Tuesday, May 29, 2007

May 28, 2007

May 28, 2007 – Memorial Day


Bill and I and our Australian Shepherd Buddy started out with Sue and our kayaks and our camper on Thursday night, May 24th at about 6:00 pm. We arrived at the KOA Campground in Franklin, NY at close to 9:00 pm. On Friday morning we had a leisure breakfast and talked about the river; finally Sue and I launched from the New Milford boat access at about 10:15 am. The boat access is actually on a large shallow pond that is used for fish spawning. It was alive with large carp splashing and jumping and doing their thing. There was lots of seaweed too. We enjoyed paddling real slow through the chaos. There was a tiny shallow neck that took us out to the river.

The weather was wonderful—temperature in the 60's and slightly overcast looking like it would clear.

The river was starting to widen and was flowing nicely. There were still a lot of twists and turns. It was amazing to see so much erosion from higher water. At times the banks of the river were a couple of feet high, but at other times they were as much as sixty feet high. It was rare that both sides were the same height. Usually one bank was at least a few feet higher than the other. The erosion caused trees to become uprooted and slide down the banks and into the river. We had to be vigilant because the twists and turns caused the trees to get blocked up and limited our ability to get around them.

The stretch of river above Portlandville became less twisty and was quiet and picturesque. There were lots of birds singing and several kinds of ducks and geese swimming. In Portlandville, just after going under a bridge, a man in his backyard told us that he saw a bald eagle just ahead of us on a tree by a little inlet, but it wasn't there when we went by.

Goodyear Lake, which was formed by damming the river, was slow going. We paddled harder just to stay moving forward because of head winds. There are surprisingly shallow areas in the middle of the lake too. The portage at the dam at the end of the lake was very difficult. We attached our dollies to the rear of our kayaks and dragged them up a steep path that was pretty smooth except for occasional small rocks. I was panting when I got to the top. I thought the worst was over until I started down the other side. The kayak was trying real hard to push me down the hill. Maybe it would have been easier if I let the kayak lead and just hang onto the rope following it down the hill. There was no water going over the dam, so when Sue and I got to the bottom, there was a trickle of water that we pulled our dollied kayaks through until it finally joined the water from the spillway. We had sandwiches and water for lunch while quietly floating down the river.

The Susquehanna picked up speed after we went under an Interstate 88 bridge, and in a particularly narrow area I paddled over a submerged log that was parallel to my kayak, and the kayak rolled to the right and over. I had put an apron over the front of the cockpit in the morning to stay drier and to keep the sun off my legs, and that apron ended up around my waist. I had my paddle and a half paddle (each of us carried a half of a paddle with us in case we lost our paddle in just such an event) in one hand and I was holding onto the upside down kayak with the other hand. I couldn't touch bottom and was still moving along with the current. Sue yelled to me not to put my legs down to try to touch because I could come across a submerged boulder and could possibly break a leg. I was able to slowly head for shore. When I was standing in waist high water, I rolled the kayak over and pulled it close to shore. I tossed my paddles up on land and dragged the water-filled kayak to shallow water, but there was a steep bank and the kayak weighed a ton! So Sue paddled up to me and stayed in her kayak and held onto mine. We bailed it out with a thermos lid and a water bottle. I own a hand bilge pump, but I left it home in Pennsylvania. When the kayak had about an inch or two of water still in it, I got back in and we proceeded to the portage spot for the Oneonta Dam which was only about two miles ahead.

The portage at Oneonta Dam was very easy. I emptied my kayak, including a storage area with a lid at the back end, and then turned it over and emptied the rest of the water. There was probably five inches of water in that storage area. We dollied the kayaks and pulled them up a slight elevation and onto a path to the other side of the dam. Sue talked to a fisherman for a bit, and we were on our way again. The first couple of miles below the dam we heard the traffic on Interstate 88 which kind of ruined the ambiance. The water was fast for those miles and we had to watch. There were submerged logs that surprised us. Before and after Otego we went through a large primarily agricultural area. We went by a falling down drive-in theater and saw a few houses in downtown Otego.

At about 4:30 we approached a public boat launch about a mile below Otego. That was a pre-planned possible end of day spot for us. We just couldn't bring ourselves to stop paddling that early, so we continued on. The next boat launch site was about 9 miles downriver from there.

