Dana and Jess Allagash Trip Journey Begins: The Trip Begins Day 1 Allagash Jouney

Our Bus Painted

I wanted to give a quick recap on what had transpired prior to us leaving on this trip and what was going to transpire after we returned. Two days prior to us leaving we had both finished our last day of teaching for the year. Jess until we arrived in Alaska to start her new job and me hopeful it would be permenant. We had huge stress getting ready for this trip not knowing for sure how we were making it to Alaska by the 4th of August so Jess could start her new teaching job. The Allagash has been on my Maine bucket list since college and I was reluctant to move to Alaska without crossing off all I still needed to do in Maine. I had done the Moose River Bow trip with my son a few weeks earlier. As luck had it we found a school bus 3-4 days prior to leaving and decided to purchase it at 6pm before leaving on our trip. We parked the bus right before dark and left before sun up. This at least gave us some comfort knowing we had a plan after our return. So we begin our Allagash journey.

Start of the trip

Worthless canoe carrier

Our stuff and the hand held carrier

Day1
We woke up at 3 am, and left Troy at 4:20 am. Dana thinks we got to the drop off at 9 am, I think it was closer to 9:40 am. Packing all our camping gear in was awful. First the canoe carrier that Dana made broke. Then he and I started pulling the canoe with a large stick tied to the bowline. The stick was like a yoke used for oxen and we were the oxen.
Bumpa came with us to drop us off and help us get our stuff down to the lake. It was a mile hike in from the Jeep. Bumpa was pulling an old luggage carrier loaded with stuff that Dana had brought. The carrier did not work well. After Bumpa’s initial attempt, Dana used it and the axle bent. As he tried to get it back into place the wheel popped off. He managed to get it working again, but when I was using it further down the trail it completely snapped.
Bumpa was first to come to the fork in the carry trail. He took the low road to the right, but found no lake. When I caught up to him he had decided to head back and help Dana, so I took the left fork.
After I walked a ways, I decided to leave the gear I was hauling in case I also found no lake, but I did.
I walked up as ranger Jay was chatting with an older gentleman loading his carrier with a kayak to head back to his truck. The man said "you must be Jay’s wife?" and Jay said " No, but I’m Jay." Jay’s wife had gone into town to pick up some groceries.
When I told Jay of our hauling predicament he said "you know there is a cart at the drop off that you can use, you just have to haul it back out when you are done using it." So off I went to find the Dana’s. I sent Dana back to get the cart and he picked up the canoe and as many belongings as he could carry. Dana and I went back for a second trip and were able to get the rest of our camping gear. Bumpa by this time had enough and decided he was heading back to the Jeep and getting out of there. A side note we later found out that Bumpa got a flat on a Maine arrowhead not far from the drop off and had quite a difficult time changing the tire in the middle of nowhere. I hauled the cart back to the drop off and Dana packed the canoe and had lunch. I wasn’t ready for food yet.
Jay chatted with Dana about us having too much stuff. He was worried that we might loose our belongings on Day 2 going down Allagash stream to Little Round Pond.

When I got back we jumped in the canoe and attempted to take off. Wow we were tippy! The two clothing bags were seated high in the canoe and needed to be readjusted, so we paddled back to shore, reorganized, and were finally off.
Ripples covered the cove where water had been glassy an hour earlier. When we made it to the end of the cove and entered the lake, the glassiness had returned. We decided to stay at the Ice Cave campsite. After setting up camp, Dana went fishing and I lay down for a nap. It had already been a long day. We did have some visitors while I was napping. They were heading for the caves and stopped and chatted with Dana. Bedtime was early at the Ice Cave campsite.