Chapter 133

8/20/2006

Whitewater Adventure

Canoeing the Raquette River

Leading the sedate retirement life this week, I had no adventures so I harkened back to July 1975 in my whitewater guide/ explorer phase when six of us government worker stiffs from Albany, Watertown and Utica offices met for a (fading) memorable 12 mile trip down the Raquette River in the Adirondack Mts. We launched at the Tupper Lake outlet on Rte 3 in Piercefield for what turned out to become circumstances beyond our control.

Here Luman Rockhill, Engineering Technician from DEC (retired to Zepher Hills, FL) and Jack Hasse, Fisheries Biologist navigate the rapids employing the resourceful J-stroke. I coordinated with Lou on field water quality sampling and permit issues while he was in our Watertown Region #6 Office.

I had managed to take some good shots with my cheap Japanese Petri Camera (thanks to Pete France from Osaka). With digital editing, I was able to greatly enhance (especially the low light shots) from this 10 original slide set that I scanned.

John Kenna, DEC Watertown engineer (ret) always ready for an adventure brought his canoe and was my partner.

We decided not to shoot these rapids/falls but portage around them. Woulda been fun though. Note the pants timestamp the photo to between the Woodstock and Saturday Nite Fever eras.

Jim Davey and Dave Prosser still at Air Resources Watertown made up the third boat.

Further research on Ch 130C led me to determine that it is lawful in NYS to portage on private property (banks and bed) on a navigable stream when strictly incidental to the right to navigate.  The following web site produced by some of DEC's prior top environmental lawyers gives the most authoritative statement on public navigation rights   I'm waiting to run across Judge Cipatrick at the Court of Appeals to ask her about that landmark Moose River decision.

This stretch of the Raquette is classified variable from II-V by the authoritative  American Whitewater . We certainly only did the mild stuff.

Our water journey came to a turbulent rapid end in what I believe were the Moosehead Rapids. Think we had been successful in the Sol Rapids, Burnt Island Rapids, Hedgehog Rapids and had not gone down as far as the Jamestown Falls or Moody Falls (20 ft drop) at the head of Carry Falls Reservoir the intended take-out point.

John and I got thru OK then had to rescue the other guys as their canoes dumped bodies, coolers, fishing poles and other gear down the river. A man's got to learn to read the river. NOTE: do not put your body downstream of a sunken canoe against a boulder. The deceptive force of water can pin and crush you. I believe Lou suffered a small ankle injury beneath the re-formed Grumman. It can now be revealed that the other guys had "borrowed" the other 2 canoes from the State wildlife biologists. They told the biologists they put a couple scrapes in their canoe so they were pretty upset when they went to use it the following Monday.

A hasty unplanned bivouac was arranged for at streamside. It was getting dark, we were all wet, and Lou's leg was not up for hoofing it out.

Not all of the gear was salvaged but we did save the steaks and potatoes for a hardy meal as we tried to dry off twirling socks by the fire in background.

I see we also had wine to soothe the nerves. Now, I can remember it was a delicious Burgundy. Can't remember the stories spun but you can imagine. Not sure if we had tents, seems like we slept under the stars and with the mosquitoes.

I can still smell the wood fire and hear the bacon sizzle. This was a great breakfast the next morning. It seems there is always one good cook amongst any group of guys. Lou was great, and took over even with a bum leg. This was my favorite shot.

Coffee and wet socks drying over a fire, still - what could be better. Getting ready to hike a few miles out some old jeep trail thru the woods and hitch to retrieve our cars ('69 Chevelle era).

Such a nice memory to have and with pictures to go along with it.