| |
August 26, 2002 |
|
East Branch Delaware Canoeing
|
Almost every day something else reminds us why it is that we love living in the mountains. Lately, the very hot, humid days of middle summer have reminded us that the mountains are a much cooler (perhaps in both senses of the word) place than the Hudson Valley, and we are surrounded by numerous streams and a few nice lakes to cool off in. We forget how spoiled we are to have these places to take a dip, until we travel out of the mountains on a hot weekend and have a hard time finding an inviting swimming hole. Witness the hordes of folks who have flocked to Phoenicia for tubing during these past few hot weeks.
Our most recent adventure was also a great chance to get out onto one of our beautiful local rivers, to float along in a canoe and cool off during the peak of summer. This excursion on the East Branch Delaware River was a group outing that we planned and hosted for The Catskill Center as part of its year-round event calendar. The turnout was fantastic - we had over 30 people meet at Al's Sports Store in Downsville, about half of which had their own canoes, and the other half rented canoes or kayaks from Al Carpenter Jr. (Catskill Center members got a discount). Trying to organize that many people, getting the rental paperwork done, and maneuvering many cars around so that there were vehicles at the take-out point, all lead to great potential for mass chaos and confusion, but things actually went pretty smoothly and we soon had vehicles in the right spots and people suiting up in their life jackets.
We put our canoes in the river across the road from Al's Sports Store, right near the Rt. 30/Rt. 206 bridge in Downsville, and our end point was six miles downstream in Shinhopple. The East Branch Delaware River is arguably the coldest river in the Catskills in mid-summer (the Neversink River may also achieve that claim). This is because very cold water from the bottom depths of the Pepacton Reservoir is released by NY City out of the dam and into the river. The water temperature where we started in Downsville was an unbelievably frigid 39 degrees! Obviously this temperature is too cold to swim in, or even stand in up to your shins for more than a minute or so, but it cooled the air along the river which felt great as we floated along.
The amount of water released by the City into the river is much less on the East Branch Delaware than it is at the Esopus Portal. This is because water released into the Delaware tailwater rivers is thereby lost from the City's water supply system, whereas water released from the Portal into the Esopus is being transferred between two reservoirs. On the day we floated the river, which was a typical hot summer day, the release from the reservoir was between 120 and 130 cubic feet per second (cfs) - this flow makes for a nice and easy float trip with no real white-water to speak of. There were many long slow pools connected by a few quick riffles. There were shallow spots where we did scrape bottom and had to get out and quickly ease the canoes into deeper water before our feet froze. The ideal flow for this river would have been between 180 and 200 cfs.
The trip was very enjoyable. We floated beneath the beautiful Downsville covered bridge, and people stopped to eat their lunches at a variety of beautiful spots along the banks. The wildlife we saw included a great blue heron, a hawk, the biggest bull frog that any of us had ever seen, and a school of shad in the deep pool just upstream of the bridge in Corbett. By the time we reached Shinhopple, after about three and a half hours on the river, the water temp was up to 56 degrees, so yes, we even got to take a swim.
- Chris and Aaron
|
|
