Needham Kayaker Traverses Charles River in ‘Source-to-Sea’ Expedition

September 14, 2026
• “To have an adventure, you can stay in your backyard, relatively.”

Thirty-seven hours, more than 66 miles, and one tetanus shot later, Mike Miles lives to tell the tale.

The Needham resident hiked and kayaked the entire Charles River, starting at Echo Lake in Hopkinton and reaching McKinnon Park in Cambridge, within four days this summer. It’s a journey that began with a simple desire: have an adventure.

As a longtime kayaker, Miles has spent many days traveling on the river, either solo or in a canoe with his young daughters, ages 9 and 7. He fondly recalled spending one Fourth of July near the Esplanade, sitting on the water watching the fireworks.

“I like a chance to get out in nature,” Miles said on the side of the river, by Charles River Park in Needham. “You’re not gonna sit on your phone in the middle of the river, because you don’t want to drop it in the river. So it’s a chance to get away.”

After watching “source-to-sea” videos on YouTube — including one person’s journey across the River Thames — Miles thought, “Wait, I could do this.” He recorded and edited his adventure and posted it in installments on his own YouTube channel.

The journey, from July 13 to July 16, took him through relatively remote spots along the Charles River, through underground culverts, near wildlife and, yes, around some trash. Watching the waterway transform from a tiny stream to a rushing river was rewarding, he said.

“Knowing that there are sections that I’ve seen that a very small handful of people have ever seen [is special],” he said. “I like it when you find those undisturbed pockets of nature in between everything.”

He started off day one with some challenges: kayaking through six-foot-tall river weeds — which stopped his kayak — and an 800-foot-long culvert in Milford.

“That was where I first really got in the river, and it was on foot and I had to walk through there, which was really exciting to do,” he said of the culvert, “but it was just a trickle of water, in a dark tunnel, hearing cars going over you from the center of town.”

After stepping off the culvert, he sank waist-deep in the water. When he attempted to hop over a fence, he caught his arm and cut it.

“I went and got a tetanus shot at the end of the day,” he said.

Nevertheless, he “muscled through,” spending 11.5 hours either walking or rowing. He averaged more than nine hours across four days.

Day two began with him capsizing and spending 45 minutes pumping water out of his kayak. The quality of the water, and the possibly aggressive animals below its surface, were on Miles’ mind. As he passed a handful of dams, which block off the river, the water turned gross, he said.

“There’s geese poop all over the place, and then I’m in the river and I see rusted shopping carts and stuff, because it’s urban, but it’s cut off flow. I’m like, ‘I don’t want to go in the water here. Of any of the days, I don’t want to get in this water,’” he recalled thinking on his fourth day.

At another dam, he planned to get out of his kayak, until he was met with “a huge snapping turtle.” The encounter led him to walk close to a mile, lugging his kayak down train tracks, to go around the spot.

Other nature sightings, however, left Miles in awe: beaver dams, river otters, a trio of owls in Needham. “I saw a heron catch a fish,” he said.

The journey required all types of gear, including a GoPro he used to document his ride, as well as his water pump, life jacket, weather and sun protection, bug spray, a waterproof backpack, water shoes and “a whole lot of carabiners and lanyards” to keep it all in the boat.

In the end, he rewarded himself with a cold one.

Miles, who works in web development, kept a detailed spreadsheet of his plans and created a custom map of the river. Weeks beforehand, he spent lunch breaks scoping out unfamiliar passes, and, closer to kickoff, measuring water depth to ensure he could kayak under one area successfully.

“I think he enjoyed the planning process almost as much as the actual kayaking, maybe even more,” his wife Emily Miles said. Once he sets his mind to something, his “stubbornness” becomes a virtue, she added.

At the end of each day, Emily picked her husband up, often accompanied by their youngest, who enjoyed watching the raw footage from the GoPro on board. The experience, she said, “was quite the endeavor,” but one she was happy to support.

“He was so tired, so exhausted, but very clearly very fulfilled by what he was doing,” she said. “He created this plan and he was seeing it through.”

Apart from his own wish for an endurance challenge, Mike Miles also hopes he could pass a lesson onto his kids: If you stick to something, even if it’s hard, you can achieve it.

That lesson, for better or worse, seems to have worked a little too well: Their 7-year-old now wants to take the same adventure as her dad.

The family, who moved to Needham in 2014, aren’t sure what the next adventure might be. For now, it may just look like relaxing outings in town. Adventures, after all, don’t have to take you too far.

“To have an adventure, you can stay in your backyard, relatively,” Mike Miles said.