Kayakthesusquehanna

I drove down from my home in Mass on Monday the 17th of June, and that night I stayed at my brother's cabin in New Albany PA. My brother Tom was already there when I arrived and he offered to take me to the river the next day. We made a plan for the next morning to drive to Wilkes-Barre (to the Hanover Township river access ) where I would leave my car, and then he would drive me and the boat on his truck to the Apple Tree river access in Harding PA; where I had ended my last paddle in October of 2018.

The weather report that I had seen for the area called for 40% chance of rain. But, I had decided that I would paddle that day rain or shine. Paddling in the rain is a challenge. Its difficult to stay dry even when wearing rain gear; camera lens gets fogged up; its difficult to use a phone and camera charger for fear of introducing moisture into the wiring. But, I try to be philosophical about it. I view this river adventure of mine as a kind of metaphor for life. As we journey thru life we don't know what challenge we will meet. The only thing we can do is to handle as best we can whatever life throws at us.

That 40% chance turned into 100% of heavy rain. It rained all night and when we left the cabin to make the 1.5 hour drive that morning it was still raining and rained the whole time we drove.

When we arrived at the Hanover Township river access we found the gate closed. My plan was to leave my car in the parking lot, but now I had a decision to make. I could figure out some other exit point where I could leave my car, or just park it in the street. The next exit point that I knew of was about 6 miles down river. But, I did not know what to expect there because I had not explored the area by car. Also, it was starting to get late in the morning and I did not want to add another 6 miles to my paddle. I decided to park in the street, but I was not happy about it because it was a fairly high density area and did not know if it was ok to park there. But I did not see any "no parking" signs so I left the car in the street and hopped in my brother's truck for the ride to Harding.

It was still raining when my brother dropped me off at the Apple Tree river access in Harding. I put my life jacket over my rain jacket and then a poncho over that. I got in the water at 10:54

A couple of minutes later it stopped raining. I kept the rain jacket and poncho on thinking that it would start raining again, but after a while I decided that it had stopped for good. I took off the poncho and I would have left the rain jacket on under my life jacket if it had been cooler. But it was muggy and I was starting to get hot so I decided to take it off. I had to take off my life jacket in order to take off the rain jacket. So, I pulled over to the side and did it in a little sheltered cove away from the current.

And this is why you don't want to miss it. (check out the orange streak entering the Susquehanna from the Lackawanna). This may be the most dramatic orange streak, but not that unusual in coal country. This particular one is commonly referred to as the Old Forge Borehole. In 1962 a mining company drilled the borehole to alleviate a drainage issue in the mine not realizing that the water to be released into the Lackawanna would be coming thru an Iron Oxide deposit that would turn it orange. There is a plan underway to pipe the water up to a treatment tower where the iron oxide would be removed and the clean water allowed to flow back into the Lackawanna and eventually into the Susquehanna. The orange streak has been flowing into the Susquehanna for almost 50 years. I wonder how long it will be before the plan is put into action.

The Lackawanna is a beautiful river upstream from the borehole. But, downstream from it the river is all but dead. This disaster, more than anything else I have observed brings home the importance of proper industry regulations. At the time of the incident companies could do just about anything they wanted. I am hopeful that this is a reminder to my readers that we rollback regulations at our peril.

I could see that at the top of the berm was some kind of public information boards and I was going to check them out. But a man was passing by on the walkway above and we started a conversation. His name is Joe and he gave me a lot of good info on the area. He told me about the 1972 hurricane and explained that the berms were erected to keep that kind of disaster from happening again. He also told me that the monument above was erected not for the hurricane but for another disaster that happened on July 3, 1778; The battle of Wyoming. Also known as the Wyoming massacre. I'll write about it when I do the history section.

I wished I had more time to talk to Joe, but we exchanged phone numbers and I text him once I complete the trip. Perhaps some day we can get a cup of coffee and have another chat.