Monday, May 26, 2008

May 26, 2008

May 26, 2008 – Memorial Day

Sue and I slept in. We got up about 7:30. The night before was comfortably cool and our neighbors were quiet by 11:00 pm last night. We ate cold cereal and hot chocolate for breakfast, then packed up everything and organized our kayaks and pushed off by 9:20. There was light headwind immediately. The ten miles to Danville were uneventful. The water was easy. There were occasional boulders. Once in a while we encountered a shelf that would run almost all the way across the river. Usually there was a good area to get thru along one edge or the other of the river.

We took a short break of about ten minutes, so by 12:30 we were on our way again. It was 11 miles to Shikellamy State Park in Sunbury. The headwind picked up substantially and slowed us down. The last 7 miles were very difficult. If we paused just to rip open a Slim Jim or to take a drink of water, we lost ground. Then it took such effort to get the momentum back and start moving forward again. As we got to within 4 miles of Sunbury the wind became so strong that we had sets of two foot waves rolling toward us. Some would catch us with the kayak nose down. Thank goodness we had the skirts on the kayaks. Sue did get one wave that went beyond the skirt and hit her, but she didn't take very much water. I think maybe the rear of my kayak was a little heavier because I had my sleeping bag and pad in the stow compartment there and I had the tent and tarp in a dry bag held with straps on top of the compartment area. I didn't nose into the waves quite as deeply as Sue did. The waves didn't ever get to the end of my skirt.

Shikellamy State Park is on the downriver end of an island that's about 1-1/2 miles long. It is almost in the middle of the Susquehanna. We were going to get out of the river on the right side of the island. Once we got past the beginning of the island, the waves weren't as bad. The water was just choppy. The wind seemed less there also. We still got some big waves but they were from boats.

We landed at the boat access at 4:30. It was the most physically exhausting day we have had yet. When we slid up on the ramp, my kayak was getting pounded with the choppy water hitting the downriver side. I was pretty wet by the time I got out and pulled the kayak up higher on the ramp. Then Sue's kayak got hit with the stuff my kayak protected hers from. She got out a little wet. Bill arrived within 5 minutes of my calling him on the cell phone. That was great!! Our arms and shoulders were aching. Once we got loaded into and onto the Jeep Liberty, our first stop was for hamburgers, fries, and a large drink.

Our continuation down the river will start June 7th. On the night of the 6th we will leave Forkston with Bill, his big truck, our camper, and our new Australian Shepherd puppy Jasper. We will go to the Riverboat Campground in Liverpool and stay a few days there while Sue and I paddle about 60 miles, and then we'll move south with the camper to a campground about 30 miles from Havre de Grace, Maryland.

Saturday, May 24, 2008

May 25, 2008

Bill drove Sue and I from Forkston to the Union Access. We launched at 8:25 with mid 40's temperature and a clear blue sky. We immediately encountered headwind that stayed with us all day in varying strengths. We averaged about 3-1/2 miles an hour today compared to yesterday which was close to 4-1/2 miles an hour with stops for lunch and breaks. Also today we were packed to stay overnight in Bloomsburg, so each of us probably carried an additional thirty pounds.

Soon after we passed Shickshinny, we noticed on river left a young antlerless deer starting to swim across the river which at that point is probably a quarter mile wide. The only part of the deer out of the water was the head. The deer got about a third of the way across, looked upriver and saw us coming, and turned around to head for shore. We were surprised to see it attempting to cross such a wide river. He came ashore and clambered up a steep treed embankment and was gone.

At Shickshinny we saw two plumes of steam rising from the Berwick power plant. We paddled on and on and on and finally got even with the plant. A large amount of power lines crossed above us. About a half mile further downriver, four or five humming high voltage lines crossed above us. If we had a fluorescent tube with us, it would have glowed.


