Can the l'Edge be used as a tripping boat?

[Wiggins]

Yes you can do it. K1 kayakers camp out of their creek boats all the time with a similar amount of gear, and as one poster already pointed out the L'edge will happily carry more weight than you plan on taking downstream.

With that said if you don't plan on moving into class III+ and above whitewater and tripping is important to you I would suggest you stick with the Raven. The difference between a 9' boat and a 11' boat in that type of water is not that significant. While the L'edge will handle the load the other boat will do it better.

That's why I have a L'edge and a Caption!

Kyle

[leclercraven]

When I think of creeking it generally involves solid class 3 and up. The Raven looks like it would handle creeking better than tripping. My tripper was a Mad River Royalex Explorer. Paddling 90 km in a whitewater canoe wouls seem like punishment to me.

The rivers I have mentioned a filled with countless class II to class IV-V, ledges, falls etc..... Of course there are some stretch of flat water.

In your original post you mention class II-III creeking. I'm not familiar with the rivers you mention. Generally when I think of tripping its class III and down vs creeking which is usually class III and up. Either way I don't think a L'edge would perform at its best with an extra heavy load.

I've never really creeked before, so I was thinking of doing small easy stretches of creeks I know in the spring. My kind of tripping is going down one of our many rivers from 4 to 7 days to run class II to class IV. Now that's trippin!!

[milkman]

I suppose that if the l'Edge has sufficient tracking it would react the same.

The L'edge does not track like the Raven. It will not react the same. It has just about zero glide. L'edge = short, wide bottom boat. Raven = longer, more tapered bottom boat.

You'd be a better man than me if you could paddle a L'edge on the rivers you describe 90km in a day. And then get up and do it the next day!

I paddle a Prelude on day trips. It's a faster hull than a L'edge, but even if it could handle the greater payload of tripping, I wouldn't take it on class 2 or 3 multi-day trips. For multi-day trips, I take the pickup truck, a Dagger Genesis, and help out with the group gear.

[cheajack]

Why can't class II-III "creekin" be done in an 11 foot royalex boat? Jim Little certainly has done Class V creeking in an Ocoee and the Paddle Snake boys paddle Captions.

[FullGnarlzOC]

[Dooleyoc-1]

I've paddled a Spark (12' Royalex) down Class V creeks. I've also done mulit-day overnighters out of a skeeter. That doesn't really mean that either canoe is ideal for that

Having said that, it's a lot more fun to run creeks in a L'Edge and take a 12' or 14' canoe with stability, tracking, hull speed etc on overnighters when you have a lot of camping gear but you can certainly camp out of a L'Edge or creek out of a long boat.

[Craig Smerda]

These guys have solo canoe tripping on whitewater dialed in...

http://vimeo.com/28550725" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I doubt Dan who also has a L'edge would take it tripping though... but I guess ya' never know?

[leclercraven]

These guys have solo canoe tripping on whitewater dialed in...

http://vimeo.com/28550725" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I doubt Dan who also has a L'edge would take it tripping though... but I guess ya' never know?

That's exactly my kind of canoe tripping! I would like to thank everybody for their input!

[TheKrikkitWars]

If you pared your overnight gear down to a minimum (Bivi-bag, tarp, sleeping bag, sleeping mat, ultralight stove, food, Water-Filter?) then it would be not only possible but would likely not effect the boat's handling characteristics much; but for rivers which weren't [near] continuous whitewater, then it really wouldn't be much fun to paddle a short WW boat of any kind loaded or not...

Of course if you enjoy tripping and you begin to enjoy stepping up the whitewater difficulty; then in time to come you could find multi-day creeking adventures are right up your street.

[Yukon]

A tarp, firestarter, knife, axe, snare wire, fish hook and coffee pot what else do u need??
I think a Ledge could handle that

[DougB]

A tarp, firestarter, knife, axe, snare wire, fish hook and coffee pot what else do u need??

Beer.

[leclercraven]

I suppose that if the l'Edge has sufficient tracking it would react the same.

The L'edge does not track like the Raven. It will not react the same. It has just about zero glide. L'edge = short, wide bottom boat. Raven = longer, more tapered bottom boat.

You'd be a better man than me if you could paddle a L'edge on the rivers you describe 90km in a day. And then get up and do it the next day!

I paddle a Prelude on day trips. It's a faster hull than a L'edge, but even if it could handle the greater payload of tripping, I wouldn't take it on class 2 or 3 multi-day trips. For multi-day trips, I take the pickup truck, a Dagger Genesis, and help out with the group gear.

Sorry about the confusion. A day of paddling is about 10 - 15 km, the whole trip of 4 to 7 days would be approx 90 km +. I don't think it's possible to paddle a full 90 km in a day.

[milkman]

I do 90 km on average on a 4 to 7 day trip. The Dumoine, the Black, Pettawawa, Gatineau River from Mercier Dam to Bouchette, Gens de Terre etc....

Yeah, I guess I misread that. Not knowing any of those rivers, I was thinking the rivers in Canada must be pretty fast. I've paddled 100 miles in two days before on a moving water river, so it didn't seem impossible.

[Cheeks]

You'd be better off backpacking and then swimming through the rapids you want to run.

In all honesty, it's up to you to determine the level of pain and frustration you are comfortable with. I did the Petawawa river in a Viper 11 with probably 40 pounds of gear. So me at 180, the gear, the ancillary stuff, is about 230. The boat was stable and tracked, but had no glide. None. Zip. Zilch. I stopped paddling and within five seconds, I was at the speed of the current. Which was non-existant. The Pet is lake-drop, and there is almost no discernible current between rapids. Add to it a 7 mile lake at the beginning, and a series of three lakes of about 7 miles total at the end, and I got a lot of flat water paddling.

I had a blast, but it was by no means "fun". My arms and shoulders were shot. Would I do it again? Maybe. Not the Pet, I won't do that in anything short of a tandem outfitted canoe or something like a Bell Yellowstone, which is more tripping than rapids.

But there are multi-day runs, like the Dog, which Dan Flath did, where a whitewater boat would be me choice. But of all those rivers, I'd probably take a Viper or a Nitro/Spark, versus a plastic creeker. Because creeking with a fully-loaded boat does not appeal to me. YMMV, that's my opinion, which is worth about as much as the Zimbabwen Dollar

[dflath]

These guys have solo canoe tripping on whitewater dialed in...

http://vimeo.com/28550725" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I doubt Dan who also has a L'edge would take it tripping though... but I guess ya' never know?

That's exactly my kind of canoe tripping! I would like to thank everybody for their input!

Craig is right, I would most definitely take my Viper 11 over the L'Edge for multi day tripping. I cannot deny that I have contemplated using the L'Edge for tripping. Ultimately my desire to have a cozy dry shelter, belly full of gourmet food and a nice after dinner drink takes over. That being said, I do not feel my paddling experience is compromised too much, if at all, when paddling the Viper while tripping. I fully understand you are contemplating only one boat. To that I respond, "Sell anything of value you have that is none paddling related and add a L'Edge to your fleet while keeping your Raven." This seems like the only sensible option to me.