Departure from St. Bernadette’s at 4:00 PM; please arrive earlier to allow for packing and loading.
Watch the BSA Canoe Training video
Getting There:
Travel time from St. Bernadette’s to Parker: 3 – 3.5 hrs. Preferred route avoids the I-10 and takes us through Wickenberg, Aguila, Salome, and Bouse: Click for map.
Entry gate to Blue Ridge Marina is adjacent to Buckskin Fire Department #211 – 3350 Parker Dam Road. Steve or Dawn Verdal will be stationed at the gate to let people in on Friday evening.
Contact: Steve Vedral 480-628-0246, Dawn Vedral 480-628-2800 (cell coverage is spotty)
Interactive maps and links are included below, but service may be spotty out there, so you may want to download PDFs ahead of the trip here
Accommodations:
We are camping at a house and empty lot at the Blue Ridge Marina on Catfish Court (see map below). Boys will have access to a bathroom off the garage, which they will clean before departing.
The home is an added-on double wide from the 1970’s. It has a bunk room with 6 twin beds and a couple of bathrooms. If some moms wanted to come and help with the driving for canoe and scout pick up they can stay inside. Please bring sleeping bags anyway so we do not have to change sheets.
Be mindful that this is a residential community. The boys need to be respectful.
Eating:
Friday Dinner: We will grab dinner on the way to Parker
Saturday Breakfast: Cook at camp
Saturday Lunch: Pack a sack lunch
Saturday Dinner: Cook as a Troop at campsite (There is big Weber Charcoal grill we can use to cook dinner.)
Sunday Breakfast: Cook as a Troop at campsite
Activities:
Dawn’s family has a double cabana with a fire ring on the river which we can use for night time activity. If we want to have a fire down by the river we need to bring firewood.
Boys wanting to fish must bring their own gear and license.
Canoeing:
We will launch canoes from the northern end of the marina which is 200 yards or so from the dock. Here is an interactive map of the route.
If we get started around 8:00 a.m., the water should be nice and calm. The trip will be down stream so it should pretty easy going. There terrain is quite beautiful along the way and the river curves and dog legs along the route with mountains on both California and Arizona side. If we want to try paddling up river the Parker Dam is about a mile away to the North.
There are not any rapids but we can occasionally have boats moving quite fast along the river to it will be important to stay close to the shore.
There are a couple of sandy beaches along the route we stop. The first planned stop is rest at River Island State Park about 2.6 miles down river. Depending on how fast we are moving this will probably take about an hour to reach. (9:00-9:30) I am also assuming there will be a slow start as scouts get used to paddling and controlling their canoes. There is a nice cove that we can pause in and enjoy. If we wanted to fish this would be a good place.
After this stop we will head down toward our lunch stop at Buckskin State Park . We will probably arrive around 10:30. This is about 4 miles down river. We can can plan a short hike at this point there are some trails at the park (see attached map). The views are probably great from on top of the small mountain in the park. The boys can hike and look where they have come and down river a bit. There is a loop trail a mile long.
If we hike we will probably return to the canoes around 12:00 for lunch. Launch after lunch around 1:00 . If we choose to there are a couple of places to beach along the way to our first take out point, La Paz County Park. This leg is about 3 miles. We will probably arrive there around 2:00-2:30 for a total of 7 miles. If we want to travel further down river the next take out place would be at the Bluewater Casino Marina, which is another 7 miles down river. We potentially make this portion in 2 hours or so and finish up around 4:30-5:00.
