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My husband, 4 friends and I just got back from a 6 day Allagash River trip of a lifetime! I figured I would write up a report of our trip in case it’s interesting or helpful for anyone now or in the future.
We are all based in NYC so we began the trip with family in Maine. We drove up to Allagash from Portland early in the morning on a Monday and shopped at the Hannaford in Fort Kent. I have all of our menu prep, shopping lists and meal planning if anyone is interested. We had booked a cabin at Tylor Kelly Camps who I highly recommend – they also outfitted us with our canoes. Our cabin had a lovely porch and a view of the St. John river steps away, and we were able to lay out all of our gear and repack it. We packed all of our group gear and food into two coolers, three dry bins, and four buckets (this obviously not including our personal gear). We watched the US get our butts kicked in our final world cup appearance and got our last night of bed sleeping in!
Day 1: 8 miles of back and forth
The next morning started early, and we packed our stuff into the canoe trailer around 7AM. Sue of Tylor Kelly camps drove us three hours south (the Allagash runs South to North which is kind of interesting!) to Churchill dam. We stopped early into the drive to get our permits and pay the camping fees – $13/person/night. Our total bill to Tylor Kelly for the 3 canoes, night in their cabin, and ride to the Allagash was about $1500. I’d say all in, including food and supplies, the trip cost each of us about $400-$500. I am a very experienced canoeist but the other five campers range from never been in a canoe to a few days on a lake, so I decided we would spend the first day paddling around Churchill lake to get some practice in. The dam closes at noon every day so if you want your stuff portaged around it, you need to get in the water by then, and I didn’t want to be rushing. More on that later.
We put in around 11AM and paddled about 5 miles across the lake to a gorgeous campsite called Schofield Point – it is like a haven in the pines. Unfortunately there was a large group from a boys camp and we didn’t really want to camp next to 10 14-year-old boys so we paddled back where we came from and landed at another beautiful site called Jaws. We set up in the farthest cell. We fished a little from a lovely beach and caught some small stuff, nothing too insane. Our friend made Japanese barbecue Bibimbap bowls that night which were truly amazing, and we had banana boats for dessert. It seemed like we were totally alone on the lake under the stars!
Day 2: Likely 14 or so miles
We set out early the next morning to try to get an early start at the dam, and it seemed like we made it there first. At the dam, the rangers will come down and check your papers and for $10 they will portage your gear about 6 miles down river – this is because immediately after the dam are the most intense and technical rapids of the trip, Chase Rapids. It is about 2 straight miles of class 2 rapids and then another 4 miles of rapids off and on. Once we got the shpiel from the ranger and unloaded our stuff, we embarked on our first big rapid run! Chase is fun but intense, and we got stuck on some gnarly rocks multiple times but luckily managed to make it down without capsizing. We picked up our gear downriver and re-packed the canoes, heading through some flat, marshy shallows and into Lake Umsaskis. Umsaskis is large and was windy that day and the morning’s adrenaline rush was fading fast. We had planned to try to make it past the lake and into Harvey Pond or Long Lake, but we were all really feeling it and decided to pack it in early at a PHENOMENAL site called Ledges about 3/4 of the way through Umsaskis. The aforementioned boys camp were not pleased to see us there and had some choice words about us that echoed across the lake!
Ledges is in the woods, spacious, though very hilly. If you have it in you to climb up another 30 or so vertical feet, there is a gorgeous tent spot atop a flat area with a beautiful vista of the whole lake. We made goulash for dinner with some cinnamon bread pudding, and I hosted a trivia night I’d planned ahead of time. We felt good about our choice to make it an easy day after the relative intensity of the rapids.
