I may be living in the wrong state

I feel your pain man!!

I live on Long Island in New York.  I enjoy whitewater kayaking.. none to be found here, so i spend a lot of time in Pennsylvania or upstate NY, both of which require about a 4 hour drive on average with no traffic.. and thats for backpacking/camping and/or whitewater kayaking trips. My father lives in Las Vegas.. I have future plans to visit and do some long trails on that end.. JMT? TRT? .. some others in mind also.. hopefully one day I make them happen.  I have decided, living on Long Island and being surrounded by oceans and bays.. I will be getting a touring/ocean kayak soon so i can take advantage of what i have in my backyard.. of course i will still take all my trips for whitewater adventures.. but at least when time is limited.. i can play here and there locally.

I am envious of what you have access to over there.. i guess its all relevant.. on that note, your grandkids may not know it yet.. but they will one day.. the doors that you are opening for them and the opportunities they will have, they will be thanking you always and forever. Not many children get these opportunities or experiences.

Well Eric, Just because you live there doesn’t mean that you have to spend

all your time there.  I went on my first Boundary Waters Canoe trip in mid-Sept.

At age 74.  I know you are a few years older than me but you are active.

If you have canoeing experience take a trip back to Ely, MN and have at it.

You can rent everything you might need at one of the many Outfitters in town

although I would recommend bringing your own camp gear. The rental stuff

isn’t the lightest except the canoes (kevlar UL). The Canoe people seem to brag

about how much crap they can carry because they don’t need to put it on their

backs until it’s time to portage.

You can get all the info you need at BWCA.com .  This seems to be linked to Piragis Outfitter

but that’s OK I guess.

So the trip I took was very nice if a bit windy.  4 of us with the youngster of the group

being only 65. The rest of us in our 70’s and we seemed to be by far the oldest guys that

we saw anywhere out there. Did I mention that there are a lot of portages ? Our route was about 40 miles, not counting portages, and 20 portages. With the back and forth over

portages that added 14 1/2 miles. But we would find a camp early, camp only at designated

camp sites, and relax and do some fishing. We also took a zero day in the middle of our trip.

7 1/2 days.

Trump clears way for toxic mine in Boundary Waters watershed

Trump administration initiated the process for approving a toxic copper mine in the headwaters of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota, the most visited wilderness area in the U.S.

https://www.wilderness.org/articles/press-release/trump-clears-way-toxic-mine-boundary-waters-watershed

Well Eric, Just because you live there doesn’t mean that you have to spend

all your time there.

Yep.

Look at it this way; you could be living in the wrong country.

“Look at it this way; you could be living in the wrong country.”

Now headed to chaff in a big way, grin

nm

My dad used to do winter trips with his buddies in the BWCA; we did family trips in the summers. He was well into his 70s when he did his last trip up there. I think he only stopped because my mom couldn’t go any longer. Such a pretty part of the world! It planted wilderness in me. Go before Trump – or some other greedy bastard, there will be many more – decides to dump toxics into it.

I’m still hoping to get to ANWR before it gets destroyed. So many places to go! The only thing in this world I feel truly greedy about is time.

Nah Seriously if it wasn’t for the fact that my beloved wife hates the cold I’d be happy to emigrate to New Zealand and live on the South Island. Good skiing and excellent mountain climbing even if the weather can be atrocious and ferocious at times