Katie Siber of The New York Times explores the paddling opportunities on the Colorado River above Lee’s Ferry (“sandwiched between Lake Powell and the Grand Canyon” in northern Arizona), where river permits are much easier to come by, the water is flatter, and the couple-day kayaking legs are perfect for beginners.

“One of the remarkable things about the Colorado is that no matter how many people have traveled it and no matter how many have tried to plunder it, from railroad builders to miners and even Hollywood movie crews (parts of “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” “Broken Arrow” and “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle” were filmed here), it retains a palpable sense of wildness.

River trips on peaceful stretches like this invite laziness and lingering, so the next morning we lounged about and sipped coffee, did some cursory yoga and inspected the tracks of ringtails and centipedes circling our tents and the bushes.”

photo credit: Wolfgang Staudt

Kenneth Fletcher of Smithsonian Magazine spends a weekend canoeing some of the Okefenokee Swamp’s 400,000 acres–a 7,000 year-old peat bog (38 miles long by 25 miles wide) along the Georgia and Florida border.

“As the sky darkened, I heard an orchestra of night sounds. Pairs of cranes sang together, a trumpeting that reverberated across the swamp. Choruses of frogs chimed in. Night fell, and owls hooted and howled from trees dotting the prairie. The stars reflected brightly off the inky water while the Milky Way glowed in the sky.”

photo credit: twoblueday