What to Do When Your Paddling Partner Can't Finish the Whole Route

Two days into our five-day paddleboard circumnavigation of Lake Tahoe, my best friend Michael Whalen and I realized we weren't covering enough daily mileage to finish the full route on our original timeline. Michael had a prior commitment waiting on the other end, and suddenly we were sitting at a market table in Homewood working out what would happen if he couldn't finish the whole seventy-two miles with me. Here's how we actually handled it, and what I'd tell anyone facing the same situation on their own multi-day trip.

How the Problem Actually Surfaced

We didn't see this coming on day one. Our first day covered twelve miles, which felt reasonable at the time, but by the end of day two, doing the math on our remaining distance against our remaining days made it clear we were behind where we needed to be. Michael had a commitment that wasn't flexible, a specific date he needed to be reachable by, and our current pace put that date in real jeopardy. The problem wasn't dramatic when it first appeared. It was just arithmetic, distance divided by days, that didn't add up the way we'd hoped it would when we first planned the trip.

The Conversation We Had to Have

We sat down over food at West Shore Market in Homewood and worked through the actual numbers together, rather than avoiding the conversation or hoping the problem would resolve itself. That conversation wasn't comfortable. Acknowledging that the plan wasn't working meant acknowledging that something we'd both been looking forward to, finishing this together, might not happen the way we'd imagined it. But having the conversation directly, with real numbers in front of us, gave us something concrete to work with rather than a vague sense of anxiety hanging over the rest of the trip.

The Plan We Actually Built

We landed on a specific contingency. Michael would continue paddling with me through day three, and on the morning of day four, my partner Kristin would arrive with a resupply and take him home so he could make his commitment on time. I would continue alone for whatever remained of the route. It was a workable plan, logistically sound, built around real constraints rather than wishful thinking about how the remaining days might somehow stretch to accommodate everything we wanted.

What This Plan Actually Required

Building this contingency meant coordinating with Kristin in advance, confirming she could actually make the drive and the timing work, and adjusting our daily mileage expectations for the remaining days we'd have together. It also meant accepting, at least provisionally, that the back half of the trip might look completely different than either of us had originally pictured it, solo instead of together, quieter, carrying a different kind of weight than the version where we finished side by side.

How the Plan Actually Changed Again

A day later, over coffee at Banzai Rock, Michael's schedule opened back up. What had looked fixed and immovable two days earlier turned out to have more flexibility than either of us realized when we first built our contingency plan. He ended up staying for the entire circumnavigation, finishing all seventy-two miles with me rather than the roughly half we'd planned around. That reversal changed the whole emotional shape of the remaining days, relief replacing what had been quiet resignation about finishing alone.

What I'd Tell Someone Facing This Same Situation

If your paddling partner's schedule is at risk of not accommodating the full route, address it directly and early rather than hoping the math will somehow work out. Build a real contingency plan with specific logistics, who picks up whom, where, and when, rather than a vague sense that you'll figure it out if it comes to that. And don't assume the contingency plan is the final plan. Circumstances that look fixed can change, and building flexibility into how you think about the situation, rather than treating any single version of the plan as certain, will serve you better than committing hard to either outcome before you actually know which one you're facing.

What This Taught Me About Multi-Day Trips With Other People

Any trip involving more than one person's schedule carries this risk, the possibility that real life outside the trip will intrude on plans made before anyone had accurate information about how the days would actually unfold. Building in an explicit conversation about this possibility before departure, not waiting until you're already facing it under time pressure, would have made our own version of this conversation easier when it actually happened. I'd recommend that conversation as a standard part of planning any multi-day trip with a partner whose schedule has any real constraints attached to it.

What Made This Conversation Easier Than It Could Have Been

Having known Michael for years made this conversation more direct than it might have been with someone I'd only recently met. We could speak plainly about the constraints without either of us worrying about how the other might interpret honesty as blame. That existing trust mattered as much as any planning skill in getting through a genuinely uncomfortable moment without it damaging the rest of the trip.

What This Situation Would Look Like With a Less Flexible Timeline

Our situation resolved favorably because Michael's schedule ultimately had more give in it than we initially realized. That won't always be the case. If your own trip involves a partner with a genuinely fixed, non-negotiable deadline, build your contingency plan around that reality from the start rather than hoping for a similar last-minute reversal. Plan the split, the pickup point, and the solo continuation as the realistic scenario, and treat any flexibility that emerges as a welcome bonus rather than something to count on when you first build the plan.

What Almost Losing Half the Team Taught Me About the Trip Itself

For about twenty-four hours, believing Michael might genuinely need to leave, I ran through what finishing this trip solo would actually feel like. Fewer conversations, a different kind of focus on the water, closer to the solo expeditions I've done throughout my career than to what this specific project had become. That preview helped me understand exactly how much his presence was contributing to the experience, even before the plan reversed and made the question moot.

Before You Close This Tab

How would you adjust your own multi-day SUP itinerary if a partner's schedule changed mid-trip?

Have you built an explicit contingency conversation into your own trip planning, or would you be improvising under pressure the way we initially were?

What would finishing a demanding trip alone mean to you if your original plan involved a partner the whole way?

How do you personally handle the uncertainty of a plan that might change again after you've already adjusted to a new version of it?

Dalton Johnson is a photographer, filmmaker, and brand storyteller based in South Lake Tahoe, California. Over the past decade he has worked with brands including Patagonia, GoPro, Arc'teryx, Four Seasons, Nike, Rivian, and Ford Bronco across all seven continents. He is the creator of the Follow The Journey distribution framework, which has produced over one million organic views per 30-day cycle without paid media. His work includes two published books, an award-winning documentary that aired on PBS, and more than fifty commercial spots directed. He runs Stories by Dalton on Substack, read by more than 34,000 subscribers.