River Camping with an Expedition

[PJohanson]

Oh wow! At long last, I have finally taken a river camping trip. And the boat I used was the Expedition.
This was the perfect boat for me. The river was a quiet one, with only two little riffles that aren't even Class One rapids. There was plenty of room for my little tent and gear and drinking water inside the kayak. On the deck, I rolled up the carry bag for the kayak.
The inflation chambers handled hot days just fine, with the river cooling the boat from beneath. When I got out for a walk at lunch, I let a little of the air out so the chambers wouldn't expand too much on shore. Then before launching I'd put a little more air back in. No problem at all.
I like that this size of kayak is still light enough for me to handle when it's loaded with my gear. No hurting myself by straining to lift one end of the boat and pull it onshore. Everything went well.
I was even able to wash off the heavy clay mud called gumbo when a few smears got on the outside or the inside of the Expedition. This mud feels greasy and it clings, but it came right off just with splashing and rubbing river water on the boat.
I wrote a long trip report at the Trips forum that you can find on the Forum Index -- go check out my Red Deer River trip! And if you want to see photos and the maps from my SPOT device, go to http://www.kayakyak.blogspot.ca
Hurray!