Trip overview: July 26-28, 2019, 3 days spent on the water, 31 miles paddled, portages at McIndoe Falls Dam and Ryegate Dam.

On this trip we were looking forward to some bald eagle spotting on the two reservoirs and find out what the stretch of river called the “narrows” was all about. Each of the reservoirs is about a 1/2 day paddle so we decided to bookend the trip with these sections and paddle the longer river section on Saturday. We paddled the reservoirs “upstream” to take advantage of the prevailing wind. The wind was only a few miles an hours but given there is no current this proved to be the right call.

The Moore Reservoir on Friday was a pleasant paddle. We only came across a few boaters for a brief moment or two which I consider pretty good for July. We only saw one bald eagle on this stretch which was a little disappointing. I did catch a nice smallie just upstream of the mouth of the reservoir which somewhat made up for the sparse wildlife.

On Saturday morning, we put in on the Passumpsic River in Barnet VT. This is a bit of a steep rocky put-in but nothing too difficult if you don’t mind scrambling over rocks. This is a nice section of river between the put-in and the Connecticut River. It’s worth any trouble at the put-in.

The Nine Island section of the river was one of the highlights of the trip. Coming down the Passumpsic we had to paddle and haul our kayaks upstream to paddle between the islands. We spotted a young bald eagle perched in one of the tree between the islands. This is very picturesque area.

The portages in this section were a very manageable 0.1 and 0.3 miles.

We spent the nights in Littleton NH a small bustling town.

We got on the Comerford Reservoir early on Sunday morning. There was still a lot of mist flowing down from the mountains. We were hoping to see some wildlife with the early start but no luck.

Within a few hours we were packed up and heading home. Only one more section of Vermont to complete which just leaves Massachusetts and Connecticut to finish up.