Thursday afternoon Tom Burger arrived at the Mohican Reservation Campground and piddled around until Wil pulled in. While the 2 were catching up and chatting rain rolled in. Sitting in their vehicles it soon passed allowing them the opportunity to get tents set up. Not long after Tony, Alice and 3 Yorkies drove in using a cargo camper. Harold and Laurie rounded out the group using their tent. The rain held off the rest of the day but the wind was really strong. After evening meals were consumed and some small talk, the wind slowed enough for a nice spring campfire. The smoke seemed to follow everyone at some point as they all complained while choking and moving to duck it. After trying to solve the world problems it was 11:30 and pass bedtime.
Friday morning was foggy but warm for an April morning. Everyone stirred slowly but was almost ready when Eric pulled in. He was day paddling with the group. The women stayed at camp while the guys shuttled upstream on the Clear Fork of the Mohican, putting in at the covered bridge in the state park. It was closed for repairs so they had to take the long way around, through Loudonville to get to the north side of the bridge. At 10:35 am 5 canoes carrying 5 guys started floating downstream. The flow from the Pleasant Hill Lake Dam was very nice. The 3.5 miles to the merger of the Black Fork only took an hour. At that point the Mohican took on a much faster pace, almost twice as fast. Not much paddling was needed, just steering. They saw 2 eagles, geese, ducks, a heron, woodpeckers, chipmunk and 2 fly fishermen. No other boats were on the water. When leaving on Saturday Tony talked to the owner who said the livery could not put canoes on the water when it's at that level. The USGS stream gage height was at 7.66. They saw 6 different rubber rafts wrapped around logs in the river and 1 canoe was stuck in a strainer. The 11 mile total trip was over in 2 hours 20 minutes.
Back at camp they sat around chewing the fat and just enjoying the sunny, warm spring day. The weather forecast for Saturday was calling for rain plus the fact that Harold and Wil had previous plans for the day, so Tony moved the Saturday potluck to Friday. He made his childhood dish of hotdog-noodle casserole. There also were wings, chili with cornbread, cream of potato soup and guacamole. Even with only 7 folks there was still too much food. Eric hit the road soon after eating and the other 6 had another beautiful campfire. Wil brought an old canoe paddle and after a toast it went into the fire. We called it "Blazing Paddles", not saddles
Mohican Reservation Campground was not busy at all and we had the whole north end to ourselves. We got upgraded and even had water and electric which we were not scheduled for. The only drawback was the restroom was almost a quarter mile away. The summer port-a-pots hadn't been delivered yet. It was worth it to have the peace and quite as that doesn't happen after Memorial Day.
Saturday morning Wil was up and gone by 7:00 am. It was overcast but not raining so the rest of the folks got around on a slower scale. Tom left next followed soon by Harold and Laurie. Tony and Alice threw around the idea of staying another night but the rain was coming and colder temperatures. So by 11:00 am the first official PaCO outing of the year was over.
It did rain later in the day and the Saturday night low was 39 so leaving was for the best. We just wish more PaCO folks would have joined us. Until next month...
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