Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Long Bridge on the Long River

Both Capt'n Dangerous (of Adirondack Pirate Paddlers) and I were struck by how long the covered bridge was at the start of our Connecticut River paddle yesterday.

We'd rendezvoused at Hoyt's Landing in Springfield, VT and then driven 17 miles north to Windsor where we drove across the bridge to Cornish, NH.  After entering the enclosed wooden structure it seemed strange to encounter vehicles going in the opposite direction (at the same time), as the structure struck me as a "one vehicle at a time" type.

Then this morning as I'm eating my porridge and glancing through the Boston Globe there's an article, "Granite State towns make comeback", written by Patricia Harris and David Lyon about the Claremont, NH area.  In the article they mention the Windsor-Cornish Bridge as being "the longest two-span wooden covered bridge in the world"...the same bridge we drove through and paddled under only yesterday.  According to the New Hampshire Dept. of Transportation, the 449 foot long, two-span bridge was originally built in 1866.  In the late 1970's, after being damaged by flooding, the bridge was closed to traffic until being rebuilt by the state in 1989 at a cost of more than 4 million dollars.  A look back from downstream...
I'd say it was money well spent.

With the covered bridge and nearby railroad bridge behind us, the Capt'n and I commenced exploring yet another section of the Connecticut River.  We started discovering the river back in 2007 by paddling the section which is part of the Northern Forest Canoe Trail (Bloomfield, VT down to Guildhall, VT).  After a gap of several years we resumed the project in 2012, and began using the Captain's copy of The Connecticut River Boating Guide: Source to Sea as a reference whenever planning exploits.  The guidebook is a product of the Connecticut River Watershed Association and writers John Sinton, Elizabeth Farnsworth, and Wendy Sinton.  It divides the 410 mile long river into 28 reaches and 4 geographic regions, and is a great resource for Connecticut River boaters. 
This trip brought our total reaches completed to 11.

Our starting point yesterday (just upriver of the Windsor-Cornish Bridge) is the approximate midway-point of the river. 

With yesterday being a weekday things were fairly quiet on the water.  This lone merganser enjoyed a reflective moment...

High up on sandbanks (New Hampshire side) are the nesting holes of swallows...

Just below the Route 12 bridge a short foray was made into the swift and shallow Sugar River before returning to the confluence.  The 3,150 foot Mount Ascutney looms to the NW...

The river had run pretty much straight in a north to south direction to this point and now began a long and scenic sweep around Barber Mountain...
 
Rustic cabins were nestled into the Vermont side while this cascading waterfall drew attention to the New Hampshire side...

This hawk or falcon flew ahead of us several times in this stretch...

Near the end of the sweep lies Jarvis Island where lunch was taken...

Back on the water below the island and just before the sharp bend at Ashley's Ferry, I thought how ideal this spot would be for an eagle...and there he was on the Vermont side...
In that regard the Connecticut River rarely disappoints these days.  We would see another further downriver.

Nearing the end of our journey the Cheshire Bridge seemed to appear at the last possible moment (photo from downstream side)...

The small amount of trash recovered (most from Jarvis Island) assembled hull-side at the well appointed Hoyt's Landing...

Following the post paddle shuttle, which included a second trip through the covered bridge, we each embarked on homeward journeys...he to the west and I to the east.  On my drive home on Route 12 near Keene, NH the sky commanded my attention with this sunset...
...perhaps one of the last good ones for this year's soon to end Daylight Savings Time.

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Sherman's to Lee's Bridges



Work left me close to Sherman's Bridge yesterday afternoon where I launched onto a breezy Sudbury River.  I headed downriver to Lee's Bridge and back, stopping to check out Pantry Brook's contribution to the river...


It being a weekday I had the river to myself...

I arrived a Lee's Bridge in short order thanks to the river's good current...



Trash was found here and there amidst the button bush...
...5138 to date.

Sunday, October 26, 2014

Assabet Rising

It was great to see much higher water levels from our first nor'easter of the season.  Some 2 to 4 inches of rain fell in the Assabet River's watershed over a 3 day period.  The small islet upstream of Crow Island, sometimes used by duck hunters, was smaller than usual (photo at left).

I launched early yesterday morning from Magazu's Landing in Stow and my main objective was seeing if the beaver dam below Gleasondale was still intact.  Reports of gunfire reminded me that duck hunting season is underway.  That meant wearing my orange hat, orange gloves, and emitting some loud whistling before paddling around sharp bends in the river.

The wooden structure that long-served as a duck blind at one of the river's sharpest bends is gone.  Looks like the storm delivered the coup de grace leaving only 2 boards...

