The Susquehanna River

One afternoon, I headed over to Eastern Mountain Sports to meet with a woman who is an experienced kayaker, and has travelled down some of the Susquehanna River. Her name was Karen and she was very helpful; in fact, she travelled down the same stretch of the Susquehanna that I am planning on traveling down! She even said that she might be up for the trip! Woohoo!

Before visiting EMS, I researched the Susquehanna River and I found that certain parts are classified as Class II+ river rapids. I talked with Karen to see if taking a touring kayak will still be ok, and she said that it would. Her and her husband faced no problems with the rapids. However, they did go in August, and I am hoping to go in the spring, when the water levels might be a little higher. But touring kayaks are durable, and they have the storage space for multi-day trips. Karen encouraged me to buy a map that they sold there of the Susquehanna River. There is a site online, but it only has a few sections of it, and I needed to have the middle and lower sections. However, the store only sold the middle section of the map, and the only other place that sells the lower section is in York County. So a few days later, I travelled there, in search of the lower map. Although the maps are really helpful, there are some details that the lower section does not have, like campsites. However, sometimes campsite are wiped out due to flooding, so I might wait until the time gets closer to look at campsites, but I do have a general idea of where I should be on the river.