The next area we were paddling through was Wells Bridge. It was shallow and slow. There were lots of Canadian geese families swimming along the edge of the river. We saw strings with an adult goose leading and four to eight babies swimming right behind, and then another adult at the end of the string. They were so cute. The water had slowed down along with our progress. There was some head wind and we were getting tired. In Unadilla was an old broken dam that we paddled through. Some remaining chunks of cement were as big as four foot square. I scraped across one chunk, but didn't spring a leak.

We finally got to the public boat launch just below Unadilla at 8:30 pm. I had called Bill to meet us there, and he was on the shore with a light because it was getting dark. We accomplished 37 miles that day. In 10 hours. It was so good to see Bill on the shore! We loaded up the kayaks into our truck and drove back to the campground. Sue and I had some chili and showered and we talked to Bill of our adventures and we all went to sleep.

Friday we got an earlier start. We were on the river at the boat launch below Unadilla by 8:30 am. It was another beautiful slightly overcast day in the high 60's and promising to be sunnyand warm. Halfway between Unadilla and Sidney the river splits and we we directed by signs put up by the General Clinton Regatta people to take the left side, but the middle was so low that we got hung up on a gravel bar and had to climb out and walk the kayaks across to the deeper water. Just above Bainbridge a railroad trestle goes across the river and over an island in the middle. We took the right side and encountered eddies and narrow shoots. There were downed trees and sharp turns which caused strong currents that turned us in circles at times. When we got to the General Clinton Park in Bainbridge, which is where the 70 mile race that was being run on Memorial Day would end, we pulled up to a float and climbed up to the park for a look see. There were people selling racing canoes that were made of graphite. Those canoes weighed about four and a half pounds. Our Pungo's weighed 45 pounds. The racing canoes also cost about eight times the cost of our Pungo's. We also saw slightly used racing paddles that cost as much as our kayaks.

Well, after about 15 minutes of sightseeing we were on our way again. We had used the maps put out by the Regatta people to follow from Cooperstown to Bainbridge. I also acquired a fold-up brochure from an outfitter in Binghamton, New York that mapped several day trips on the Susquehanna for the Broome County area (which I later found out was published in the 1980's). The furthest upriver day trip map started in Afton, NY which we thought was about six miles down river from Bainbridge. It actually was more like ten miles. So that was the unchartered part of our day. It ended up being uneventful and slow.

We went through some beautiful country. The river banks weren't very high and we could see longer distances. We didn't see anyone else on the river for miles and miles, though. Because of so many shallow areas, the only safe water vehicles are canoes and kayaks. It's very nice to paddle along relatively silently. We could sneak up on wildlife easier. We saw lots of Canadian geese, some mergansers and mallards, and one ring neck duck. We didn't see any great blue herons. I think I saw one kingfisher. We had an occasional fish jump near us. Again, we saw a lot of erosion. There was one very high bank on the right that had a major dirt and tree slide. There were campers up on the top of the bank right near the edge. The owners were very lucky that their campers didn't end up sliding down the sixty feet to the river.

Once in a while we hit some shallow areas that we scraped a little. And occasionally we found fast water and some trees tipped into the river. At this point, the river was wider, probably averaging forty to fifty feet across, and there were few blockages that we couldn't get around. But the nearer to shore we paddled, the more submerged logs we found, so we stayed in the deeper parts as much as we could. The maps we were using even showed which side of large islands we should go around on. We went through agricultural lands and very small towns.

Around 4:00 we met up with two men in a canoe and started talking to them. One man's name was Rick Shoemaker and I forget the other's name, but he was being shown the river and shown the art of canoing by Rick. Rick told us that he has canoed the complete 444 miles of the river and he directed us to some websites for more maps. We chatted and paddled for probably a half hour. We had decided to get off the river at the Windsor, NY boat access and he said it was about three to five miles ahead. That was good news because we were tired. I had developed a few blisters too. Our shoulders and upper arms were aching. Sue had hurt her lower back a few days before the weekend, and it was complaining very loudly to her. I called my husband and told him to meet us at Windsor in about an hour and a half. The canoe went ahead of us when we stopped to make the phone call. We caught up a while later and asked again how far it was to Windsor and he said it was just around the corner. He then slowed down and we passed him. Well, I think he was confused because we paddled until 6:30 and finally arrived at the boat access.