Reaching the point below Gleasondale where the river is funneled through a narrow passage, the beaver dam was nowhere in sight...

 Upon closer inspection it appeared the dam remains but was completely submerged...

On the trip back downriver fall foliage was in short supply as a result of the storm...

The day's trash haul...

One bottle found floating near the mouth of Fort Meadow Brook was a square 'case gin' type bottle dating from the post prohibition days.  I'm left to marvel at how the recent storm created the necessary conditions for this bottle to rise up and float again.  Here it is after a little TLC...


Before heading out on the water, I'd read an interesting article in Saturday's Boston Globe by Thomas Farragher entitled "Bottle bill opponents overplayed their hand" in which Farragher refers to the No on Question 2 folks having used false and misleading data in their television ad campaign.  The article appears to have left the author believing the American Beverage Association and supermarket chains are going to be successful on Nov. 4th in preventing our bottle bill from being expanded to include non-carbonated beverages. 
I sure hope folks will think about how they were deceived (and I believe the deceit was deliberate) when they walk into the voting booth.  If the American Beverage Association and the supermarket chains get away with it and are successful, think of how this bodes for the future.  Those with deep pockets can use phony data within slick ads to convince voters of whatever they wish.  Maybe it's already too late as the worn-off letters on my TV remote's "mute" button would indicate.  

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Floating Blind on the Sudbury

Fair skies and recently risen water levels were what I found late yesterday afternoon when I launched into the Sudbury River at River Rd. in Wayland.  At the boat launch I encountered Dave and his dog just heading out in his well camouflaged floating duck blind (photo at left).  I was struck by the boat's low profile and pointed bow.  Dave said it could be sculled and that he was working on developing his sculling technique.  Woodies and teal were his objective.  He went downriver while I went up.  With this year's duck hunting season now underway, I make it a point to wear my blaze orange hat and gloves.

The late afternoon sun was blinding when looking west but provided a backlit effect to the east...
 
After passing under Route 20 I went to the right to where a large culvert used to bring Wash Brook under the long abandoned Central Mass Railroad...

Beavers were allowing only a trickle of the brook's flow to pass through the culvert resulting in most of it entering the river just above the wooden trestle...
Back in the days when the railroad was operating this diversion would not have been tolerated.

Below the Pelham Island Rd. bridge I encountered what, most likely, were the guts of a deer that had been field-dressed earlier. Archery hunting season for deer had begun that morning.

On my return to the boat launch this lone tree served as a reminder of our approaching "stick time"...
I believe it was TV meteorologist Eric Fisher who recently used that term to describe the time after the trees have shed their leaves.

Some trash found along the way...

Sunday, October 19, 2014

Headin' South on the Connecticut


With a goal of paddling the lower 18 miles of the Connecticut River in Massachusetts, Capt'n Dangerous of Adirondack Pirate Paddlers and I rendezvoused at the Donald W. Barnes Boat Launch in Thompsonville, CT yesterday morning.

Having seen many boat ramps, we were both impressed by this one...good signage, ample parking, paved ramp, clean, containers for trash, a port-a-potty...and the sun was out.

However, after leaving one vehicle there, we drove north to South Hadley Falls, MA where we launched from the Perjovski State Ramp which had little to nothing in the way of amenities, or sunshine.  The ramp is a little downriver from the Holyoke Dam...

We then launched and began our downriver passage under uncertain skies...a little rain, a little sun.  Fortunately air temperatures were in the 60's. 

Numerous old mills such as Riverside Paper pictured below line the banks between the river and the Holyoke canal system running parallel to it...

Jones Ferry was busy with both paddlers and rowers getting out on the river...

Eagle nests were both above and below the river's confluence with the Chicopee River.  At both, eagles were noted to be nearby.  The one above the Chicopee...
...and the one below...
Both were on the west shore of the Connecticut.

Next we approached the Connecticut River's largest city, Springfield...
 
 
Past the Boston and Albany railroad bridge lies the city's distinctive Memorial Bridge...
 
 
Downstream of Springfield we reached Pynchon Point at the river's confluence with the Westfield River.  It was a good spot to take a lunch break before exploring the lower mile or so of the Westfield River (aka Agawam or Woronoco River).  Pynchon Point and the park there are named for William Pynchon who is credited with founding Springfield in 1636.  Pynchon has the distinction of having written the first book banned and burned in North America, and you probably guessed correctly that the banning and burning happened in Boston.  Pynchon's book offered his own thoughts on matters of religion.   Oddly enough the burning of his book took place on October 17, 1650 and we were enjoying lunch at a park named in his honor on October 18, 2014.  He ultimately returned to England rather than denounce his own writings.  Only a handful of copies of his book The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption exist today. 
 
