Yesterday, approaching mid-day, this trash paddler was joined by two friends from the Lake George region of the Empire State. Under bright sunny skies, Paul, Ellen, and I launched our kayaks near Egg Rock and began paddling against the steady current of the Assabet River. Soon after we commenced our trip upriver, the sunshine abandoned us to a cold grey overcast. Water levels had risen several inches since my last visit on Monday. The rise in water level resulted in a fresh crop of flotsam and it didn't take long for us to decorate our decks with empty water, wine, beer, and soda bottles.
A little ways past the remnants of the Reformatory Branch railroad bridge, we came upon three does foraging along the river's east bank. They seemed quite indifferent to our presence as were the Muscovite ducks we encountered between there and Rt. 2.
After passing under a busy Rt. 2 we stopped for a break in the small backwater on the left bank. Leaving the river's main channel required some minor ice breaking in order to reach the shore. Since the promised sunshine was not in the cards, we decided to turn around here and head back downstream, after storing collected trash below deck.
The trip downriver was much quicker and soon with some additional trash on our decks, we were looking at Egg Rock once again. Before calling it a day, we decided to head down the upper Concord River and pass under the Old North Bridge. The grounds around the bridge were fairly busy with a good number of tourists, despite the cold and grey conditions. Traveling downstream a little farther allowed us to check on the status of the Flint's Bridge construction progress. Not too much progress in evidence. Here we turned back into the current and paddled back to our launch site, arriving with 34 empty containers (21 were recyclable). YTD total= 2374
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