Weather: Overcast in the morning, sunny throughout the day, threatening showers late afternoon that never materialized. Hot. Rained on and off during the night.
Portages: 4 with a surprise 5th one in Plattsburg that we skipped by walking to the car instead.
#1: Kent Falls Dam, 2.0 miles
All wheelable. Long, but no traffic at the time of day we walked it. Very pretty gorge and old bridge marred by an overabundance of garbage--in firepits, out of firepits, in the bushes, in the water... By litter, we are talking bait containers, fast food wrappers, beer and energy drink cans, cigarette butts. All things that apparently magically disappear over time. Also graffiti, but I found that interesting...
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| Kent Falls Dam |
#2: Treadwell Mills Dam, 1.2 miles
Got off on a VERY busy road with little shoulder area to unload. Did not see any NFCT blazes on the road(s) that we were instructed to follow and which led to the yellow (cream to me) colored gate. It would have been reassuring to know we were following the right route by seeing those yellow diamonds. (Maybe we just missed them/it.) I'd describe the route as saying to go around the gate (vs. straight). Put in at the hydro plant was easy and the gravel road wheelable. Paddle under the interstate.
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| Second portage, put in and paddle under the interstate. |
#3: Indian Rapids Dam, .2 miles (felt much longer!)
Extremely weedy, buggy and tree-strewn path. Plan to carry and not wheel. Path was obvious but not maintained at all. Ran into a mountain biker, so maybe debris is more recent. The dam is NOT shown on the right location on the map. Comes up much faster, maybe only after 15 minutes or so of paddling. The ruined walls are obvious but there are NO booms blocking the main channel and NO warning signs that we saw. The hydraulics at the foot of the breached dam are dangerous. Stay to river right for signs of portage trail.
#4: Imperial Mills Dam, .2 miles IF you are brave enough to get close to the actual dam. We were not. There are NO booms in front of this dam, NO Warning Signs and NO Portage Carry signs (that we found) although the water seemed rather slow. I, of course, worried, we'd be sucked right over it. We inched our way on the left, staying in the reeds and got as close as I felt safe--which wasn't where the portage actually ended up being. Instead, we took out well before the dam, in a little bay where there is an obvious campsite or trail take-out. Makes the portage alot longer. We carried everything. Part of it probably could have been wheeled at the end, but was faster for us just to keep on walking it all the way.
#5: Plattsburg, just after the Class 2 ledges by Catherine St., unexpected.
Even though I had read trail updates, I neglected to realize there was one more portage due to construction. By then, we were pretty tired and the car within walking distance. Took out and found the car, coming back to load it up in preparation for the next leg.
Wildlife: Great horned owl just past Baker's Acres, a school of suckers by a spring, a grouping of six or more blue herons that we kept following just before hitting the Plattsburg area, deer, lots of ducks
We were back on the river by 7 am. First seven or so miles were flat, deep water. After portaging around the first dam, (the gorge itself and the old bridge was pretty, the litter, was not), the river became more scratchy in places, but still paddleable. The faster Class I-II water was fun for me in the stern, but concentrating on avoiding the rocks for six miles was tiring. I couldn't really look at anything else but the river.
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| Just past Baker's Acres, Duquette Rd. (bridge) |
We kept startling six or more great blue herons between Morrisonville and the Clinton airfield. Felt like we were paddling through the Triassic period with a flock of little pterosaurs.
After a lunch stop where there were some obviously-used camping spots adjacent to the Clinton airfield, and more litter including what appeared to be a burned mattress and clothing, we started the second portage of the day. Once off the busy road, the walk was fine. The other two portages where we carried, were definitely relationship-challenging. The river was still scratchy coming into Plattsburg, and we got out a lot to walk over shallow spots, particularly on the left side of the island. (May have missed the better channel to take.) Then we hit the ledges. They were a lot longer than I had anticipated and by the end of the day, fatiguing. There was junk in the river that we avoided (a mattress? a refrigerator door???), but the worst of it was that I nailed a jagged, protruding rock, or something, in this area. I heard it hit, and saw the ugly jagged rock top skirt around starboard, but we didn't know we had actually ripped a hole in the Kevlar until we were loading up the canoe back on the car a few hours later. The 2-3" L-shape puncture was just above or at waterline. We had been constantly getting in and out of the canoe up until that fifth portage and so seeing some water in the bottom wasn't unusual. Definitely did not notice any huge amounts of water pouring in.
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| Crap... |
We walked about 1 mile or so, to where our car had been left at the Green Street parking area, just below the surfing wave/Broad Street bridge, which we didn't paddle. Drove back to pick up the gear and that's when we saw the hole. Great. At least we were heading to Burlington and had a day to figure out what to do. Called St. Regis back in Saranac Lake for advice (by the way, these guys are great. Special shoutouts to Dave and Brian for their shuttling and route advice), who told us there was a canoe place in Burlington. After dinner (and beer) at the Naked Turtle, we decided to take the ferry over the same night, heading to Burlington where we could regroup at the Quality Inn where Sam was going to be staying the next night anyway for his flight back home.
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| On the ferry from Plattsburg to North Hero Island |
Note to thru-paddlers: With the portaging and faster water, we found this to be a very long day from Bakers Acres requiring a lot of focus at the end when you are most tired.
