Day 4 Allagash Falls to Eagle Lake Smith Brook

Day Four
More rain! Argh!
We awoke early to rain pelting the top of the large blue tarp over our campsite. Dana did not sound motivated and I certainly wasn’t, but I knew if we stayed another day, it could be the same weather again but worse. Dana commented that maybe we should wait it out (to himself). A few minutes later I said "we’ll be wet anyway…walking in the river so we might as well get going."
We had a quick oatmeal breakfast and Dana has his coffee, we packed up camp and left. Just around the first bend the water was shallow and fast, making for a quick, full, wake up. Somehow we managed to communicate fairly well (which can be difficult for the two of us to say the least).
We remembered what the book and Ranger Jay had said…stay to the right. However neither told us that you can’t see the "stay to the right", until you are right on top of it! The river turns hard right at that point so we wound up (luckily) hitting the island in the middle, rather than going over the ledge on the main stream to the left.

At that point we decided to walk the canoe down stream for a bit. When we could see ahead some distance, and it looked safe, we jumped into the canoe and rode…. Around the corner, so it seemed was the next ledge. The second drop was about 4ft (across the whole stream). On the right was a quick portage that was mentioned in the book. We pulled over, had a quick piece of turkey rolled up and moved our heaviest items over the portage. However, a few items were a real pain to take out, so we left them in the canoe and lifted it over the rocks to the quiet area below the portage. After Dana took a few casts and caught one nice trout, and a quick reload of our gear we were off again.
This time when I say we’re off I mean walking. We decided, due to the low water, to walk through the rough spots. In fact, the water was so low, we walked the stream most of the way to the walking bridge riding a few times along the way. We also took turns riding, or bouncing on the stern as the other guided the canoe over the rocky streambed (hopping when we hit rocks).
We got out at the bridge, to check out the rapids, and again decided to line the canoe down this section. There was a severe left-hand turn under the bridge with lots of large boulders. The canoe was so weighted down with gear it was difficult to turn quickly. This was the right decision. On the other side of the bridge we got in and rode to a grassy island in the middle of the river. Again we chose to walk the canoe. That was the last of the walking. We saw a few more shallow areas, but we rode them out and ended up in some calm and peaceful water before entering Chamberlain Lake.
As Allagash Stream opened into Chamberlain Lake we saw a moose on the south shoreline. The moose was enough of a distance away that he was not concerned with us although he did attempt to hide behind a small bush ( I guess he thought if I can’t see them then they can’t see me, so wrong was he). We were on a mission and chose not to get any closer.
Dana has always loved Chamberlain, but has a strong fear/respect of the lake as well. This is the same lake Dana was exploring with Jon, the year they came across the belongings of a group of men who had died when there boat flipped/sunk while crossing the cove at Mud Brook. (that’s another story). So as expected Dana was anxious to see the weather/ wind/ waves on the lake. The first section toward the tramway and old wires was not that bad. As we entered the main part of the lake (northern end of Chamberlain) we were surprised to find it fairly calm. Only small swells and no white caps.
Dana asked what I thought and I told him I voted to go directly over the small swells and go directly across the lake. He agreed, although reminding me we were doing exactly what he had always been told not to do (go into the middle of the lake).

When we got across the lake, we were considering over-nighting at the McCarrin site, but were making really good time. Our options were open, but we figured we would at least check out the site.
The McCarrin site was dark and wet (not suprising for it had been raining for two days), and you needed to carry your gear up a large hill to get to the actual site. Dana informed me this was one of the sites used by Thoreaue made his trip to Eagle Lake. We quickly decided that we would push on, since we were already cold and wet and Lock Dam was just up the shoreline.
We paddled gently through the small swells down the eastern shoreline to Lock Dam. A ranger cabin is just north of the dam, and a boat was moored just offshore. A sign read " dangerous whirlpool stay away". As we drew closer you could hear the suction of the whirlpool and saw it, just off an old log that was jutting out of the water.
We pulled into shore and walked down the short (30yd)-portage trail. At the bottom was a drainage pipe shooting water out at tremendous speed. "What was that"! Dana yelled. "Did you see that"?
I had also seen it, large brook trout (3 ½ - 4lbs) were jumping out of the stream below into the drainage pipe. It certainly was an amazing sight.
Dana cast a few times and caught a beautiful brook trout. We hauled our gear quickly down to the steam after deciding not to stay here for the night. As I went up for the last bundle of gear I saw 5 yellow canoes heading for us from the southern end of Chamberlain.

When the yellow canoes arrived, the leader hustled down the trail to chat with us. The group appeared to be boy scouts, and their leader wanted to know where we were headed so they could avoid invading us.
At that point we planned to go to Pillsbury Island to refill our water containers at the spring. They were planning on the same site, but the Thoreau sited are on the north side of the island and were another option.
We took off down the short stream to Eagle Lake. Much of the paddle was slow and easy through the stream. Eagle Lake or the cove that begins our journey on Eagle Lake was wide and marshy on the southern end. As we paddled across the cove we noticed something swimming in the water… 6 something’s actually. We paddled closer and discovered it was a family of otters. Both Dana and I and the otters continued on our original course, and we were off. It was fun to watch them dive and swim for awhile.
Minutes later we noticed a moose hanging out on what appeared to be an island on the eastern end of the cove (although it might very well have been connected to the mainland). The moose paced the shore of the island as if trying to decide whether or not to swim and what might be the best spot for that swim.
We continued on and followed a few Bald Eagles down the lake towards Pillsbury Island. We got to the campsite, looked around and couldn’t find the spring, in our hurry we paddled onward to Smith Brook Campsite.
Smith brook was quite a haul after already paddling about 10 miles, especially crossways into the wind. Our arms and shoulders were tired that last 2 miles but we made it!

The campsite was lovely, and there was an awesome bench facing the fire pit.
After we got camp set up, Dana went down to the lake to fish…hard to believe, I know. A few minutes later he yelled moose and sure enough there was a large moose on the other side of the cove. Later, Dana walked west of camp and came back with a bunch of native irises for me. I put them in a Gatorade bottle with some lake water, so we could at least enjoy them overnight. He said he had also found some wild strawberries. Yum!

When we got into the tent, we heard a noise in the woods just behind the tent. We looked and there were two rabbits hopping through camp. "Goodnight bunnies". We were both exhausted and quickly fell off to sleep.