About 45 minutes before we got done, we came upon an extended family of Canadian geese along the right hand side of the river. I paddled away from that side, and as I was doing that, a very noisy and large adult goose chased me and honked nastily until he decided I wasn't a threat. Then he flew over me and back to shore. I thought he was going to attack me in the kayak. In the meantime Sue continued along the right hand edge by the rest of the family which consisted of three adults and eight to ten little ones. These geese were loudly swimming and running ahead of her. They probably kept that up for thirty yards until they finally headed inland. We were unwelcome intruders.

We again racked up ten hours in the kayaks. And I don't think we had gotten out of them for the last three hours. I had a time just getting upright and out of my kayak. I had to stand still for a bit before I dared try to walk. Rick and his friend arrived at the access a few minutes after us, and he figured we covered probably 38 miles in the ten hours. That's a pretty good rate!

Sue and I have decided, though, that in the future we will limit our paddling to 25 to 30 miles a day and we'll enjoy the river much more. Because of scheduling and such, we won't get back on the river until the weekend before July 4th, if then.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

May 21, 2007

May 21, 2007


Two days ago I began my Susquehanna River kayak adventure.

For the past twenty years I have enjoyed paddling canoes and kayaks occasionally on the Susquehanna River. In fact in the beginning my good friend Sue Sill and I twice entered an annual 13-mile canoe race that went from Mehoopany to Tunkhannock, PA. During that twenty years I thought about attempting to paddle the full 444 mile length of the Susquehanna River which begins at Lake Otsego in Cooperstown, New York and ends in Maryland at the Chesapeake Bay.

Last year Sue and I got to the point of planning the first segment of our adventure. The only way for us to complete the whole 444 miles would be to break it down into several weekends and holiday weekends since Sue works full time. We were going to spend the three days of Labor Day Weekend paddling from just downstream of the Ulster, Pennsylvania bridge to however far we got. We couldn't begin in Cooperstown because the river was closed to watercraft in the Binghamton area due to flood damage to a sewage treatment plant on the river.

In June of 2006 our area got hit badly with heavy rains that caused our creeks to go over their banks. That resulted in mud slides and culverts getting jammed with debris and corrupting roads. The flooding also caused some bridges over the Susquehanna River to get damaged. The repairwork of the bridges many times required paddlers to portage around them. The Ulster bridge was closed so we were going to start just below that point.

We had gathered dollies for portaging around dams, freeze dried meals for suppers, water filters so we could drink the river water instead of carrying lots of water. We would bring a tent, sleeping bags, changes of clothes, food, a backpacker stove, cell phones, hand held ham radios, etc. We had a “dry run” one night just before Labor Day weekend. We loaded the two 12 foot Pungo kayaks with everything we were taking and launched them to see if everything would fit and to see if we could still maneuver them in the water. We had some significant rains the two weeks before and the river was high—so high that the islands we planned to stay on overnight were just starting to show above water. So we cancelled the trip.

We got everything together again this spring and planned to start our adventure at Lake Otsego and hopefully cover 70 miles in two days—Saturday and Sunday, May 19 and 20. My husband Bill and his son Chris drove us up to Cooperstown Saturday morning. We live in northeast Pennsylvania, so the road trip was 2-1/2 hours. Sue and I launched at 9:45 am to the serenade of loons on the lake. It was overcast and 45 degrees. We had layered our clothing and put on rain jackets. The hats we wore had brims to keep the rain off our glasses. We were hoping to get below Goodyear Lake by the day's end which would have been over 30 miles.

The river is nothing more than a creek when it begins, and it had so many twists and turns. We encountered trees half hanging in the river and logs just under the surface. We also found places where trees fell in and debris built up behind them which made the river impassable. We had to pull over and climb out and drag the kayaks up the three or four foot bank and then carry or dolly them and put them back down the bank and into the river beyond the blockage. The edge of the river before the bank generally consists of clay-like silt that you sink into and then can't get your foot out of easily. We tried to find areas that weren't so mucky but were not very successful.

At 11:45 it started to rain.

