend.

Packing Up

We returned to base, cleaned up a few things and did a few other “winter-prep” things to say thanks for our stay.  Then, since the day was warm and sunny, took a quick swim at Crusher Pool as a way to say goodbye to the river.  For now.

Driving Home

Julie took the wheel for the return drive.  I sat on the couch and considered editing video, but the sun was bright and warm, I felt a bit sleepy, and, I must confess, napped a bit.  It was my turn, right?  

We arrived safely home and unpacked some of the key elements.  (I don’t like to leave dry food in the cupboards when we’re not there.  Rodents see them as invitations.  Laundry needs to come out so that we have some clothes to wear during the week.  

Many things stayed on the bus, however.  

Hopefully making it more readily available for the next adventure!

Thanks for coming along for the ride!