BETHEL — The 16th Annual Source to the Sea Trek enters the River Valley on Friday.
The Source to The Sea Trek is a 170-mile journey following the Androscoggin River from its headwaters at Lake Umbagog in northern New Hampshire, to the river’s mouth at Merrymeeting Bay in Brunswick.
The Androscoggin River Watershed Council is the organizer and overseer of the 19-day canoe/kayak trip. Participation in the event is free of charge and open to anyone. Paddlers may opt to join the trek for just a day or as many days of the trek as they wish. Trek organizers expect the expedition will reach its terminus at Merrymeeting Bay on Aug. 7.
“Last year was such a great success that we decided to go with a similar schedule this year,” Jessie Seymour Perkins, organizer of the 2011 Trek, said.
“We are looking forward to getting lots more people to experience how beautiful every stretch of the Androscoggin is, and to get them to see how far the river has come in the last generation,” she said.
“The Trek began last Friday with an evening paddle, led by a naturalist,” Perkins said. The Trek continued and wrapped up its first stage on Sunday at the Pontook Dam in New Hampshire.
It resumes Thursday, at Bofinger Conservation Area, and continues downstream along the New Hampshire stretch of the river to Berlin, Perkins said.
Then on Friday, paddlers will enter Maine via the Androscoggin at Gilead.
Saturday promises to be an eventful day for the Trekkers, Perkins said, as they will be coming into town during Bethel’s Mollyockett Days Festival.
The third stretch of the Trek, from Thursday, July 21, through Sunday, July 24, will bring the paddlers through the heart of the River Valley from Hanover to Jay.
“I think the northern most part of the river is the most spectacular,” Perkins said. “I particularly enjoy the stretch from Hanover to Jay.”
For more information about the Source to the Sea Trek, call (207) 754-8158.
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