Day 3: 28 miles (not planned)
We got on the river at about 8:30 and knew we’d spend the whole day on the series of lakes that mark the middle of the Allagash. We made it across the rest of Umsaskis, Harvey Pond, and Long Pond with relative ease after our restful day 2 evening and decided to push on to Round Pond. We did manage to see a moose this morning! Long pond requires a portage at the far end as there is detritus from bridge that was ripped out under the water and there is a serious risk of ruining your canoe if you choose to paddle it. There was some traffic at the portage site which runs through a campsite where our besties the boys camp had decided to post up and scatter all of their belongings on the portage path. It is a very quick portage but annoyingly steep on both sides. You could potentially run it, but it would be trip ending to destroy a boat and we didn’t want to risk it.
There is a beautiful looking campsite called Cunliffe Island that we debated staying at (oh how I wish we had!!!) but we decided to push on and position ourselves well for day 4. The river area between Long Pond and Round Pond is some of my favorite paddling we did – it is gorgeous, moving, and a mix of whitewater and big open river. We were feeling pretty exhausted by the time we made it to Round Pond which made it additionally galling to see, after an exhaustive paddle around the lake, that EVERY SINGLE SITE WAS TAKEN. Where did all these people come from?!? We had been hoping to do the tower hill hike but that dream quickly vanished. We knew there were two nice sites in some whitewater after round pond and figured we would push on for a few more miles and camp there, but both of those sites were taken as well. We started to get worried when the next site another 3 miles downriver was also occupied, as the sun was beginning to set. We pinned all our hopes on the final site before a longggg five mile siteless stretch and mercifully Croque Brook or “Mosquito Ass Point” as we named it was vacant. We rolled up there around 6PM. Silver lining, this marathon day put us squarely ahead of our boys camp nemeses who we never saw again.
The site was much more poorly maintained than the others, and was seriously overgrown with tall grass which made the bug activity somewhat hellacious, but it was a paradise after our massive day of paddling! We had weenies on sticks, stovetop stuffing, and a skillet chocolate chip cookie.
Because of our mammoth efforts the previous day, we were able to have an extremely chill Day 4 that almost qualifies as a full rest day. The Allagash, affectionately referred to by many as the “shallowgash,” includes multiple spots where you have to get out and pull your boat over patches of rocks. We found our best bet was to stick to the far sides of the river, as the sediment seems to pile up in the middle. We had planned to stay at Cunliffe or Cunliffe Depot where you can see an abandoned piece of logging machinery AND a grave of someone buried in 2 salt pork barrels (one wonders how he was divided between the barrels) but we came across a gorgeous vacant site and after our previous day I think everyone was feeling a bit wary about passing up the known in favor of the potential. We settled at Deadwater North (South is also beautiful but better for a smaller group) which turned out to be our absolute favorite site of the trip. Tucked away but with a massive vista of the riverbend, easy to bathe in the water as the current isn’t too bad, and a large flat elevated site with its own beach. We spent most of the day sitting with our feet in the water and making snacks. We had chili, skillet cornbread, and blueberry cobbler for dinner that night. I highly recommend that campsite to anyone paddling the river!
Day 5: 16ish miles
We had planned to camp near to Allagash falls, knowing the big portage would be this day. We got a fairly early start and paddled about 8 miles to the falls, stopping at Michaud Farm on the way – you are asked to check in with a ranger there. She keeps track of who is planning on camping where as this marks the last stretch of the river, so you have a sense of where you can stay that night if you’re not coming off river. It is definitely possible to do this stretch all the way to Allagash village in one day, but it would be a very long day. We asked her how long she thought the portage would take us and she said she thought we could do it in 90 minutes or so. We did NOT buy canoe wheels which I reeeeeally wish we had, as this seems like the way to do it! She informed us that some of the locals paddle past the designated portage point because there is a secret second river exit in the rapids that cuts the portage down significantly, but she warned us against doing it. It was tempting, but it is truly the last place you can get off the river before a really serious waterfall and we didn’t want to risk it.