There was a long section of quiet water with light headwinds. The area was rural. As we got closed to Nescopeck Falls, we went over several shelves that stretched just about all the way across the river. In Nescopeck there is a bridge that has “Nescopeck Falls” directly under it. We were warned that if the water level at Bloomsburg was less than two feet, it would be very hazardous. In the morning the river gauge showed 3.05 feet, so we ventured forth. We were told by Dave Buck of EMO to stay to the extreme river right immediately after passing the last island before the bridge. Our map directed us to paddle left of that island. So it turned out to be a difficult sprint in heavy current to get us very right before the bridge. As we went under the bridge we had to maneuver between the far right bridge support and numerous boulders just right of that support. We squeaked through and then paddled through more boulders and more current. We were glad to get that behind us because the rest of the trip, including Monday, should be in quiet safe water.

We then ate lunch at a very busy boat access called Test Track Access. We have no idea why it's called that. We then paddled along fighting more headwind.

At around 3:30 we spotted an access with a bathroom and we landed. We met a couple with an adult daughter who had just gotten off the river with their kayaks. We exchanged stories of river adventures for probably a half hour. It was a nice break.

We arrived at Indian Head Campground at 5:10 pm. Another 28 miles done. We set up camp, cleaned up, had dinner, wrote in the journal, and went to sleep.



Friday, May 23, 2008

May 24, 2008

We're back at it!

Started at Harding Appletree Boat Access at 7:50 am. It's downriver from Falls. My husband Bill dropped us off and the plan is for him to pick us up at Union Access just upriver from Shickshinny. At the start the temperature was about 43 degrees and the sky was relatively clear. It was our first time in the kayaks this year. The river is flowing nicely and the trip is 28 miles long. We paddled five miles in the first hour; it was the fastest time we had experienced yet. We had a tailwind probably 75% of the time.

After about two hours the Lackawanna River emptied into the Susquehanna on river left in the Pittston area. We have heard some people refer to the Lackawanna as the dead river. We can understand! The Susquehanna riverbank on the left side was orange—it stained the rocks, fallen trees, anything along the river's edge. This orange went on for miles, for hours. We believe the orange color is from the two rivers infiltrating coal mines. We passed a rusty, old, we think railroad coal car, on river left. It looked like it might mark the spot of the Knox Mine Disaster. In 1959 the Knox Mine extended under the river. A support column of coal was removed and caused the Susquehanna to pour through the weakened “roof”, flooding the mine and killing a number of men. There was a vortex in the middle of the river—vortex meaning an enormous whirlpool of water filling the mine. To stop the flooding, the rail company and the mine company dumped hundreds of rail cars into the vortex in an effort to stop the flooding. The train cars might have slowed the mine flooding down, but that procedure did not stop it. Finally the mine filled totally, causing the closing of many mine operations.

We passed lots of levees from Pittston through Wilkes Barre. There were many bridges we went under that helped us gear our speed. The maps for the upper section of the Susquehanna River are excellent. They are only about a year old, and we got them from David Buck of Endless Mountains Outfitters in Sugar Run which is in Bradford County.

We stopped in Nesbitt Park in Wilkes Barre for lunch. After lunch the scenery was pretty rural. Hills and trees. We saw Canadian geese, a turtle, a mallard duck family, a merganser duck, a couple Great Blue herons, and an immature eagle.

The only exciting water was the Nanticoke Rapids. We were proceeding well until we encountered a string of low waves heading for us. I nosed into the third wave because of poor timing. Water went over the bow of my kayak but it only got to the end of the water skirt. I stayed dry and continued through the rest of the rapids. Sue, on the other hand, wasn't so lucky. When her kayak nosed into a wave, it broke across the bow and across her water skirt, and hit her in the chest. She didn't panic—just continued through the rapids. Her kayak took on about three inches of water from that one wave. She sat in water for the next two hours until we reached an access. Then she used our hand bilge pump and had it emptied in one minute. Why didn't we use the pump right after the rapids? We could have easily emptied the water on the spot. We won't do that again—hopefully.

We arrived at the Union Access at 3:05 pm—wonderful time for those 28 miles. Bill showed up at 3:30 and we headed home. Over the day the temperature rose to about 62 and the day stayed dry and relatively clear.