Song of the Loons & the Full Moon

July 21, 2024

Mile 593.1-620.3

(Sandy Point Campsite)

This morning we finished our paddle across Chamberlain Lake, continuing with a head on wind. I’d love to come back here and spend a long weekend just on this lake alone, it is absolutely gorgeous with incredible campsites. Next was a 1/2 mile portage on the Tramway Carry that was ridiculous and awful.

We wheeled it but it was barely worth the effort and we probably should’ve just made two trips. Sucking, sticky mud with big ditches and roots.

I helped push the canoe and got my customary bruises on my knee and thigh as the canoe slammed into me full force going over the roughest parts of trail. At least there was a cool old train though. Next we paddled across Eagle Lake (spoiler alert, every lake we paddled across today was into a headwind). We paddled over to the ranger station to ask about Allagash permits but there was nobody home so we smoked a spliff, ate a snack and pushed on off into the waves and the wind again.

I was getting toward the end of my audiobook when it mysteriously shut off. I tried to turn it back on and got the dreaded message that I’d reached my audiobook limit for the month on Spotify. I looked through my phone and realized I hadn’t downloaded any others. Noooooo. I propped my kindle up at my feet to attempt to read it while paddling but the wind and waves were too bad and it kept getting splashed. It’s water resistant but I really didn’t want to test that out. I took a caffeine pill and it helped with my disappointment. My neck, right arm, and upper back are in a lot of pain today from going so hard yesterday. I was finally able to read on Churchill Lake which made the miles pass quickly. Before I knew it we were at the ranger station and our portage around Chase Rapids. We bought our permit from the ranger and met 3 NFCT trail stewards- it was a lot of fun talking to them about different parts of the trail and thanking them for their work they’d done on different portage trails.

We filled up our water jug at the pump and headed off. It took us awhile to figure out what direction to go because the map and our GPS weren’t quite lining up. We were 99% sure we were going the right way but when we were over 3 miles in and our right turn wasn’t where it should be I started to panic. Henry kept it together and kept walking and found our turn a half mile past where it should be. Back on the water and officially on the Allagash!!! I was tired, hungry and sore and tried to eat as many snacks as I could and popped 3 Aleves before we took off again. Had some rapids that were hard to navigate because of the blinding setting sun in our eyes but we made it no problem. We put on some music to get across Umsaskis Lake- Tyler Childers, Mac Miller and Loretta Lynn. We were kind of nervous about finding an empty campsite since they’re first come first serve and this section is popular for people to come paddle but the site we wanted was empty!

We paddled up to it listening to Big Rock Candy Mountain while the loons called back and forth all around us- and that is a moment I’ll remember forever. It’s cold tonight- it’s going to drop down into the 40s which will be very nice for sleeping. I have all of my layers on for once, eating spaghetti for dinner and then watched the huge moon rise up over the pine trees. I stood and admired her for a good 15 minutes and all I could think about was the fact that I was meant to live like this, in the wild. I am at home here. Nothing has ever held my heart as closely as Mother Nature has.