I'm inclined to think Pynchon would have supported expanding our Bottle Bill, especially after  the lion's share of today's trash was recovered from behind a partially submerged tree in the middle of the Westfield River within sight of the point named for him...
Just a few miles further downriver in the State of Connecticut most of these containers would be candidates for redemption.
 
Before exiting the Westfield River the sun nicely illuminated the confluence area in a view looking to the east...
 
Once back on the Connecticut we resumed heading downriver, stopping briefly on Willy's Island, where a few rumbles of thunder were heard and ominous dark clouds approached from the west...
 
 
Just as we came alongside Six Flags amusement park the skies let loose with pelting rain...thus no photos of Six Flags. 
 
We were welcomed into the State of Connecticut by this eagle...
 ...standing watch just upriver from our takeout at the Donald W. Barnes Boat Launch where our day had started.
 
  


Friday, October 17, 2014

Still on the Fence Regarding the Bottle Bill?



...if so, please consider the above batch of litter collected along a 7-mile section of bike trail today.  It is typical of what's seen along both the aquatic and terrestrial trails I frequent, and reflects the change in beverage choices that's occurred since 1983 when our Bottle Bill went into effect.  It seems everyone these days is out and about with their beverage of choice in one hand and their mobile device in the other.

The beverage industry and several grocery store chains in Massachusetts have spent more than one hundred and sixty million nickels to keep litter (such as that pictured on the top fence rail above) from having a modest monetary value of 5-cents.  That's more than 8 million dollars spent on "slick Willy" television ads in an attempt to convince Massachusetts voters to vote no on Question 2 in the upcoming election.  When the ads were recently exposed for gross misrepresentations, such as the claim that 90 % of Massachusetts residents have access to curbside recycling, they decided (like many fibbers) to tell an even bigger whopper, now claiming that it's "more than 90%".

In all their ads they completely ignore the 800 pound gorilla standing right in front of them: the simple fact that in Massachusetts 80% of containers having a nickel value are recycled, whereas only 23% of containers with no value are. 

If they are successful and we allow them to fool us, millions of littered empty containers, like the ones pictured, will remain just worthless pieces of trash.  As such, a good many will end up in our environment and will someday return to us in the air we breathe, water we drink, and food we ingest.
 
On the other hand, we could vote yes on Question 2 giving these containers the small monetary value of one nickel.  That nickel provides a little incentive for the purchaser to redeem it rather than throw it away.  If, however (and this is the best part), the original purchaser does throw it away, there is a small monetary incentive for some one else to stoop down and pick it up.   I'm old enough to remember, back in 1983, just how fast empty beer and soda cans disappeared from our roadsides.  It was truly amazing and was one of the few programs I've ever seen that lived up to its promise.

Grocery chains such as Stop and Shop, Big Y, C & S Wholesale Grocers, and Roche Bros are spending lots of  their nickels (that, I suspect, originated from their customers' pockets) to prevent our 1983 edition Bottle Bill from doing what it was designed to do best: get these containers recycled!  Does anyone seriously think the Vote No on Question 2 folks give a hoot about what happens to the containers once they've left their stores?  Do they mention our "on the run" culture in their ads?  Do they offer any solutions for the ever increasing litter problem our cities and towns have to deal with?  Do they mention how Maine, Connecticut, and New York have all successfully expanded their bottle bills?      

Remember the grocery chain with the fiercely loyal employees that we heard so much about over the summer?  I can't help but notice that they're not listed with the No on Question 2 movement.  For some reason, Market Basket and also Shaw's decided not to associate their good names with the No on Question 2 campaign. That's good enough reason for me to place Market Basket and Shaw's at the top of my list when purchasing groceries in the future.

So, on November 4th, please help keep tons of plastic litter out of our environment and vote yes on Question 2.        

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Poking Around the Upper Concord

A morning job at an ice cube plant finished up in time for me to enjoy some of this afternoon's summer-like temperatures on the Concord River.  There were a few others lucky enough to be out on the river.  One was Jane, who only recently began paddling and commented on the river seeming like another world.

With the continued dry conditions, water was being borrowed from the river by US Fish and Wildlife possibly to sustain the marsh ponds at Great Meadows...
 
 
Significant rain is forecast for tomorrow.
 
Trash recovered today ran the gamut.  There was this odd couple...
 
 
...and this visitor from down south...
 
 
...an old time beer bottle from the early days of "No Deposit, No Return"...
 
 
...and this possible 'bottle of the future'...
 
 
They mingled on the beach...
 
 
It may be a while before we experience warm conditions like we had today.