ON THE SHENANGO
A relaxing paddle on Pennsylvania’s River of the Year
Ialready know that it will be one of my favorite summer of 2021 dog days, the one when I kayaked down the Shenango River with Charlie the dachshund. Like me and my wife and teenage son, the little guy already was wearing his life vest when he and his human parents boarded the van in Greenville, Mercer County, on a recent Saturday morning. The family and another couple were joining us on Carried Away Outfitters’ 9 a.m. 8-mile kayak trip on the Shenango starting at the outflow of the big dam at Pymatuning State Park.
First, our driver had to drop off the couple doing the 4-mile trip, at a launch at the bridge over the river at — of course — Halfway Road.
Then the young man continued north and unloaded our rented siton-top kayaks beside the river just a ways down from where it gushes out of Pymatuning Reservoir, the state’s largest lake.
It’s a lovely spot, especially on such a beautifully sunny and cool morning, and so I understood why Charlie was in the hatch on the front of his dad’s kayak and ready to go. We let their party get a head start, and then we launched into the clear strong current and headed down the tree-shaded shadows on what proved to be a delightful and relaxing adventure.
In a year when we’ve gone on several such paddling trips in the region, from northeast Ohio’s Conneaut Creek to the Laurel Highlands’ Bottom Youghiogheny River, I wanted to do the Shenango River after reading that it is the Pennsylvania River of the Year.
Carried Away Outfitters coowner Casey Schilling told me before we left his mobile headquarters in Greenville’s Riverside Park how he “geeked out” at meeting Pennsylvania Department of ConBob servation and Natural Resources