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Awesome. That looks like a smack ton of fun. Especially the part about the machine hauling your load. (So people really DO ice fish?) Now I'm going to have to go re-read Jim Harrison's essay on the subject: "Ice Fishing: The Moronic Sport."

I'm just glad to know there's someone else getting frightened by their dreams of parking lots full of short, elderly men sporting white beards and neck scarves.

The guy in the know says drive it like you mean it, boat and all.

Mr. McCrea, First, let me apologize. Then let me explain that I walk a thin line, disclaimers and all, and that while my tale spirals into the strange comings and goings of a not-unhappy man standing at the midpoint of his life reflecting on the fact that he will die with so much left undone...

Mr. Jag, I found it pretty humbling and dramatic, actually, though I think most of the drama came in the form of people, or came as a result of paddling a canoe, or came as a result of paddling alone, or came as a result of spinning a yarn. The canoe feels pretty small down there. And paddling...

"I've spent the last couple weeks in SE Arizona. I wish I could say I was happy to be home but that seems to be less true every time I return from a trip." I've been on the banks of the New River in WV trying to recover from AZ. Not easy and, as you say, gets harder every time. We do what we...

Banned in Boston indeed. I suspect for the sake of some of these old timer's hearts and for the more delicate readers I should have included a disclaimer: A fine essay but a bit on the risque side... maybe even downright naughty... and for those who have outgrown some of their primal urges, it...

The only thing better than quality food porn is quality writing about food porn. One of the great American essays of 2005 (according to the canon of Uncle Skwid), is a little piece of criticism written by a man named Frederick Kaufman. Hopefully the link works without a subscription to Harper's...

Memaquay: Slim Arrogance, for real. Mr. Odyssey: Sometimes I get the distinct impression that to seem is to be. And that once upon a time you argued Kant to a disheveled group of ugly, troubled men, who sat across from you at a folding table and looked sternly down their noses at your ungroomed...

In defense of Park Rangers everywhere: We are on the same team. I promise. I'm not picking fights and I want my kids and their kids and their kids to all have as much wilderness as possible free of rapists and rabble rousers and beer cans and cat holes. I am a fan of common sense. I am not a big...

So you make your attachment webbing loops pink but wear black fuzzy crocs? You got your priorities loosely lubricated, brotha. Flop that sheet.

I'm no boat builder but I read your boat building posts (even the post in question and spotlight) like some sort of jealous voyer. The way people here copy boats with fiberglass as if on some sort of magical copy machine--no crap--or construct boats from a sheet of paper and some trees as if...

FOUR. On Phantom Ranch It's a bit surreal sitting in the Phantom Ranch Cantina. You're sitting in a plastic chair at a folding table in a pleasant, sunlit Park Service Lodge with large restaurant-style machines humming around you. You secretly wonder how the machines got here. You're drinking...

Mr. McCrea: As I recall you mentioning your highly refined sense of fashion in another thread, I'm sure you are sporting your fuzzy crocs. Comment meant for you...

Can't wait. Get your trip on and spread some folly and foolishness. Lord knows these old geezers need more of it! As for the installation of your float bags: what they said. I've never had aluminum gunnels and I fail at almost everything I do, so there's a good chance whatever I say will be the...

I vote for taking giant pieces of sheet metal and riveting a storage compartment over your bow and stern bags to seal them in your boat. It might add a little weight to your setup but hey, when you finally get sick of lugging the boat around and abandon it beside the river, future paddlers will...

Your expectations would be correct. I am meticulous and anal about not only securing gear in the canoe (low and tight, directly to the hull), but also position of said gear in boat. Position and security of gear for canoe camping/tripping is everything in my book. You can run all kinds of stuff...

PS: I don't work for Kavu and they don't give me hats for free.

I lost the hair on top of my head when I was like, twenty, and then by the time I was twenty-two I realized I better protect my head from the sun, so I've got an entire drawer full of hats. Hell, I've got a "hat" budget every year. I take about three on every trip in the event I lose one. Go...

I met one of our local Virginia legends, Bob Whaley, on one of our backyard Class III runs one cold afternoon in February. He was 80 at the time, paddling an open boat from a pedestal, and needed help getting his boat from the river to his van. On the river he was as graceful and beautiful as...