It was chucking down rain as I loaded the canoe and my gear into the car, but I’ve grown wise to Miss Vermont, where you can never count on a weather forecast and must forever retain your optimism lest you miss her fleeting beauty. That, and it helps to pack an extra dry pair of shoes in the car.

My destination was Green River Reservoir State Park in Hyde Park, Vermont, a remote 5,500-acre wilderness park featuring a 653-acre reservoir with 19 miles of virtually undeveloped shoreline. A major Loon breeding location, it has 27 remote campsites reachable only by canoe, kayak, or stand-up paddleboard. It has a fabled reputation among paddlers for its beauty and solitude, so I jumped at the chance to visit when my friend BK invited me to join him for a 2-night trip during peak autumn foliage.

I’ve been diversifying my wilderness immersion methods this year, investing in an ultralight Hornbeck Classic, an 18 lb Kevlar pack canoe to explore more of the remote regions of Vermont and the nearby Adirondacks, a 2-million-acre state preserve with 3000 lakes and 30,000 miles of streams. While much of it overlaps with my backpacking gear for canoe camping and portaging, I’ve also had to buy waterproof packs and clothing I didn’t have before.

BK paddled a refurbished 14’ Old Town Canoe

Green River Park is only about 90 minutes from my house, but it rained in sheets the entire time, which made me nervous about what our first day would be like. I arrived at 1:50 pm, just as it stopped raining, and checked in for our reservation. I drove my car down to the boat launch, unloaded my boat, carried it to the water’s edge, and transferred my gear using the wheelbarrows the park provided for that purpose. BK arrived shortly thereafter and unloaded his 14′ refurbished fiberglass Old Town canoe weighing 55 lbs, and we were soon on our way.

I haven’t seen BK for a few years, so this was a reunion of sorts. While we’ve known each other for years and years, we haven’t done many hikes together and never even an overnight trip. But when he reached out over the summer with this paddling and remote camping invitation, I signed on immediately, knowing we share a love of the outdoors and the joy of moving through it on foot, by XC ski, and now by canoe, too.

BK brought a hammock on this trip and packed his gear in a waterproof pack and a blue waterproof barrel

Like me, BK learns by doing, trying things and figuring out what works and doesn’t work by trial and error, some common sense, and a little luck. Not only was this our first trip together, but it was my and his first canoe camping trip ever, so we were intent on figuring out what to bring and how to pack it.

While backpacking gear and canoe camping gear overlap a lot, they also differ in important ways. For example, when choosing what clothing or footwear to wear and what to pack, you need to make sure you have dry items for camp, because you’re probably going to get wet in the boat. Since it was autumn, we also had to factor in colder temperatures, since sitting around in wet shoes at night wouldn’t be comfortable.

While I did pack extra shoes, I didn’t really need them. These waterproof neoprene NRS Boundary Boots were perfect for the wet entrances into and exits from my canoe.

Packing for canoe camping is also significantly different from packing for backpacking on land. When I pack a backpack for land use, I organize my gear by frequency of use, packing frequently used items in the external pockets while burying seldom-used items in the interior. This also makes it easy to ascertain whether I’ve packed everything I need and haven’t accidentally left something behind. But for canoe camping, everything must be buried deep in a (truly) waterproof pack or container, and you can’t easily check to make sure you’ve brought all your essentials without the risk of getting items wet in the boat. That’s not to say it’s more difficult to pack for a canoe trip, but you need to step up your game in organization and list-making.

I packed most of my gear in this large dry Sealline duffle bag.

Once we pushed off from shore and got headed toward our campsite on the other side of the reservoir, wouldn’t you know it, it started to rain again. Lightly though. Still, it wasn’t easy to stop and put on a rain layer in the middle of the reservoir with the wind kicking up, so we persevered, made it to the other side, landed our canoes, and changed into rain gear. From that experience, and others, I’ve concluded it’s nice to have a 30L waterproof deck bag within easy reach that contains some essentials, like rain gear, hats, a wind breaker, map and compass, a headlamp, and so forth, so you have easy access to items you need in variable conditions.

Green River State Park Map

The rain soon stopped, so we headed out for a few hours to explore the southern part of the reservoir, paddling along the shoreline before heading back to camp to cook dinner. I hit the hay shortly after sunset at paddler midnight, tucked away in a two-person tent, while BK slept in his bridge hammock.

The next morning, we made breakfast and headed out to explore the rest of the reservoir, especially the north end, with an eye toward checking out the other remote campsites for future trips. Many paddlers follow the coastline of a lake or pond, and we did that here too. The wind picked up a bit as we headed north, making the paddling much harder, but we managed anyway. My canoe sits quite close to the water with shallow sides, but BK’s much larger and higher canoe was a significant wind target.

Sunset

As we worked north, the water became significantly shallower, only a few feet deep when we reached the northern apex. It’s amazing how shallow I can paddle my canoe, and the leverage that capability must have given Native peoples living here before us in finding game and resources to live on.

I wasn’t tracking us, but I reckon we paddled about 18 or 19 miles that day, and while I was tired, I wasn’t exhausted at the end of the day (or sore the next morning). On the way back to camp, we stopped at park headquarters again and picked up some more dry firewood before paddling home and cooking up dinner again. Once again, BK proved his consummate fire-building skills, which is funny, since neither of us builds many fires when we go backpacking, opting instead to leave as minimal a footprint as possible.

Cooking dinner by a warm fire.

The forecast called for cold temperatures that night, below freezing, so I snuggled up in my Zen Bivy Light Bed sleep system that night and slept wonderfully until morning. We both woke to dense mist on the water with a backdrop of trees in their peak foliage. After breakfast, we packed up and headed back to park headquarters on the other side of the reservoir, as checkout is at 11:00 a.m. on the day of departure.

Mist in the morning

This has been a great trip in so many ways: hanging with BK again was fun, the paddling and camping were great, and we both got to test our boats and gear systems in a fairly benign setting. The days have gotten much shorter, so I doubt there will be any more canoe trips this year, but I already have plans to go to the Adirondacks next June to wet my whistle on the ponds and lakes there.