Canoeheadted wrote:
I don't think any portage or put-in/take out should be blocked for anyone else to use.
I (family we) go to considerable and sometime inconvenient lengths to not block access. On a family trip we typically have four boats and a lot of gear.
On a crowded weekend launch site, a situation we try to avoid, we will take two boats and gear down and get the paddlers on the water and out of the way to wait in an eddy or noodle around just offshore, and then carry down the next two boats and loads.
If the launch area is wide and wide open we stage the boats and gear well off to one side, even if it is empty when we arrive. Same routine taking out if need be.
We do not use many boat ramp type launches, but I always grit my teeth when someone with a canoe or kayak sets their boat on the ramp at the water’s edge and proceeded to futz with gear while powerboats wait to back down trailers.
Canoeheadted wrote:
Trying to get those type of people to conform is a waste of time.
Two of the most egregious examples I can think of. We had just finished a family day trip on our home river and had begun to carry boats and gear to the van. The trail up is short, maybe 100 feet to the parking area, but very narrow. As we came back for the last canoe a group of kayakers arrived to use that same narrow trail takeout.
They were psyched at their derring do at having run a class 1 river in WW kayaks, whooping and hollering. They dropped their paddles in the middle of the narrow trail. While they walked empty handed to their vehicles. Before we had carried the last canoe up.
BTW, that derring do – my 10 and 12 year old sons had just paddled the same stretch in pack canoes. I just shook my head sadly, but admittedly thought about oops stepping on their paddles.
(I have a personal pet peeve about paddles left on the ground).
The single most ignorant thing I have ever witnessed was four people (I will not call them paddlers) in two high end composite tandem sea kayaks show up at a multi-site camping area that was getting busy with camper arrivals.
They got out and immediately complained that all of the permits for that site had been taken and they would have to paddle another 5 miles down the bay. Having been so dastardly wronged they decided to picnic there at the site landing before continuing. It is a wide grassy landing, so they pulled their kayaks ashore AND SET THEM END TO END PARALLEL TO THE WATER, completely blocking every inch of access with 40 feet of boats.
We had come in a day or two before, and I did not need to use the landing, but other folks with permits were still arriving and struggling to get their stuff ashore. I am pretty non-confrontational, but I told the kayakers that someone was going to move those boats, and they wouldn’t like where I shoved them.
The happy ending to that tale was a lone canoeist who arrived during that confrontation. He took me aside and said “Uh, you seem to be in charge here. I don’t have a permit for this site, do you think I could camp here anyway?”
His other choice was to paddle another 5 miles and camp with the asshats. I assured him that I was in charge of very little and helped him carry in his gear.