At noon we found one blockage that had another blockage about ¼ mile after it, and we had to paddle back upstream just to find a place that we could haul the kayaks out and up the bank. We put the dollies on and pulled both kayaks ½ mile through an overgrown farm field that had brush, skunk cabbage and ruts. I found out that my back isn't strong and I fall apart with adversity. Sue did 80% of the pulling of the kayaks. We were out of the water 1-1/2 hours.

The rain never stopped and the temperature never improved. At around 3:00 two canoes passed us. They were practicing for the General Clinton Regatta which is a 70-mile canoe race held on Memorial Day from Cooperstown to Bainbridge. We asked how far Goodyear Lake was and they said 2 to 3 hours away. At that point we realized we hadn't gone very far. We got to the Milford Bridge and planned to go ashore under it and fire up the stove and have some hot tea to try to warm up. We thought we could be out of the rain for a little while. Sue's teeth were chattering. We were soaked. The river was deep right to the edge which made getting out of the kayaks impossible. Up the angled bank under the bridge was 20 feet of muck. So we stayed in the kayaks and studied the map and found out we had only gone 17 miles. And it was 4:15.

Our plan was to look for a place to pull over that didn't have muck where we could set up our tent. We had to get into dry clothes. We started paddling again and I thought I found a beach area we could go ashore. Sue got onshore first and plowed through the muck to firmer ground about 20 feet out. She looked for a place to camp. I got out of my kayak and sank to just below my knees in the sucking clay goo. When I tried to lift my right leg, my left leg went deeper. I couldn't move. I gave up the idea of trying to get ashore and spent ten minutes turning my feet 90 degrees to the left so I could sit down in the kayak and try to release my feet from the goo. Sue figured I couldn't throw the tent and dry clothes up to her so she got back into her kayak. At that point we decided to quit the trip. We didn't know if we would find a place to get ashore. We didn't know if we could get a fire started since it rained all day and was still raining. We didn't know if we would be able to get warm.

We looked at the map and found a boat access point about 6 miles downriver and decided that's where we would go. I called my house at 4:45 and got the answering machine. I called Bill's cell phone and Chris's cell phone and got recordings. Our original plan was to check in with Bill between 8:00 and 9:00 pm, so he didn't have any reason to be home before that. I left messages that we wanted to be picked up and I described where the boat access was on the map. Bill had copies of the maps we carried. He called me back at 5:10. He and Chris had just gotten home. They had gone from Cooperstown to Elmira to take glider rides. He was glad we were OK but wasn't happy about getting back in the truck for the 2-1/2 hour ride back to us. Our lifeline for the first day was too far away. It won't happen again.

We got to the boat access around 6:45. It was a state access in a reforestation area. It had nothing but a parking lot. We walked around a while and realized Bill wouldn't be there for at least another hour. Sue had brought a vinyl tarp with her, so we took it and our dry clothes up to the parking area. I draped one end of the tarp over a 5 foot high sign and held the other end up so Sue could strip out of her wet clothes and get into dry ones. Then she did the same for me. We couldn't put our rain jackets back on because they were soaked through. The rain was a steady, fine mist at that point We took everything out of the kayaks and brought it all up to where our wet clothes were. Then Sue fired up her stove and I had a cup of hot coffee from a coffee bag and she had raspberry tea. We had second cups and some string cheese. The dry clothes and shoes, and the hot drinks got us warm. We walked the half mile up the driveway to the road with a flashlight and phone and hand held ham radio to wait for Bill. He arrived about 8:15 and we loaded the truck and got home at 11:30 pm.

With everything that happened, we still had some very beautiful moments. We saw lots of birds in the trees overhanging the river, even some turkey vultures. There were mallards paddling along the edges along with sandpipers picking in the mud. We saw a field full of llamas. Cows walked up to a fence and watched us go by. Sue thought she saw a river otter. And about a mile from the end we saw a black bear scramble out of the river and up the bank.

We have a better plan for this coming weekend. The three of us will take our camper to a campground between Oneonta and Unadilla Thursday night and stay there till Sunday morning. Sue and I will start again at that boat access near Milford Friday morning and hopefully take out at a boat access 30 miles downstream Friday evening. Then we'll kayak as far as we can on Saturday. Sunday we'll go home because Bill has to work Memorial Day. The weather will be in the 60's and 70's with some scattered thunderstorms. But who cares? We have a dry camper close by.