Thursday, August 05, 2010

Hell Yes!

Our club's weekend paddling trip is known as our Annual Vacation to Hell; hot, humid, buggy, and long.  Eight of us will paddle the 50 miles from Cedar Island to Beaufort, up the Neuse River and across on the Harlow Canal.  A challenge for some, training for other's as they prepare for the WaterTribes North Carolina Challenge.

The weather won’t be too bad after all. Highs in the 80,s the usually predicted chance of showers and thunderstorms we always have at the coast, and there should be enough breeze to keep us cool, hopefully keep the skeeters away, more help then hurt.


The Harlow Canal is quite beautiful, tree-lined; the Western side of the canal is part of the Croatan National Forest. Entered thru Clubfoot Creek off the Neuse River, it is the old original Intracoastal Waterway (ICW), located west of the current ICW, connecting the Neuse River with the Morehead City and Beaufort waterfronts. Known locally as the Slave Canal because it was deepened to five or six feet by slave labor, the Harlowe is one of the oldest canals in the United Sates, originally created untold centuries ago by Indians who dragged their canoes across the lowlands to the Neuse.
 
You can follow along, I'll have the SPOT tracking on.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Paddling in NCC, wondering about camping before/after canal and along coast? What are possibilities.
John aka Passaic Paddler
jaalgera@juno.com

Floatsome said...

John--

Dawn may have answered directly, but here's my take from the weekend adventure.

Camping is relatively easy before Clubfoot Creek. (For example, the place we overnighted; see Dawn's Spot track.) Trouble is, it would require a very early departure to make the Beaufort checkpoint by noon. (We took about 7 hours.)

It might be possible to stealth camp along Clubfoot Creek but not before dark. There's nothing in Harlowe Canal or Creek; even getting out of the boat is an issue. Once you're in the Newport River, there are a few places, but you're almost to Beaufort. Tidal current might lead me to stake out on an island along the ICW or Gallants Channel; not likely though. Barring the unforeseen, I plan to camp after Beaufort.