Day 1 - Beginning

Matt and I climbed into our boats on Friday, June 27^th, fueled by coffee (Dark Magic K-Cups), Freihofer’s Corn Toasties (getting very hard to come by, former colleagues!), and the heartfelt if sleepy exhortations of those congregated at my mom’s dock for the 7: 00 AM sendoff.

Join us, please, for Day 1? You can climb out anytime, but I hope you won’t.

Neither Matt nor I had spent much time in the boats “training” for this trip. Matt, to be honest, had yet to touch an oar this season, but five minutes in I could tell that (you pick: a. the exuberance of youth, b. boyish enthusiasm, c. an extraordinary propensity to learn and adapt, d. all of the above) would trump any paucity of preparation on his part. After a quarter mile or so he fiddled with the geometry of the sliding seat, realigned the foot-brace a few millimeters fore or aft, and by the time we reached Elizabeth Island one mile up the lake, Matt had settled into a strong, fluid stroke that suggested- no, it screamed- that Daddykins ® would be the limiting factor on this sojourn. 

If you travel far, invite this man to join you.

Over time and through the wise coaching of cousins Bob and Bean Tarrant (Saratoga Rowing), I’ve learned that speed and efficiency on the water have much to do with just letting the boat run after a power stroke rather than in recoiling quickly and putting more power into the water. This reality is counter-intuitive to the newbie as it would seem that more power applied more often would be the key to speed- and I suppose that it is, in a sprint. But augmenting speed with the endurance required to sustain a 4-5 mph pace for up to nine hours each day calls for a curious combination of competing sensibilities: tight concentration on the moment and one’s technique while suspending the moment’s fatigue or emerging discomfiture….. patience with slow going but sustaining a kind of urgency in maintaining forward motion….maintaining an efficient heading by sighting off of an object behind (remember, we’re facing backwards) while keeping situational awareness of what is ahead. It’s a mixed and sometimes conflicting bag, this rowing is.

Finally, and most importantly, for distances, one must find unqualified joy in the moment. Boat packed and plans set, the euphoric excitement of starting a row of several hundreds of miles soon wears thin as the first blisters emerge or the lower back starts to unionize with the hamstrings and parts in between. Sustaining the excitement of the macro with an appreciation for the little things- the feather of the wake, the crystalline transparency of water receiving cherry oars, the silhouette of the fishing loon or the promising dark ruffles of a breeze building behind- these sights, sounds, and sensations feed and fuel the happy rower or are totally lost on the miserable fellow who is only counting the miles. To my delight but not at all to my surprise, Matt dialed in right away, finding his groove in technique and spirit before we hit Fourteen Mile Island. The gentle quiet between us as we rowed through our first days counts among the richest conversations we have ever had.
Gentle Reader, all l ‘m sayin’ here is that I sure was happy to have Matt as a wingman: MacGuyver in a pinch, the proverbial (and literal) calm man in a storm, a wonderful conversationalist, the keenest of observers and a faultless navigator, I missed him terribly when he had to head home from work two hundred and five miles later…

But hey, it’s no time for lamenting now, right? It’s Day One! Let’s get back in the boat!

So up the lake we headed. The glassy calm of morning morphed into a considerable headwind with twenty miles to go as we labored up the east side of the lake, Matt taking a refreshing dip across from Roger’s Rock while dad ran the calculus of the energy necessary to get in and out of the boat and decided to sit tight for now. We gnawed tentatively on the egg salad sandwiches that mom had put together perhaps three days before, while Matt continued to coach me about the long-term benefits of water over Gatorade (he’s right!).

At about 3 PM we found Peg and Tiny Tim waiting at the Ticonderoga gate where the northern headwaters of Lake George flow into Le Chute and then into Lake Chaplain. We scrambled up and down a rough hill to unload the contents of our boats into the Mini (here’s the math: 1 Minicooper Clubman= 2 Adirondack Guideboats, rounding up), the plan being that Peg would meet us at a downstream park after we had portaged our boats through town on nifty little carts.

Peg is an adored and treasured member of my family in part because her plans make sense and usually work out and this one did, too. After a portage that sparked curiosity and greetings, we put in at the base of La Chute where clear, perfect Lake George water tumbles from a series of rock ledges falls into a large pool perhaps forty feet below, then flows through a stream and a swamp to Champlain, hence to the Richelieu, hence to the St Lawrence….and then past Saguenay? This forty feet or so of vertical separation contributes a great deal to Lake George’s claim as “The Queen of American Lakes.”  The separation of waters (and hence flora and fauna) between LG and the Champlain/Hudson valley is essential to maintaining LG’s unique and fragile ecology; the connecting waters here at La Chute represents the front line of this separation….and protection. Champlain is lovely and the Hudson is extraordinary…but these water systems and environments are unique and must remain so.     

Anyway, we loaded the boats again with our stuff, Timmy showing no interest whatsoever in jointing us as Scupper® or Scout or Comfort Dog, but at least he reassuringly sanctioned the safety of mom’s egg salad sandwiches.

"Go ahead and row, Al; I'll catch up to you later." 

After a final embrace of lovely, heroic Peg, we rowed off from our home waters towards Champlain and beyond. It was by now touching 5 PM. We’d rowed 28 miles, mostly upwind, and it was time to think about our first night ashore.Five miles later, Matt and I came across the very dock that had been the scene of Brian’s “Hasselhoff Moment” three years earlier as he and I had labored home from Ontario. Exhausted after fourteen hours and over fifty miles at the oars and too tired to stand after crawling out of his boat, Brian ate a cheeseburger from a plate placed on the dock in front of him while on all fours. He was too tired to wag his tail…as were we all. (See Row, Canada! for the full story).  

The sun was setting and this site seemed a good launching point for our second day, so Matt and I set up camp on a knoll overlooking the dock adjacent to a parking lot which served a boat-launch ramp. We soon learned that we had established our new home at the site and moment of a fishing tournament, and trucks and trailers circled us all night long. A family told us that a state record for carp- 45 pounds- had been set just a day or so earlier off of that dock, and I asked Rufus, their son, how much he weighed. “Forty one pounds,” replied Rufus, making the connection, I think, but not liking it.

We slept well that night. We’d faced our first headwinds, completed our only portage, and heard a big fish story from a little kid. We were on our way.