We ended up banging out the portage in 45 minutes – it was not fun, but it’s super manageable. It’s 1/3 mile and it is very up and down height wise, but most of it is on a path of wooden planks besides for some annoying rocks. Not my favorite part of the trip, but definitely not as horrible as we were dreaming it up to be. Some local kids caught a truly MASSIVE fish at the base of the falls as we were leaving, so perhaps a good place to fish! We had a leisurely 8 miles or so after the falls to our final campsite, a gorgeous site called Big Brook East. We elected not to stay at the Twin Brook sites as though they are closer to the village, they also connect to an RV site and are right next to the road. This site has a natural spring as well as a beautiful cooler built at the bottom of it, making for some really refreshing water! Our main regret was that we hadn’t saved any beer for fear of adding to the difficulty of the portage, but a cold beer in a natural cooler would have been quite nice! We ate our last dinner of “must go couscous” with everything left in our cooler, and a pineapple upside down cake that turned out surprisingly well.
Day 6: 11ish miles
We got a VERY early start and woke up around 4:30AM as we decided not to eat breakfast at camp, but back at the wonderful restaurant near Tylor Kelly that is only open a couple days a week. We packed up for the last time and wistfully bid the river adieu, but not before some of the most annoyingly rock-trudging paddling of the entire trip. Perhaps the rivers way of saying goodbye! There was also some surprisingly technical whitewater on our last morning. We took out the canoes back at Tylor Kelly where our cars were parked, ate an AMAZING breakfast that we didn’t cook OR clean, and headed back home after an amazing trip.
Overall feelings and impressions:
The Allagash is a really special place. We met a man on our trip who was paddling it for his 44th time!! Some thoughts if it helps anyone else:
This website was so helpful and has a ranking of almost every website on the gash! Just this persons opinion but we found his rankings to be pretty accurate (https://dev.allagashwaterway.org/)
• Things we wish we brought: a roll of paper towels, a thing of baby wipes, wheels for the canoe portage, a couple tupperware containers, canoe seats with
• MVPs of the trip: a reflector oven we bought specially that was just really fun, collapsible water jugs, 10 small mesh bags for miscellaneous use, a solar powered charging pad, inflatable sleeping pads / pillows
• We brought an inreach communication device with us and it worked great! We left our 2-year-old with my parents and wanted a way to check in a couple times a day. I had one minor freakout when it appeared to not be working on our first night but it turned out nobody thought they were supposed to text us back because it cost money
• We downloaded our trip on CalTopo before we left and marked campsites we potentially wanted to stay at and it turned out to be SO HELPFUL for river navigation
• We froze juice and water to pack the coolers with instead of bringing ice packs and it worked great, and was also really nice to have some juice as the trip went on!
• Other campsites we did not stay at but people rave about: Scofield Point, Scofield Cove, Chisholm Brook, Sams, Cunliffe Island, Back Channel, Inlet, Turk island, Five Finger West, Cunliffe Depot, Big Brook South
We saw one moose, and innumerable beavers and bald eagles!
• While it feels relatively remote, there is a large network of logging roads that run the course of the river often only a mile or so away. You don’t feel their presence on the river at all, but I personally felt better having a small child not on-river with us that if we needed to get out of there fast, we probably could have been in a car in a matter of an hour or two.
• By early July when we went, the Black Flies were much more manageable than they are earlier in the summer. That said, we still needed serious bug spray.
• The shallowness of the river in many spots was the biggest surprise to us, and we definitely spent time just dragging the canoes every day. It wasn’t a huge bummer but it’s not as much fun as the whitewater and moving water obviously!
• While I wouldn’t say it feels “crowded” we saw 4-5 other groups every day. We were probably there during peak season as well. Compared to anywhere around New York this feels luxuriously isolated but it’s definitely not like you’re the only ones there. This became abundantly apparent on our Round Pond Fiasco day, and my biggest recommendation would be to set out very early if your plans that day depend on staying there.
I am super happy to answer any and all questions or give recommendations! It was a gift of a trip and we were blessed with amazing weather from beginning to end. I feel lucky to have friends and a partner who were willing to embark on an adventure like this with me!
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