October 21, 2007
On the Schuylkill
Valley Forge
(shot with Sony DSC-S85)(view other photo essays)
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Every weekend I think will be the last. But here it is almost
Halloween and it's still in the 70s. Some nice heavy rain
on Thursday meant more water to fill the creeks and rivers. I decided to see how far upstream from the Valley Forge boat ramp I could go. From the map, it appeared to be almost 8 miles of uninterrupted river to the Black Rock dam near Phoenixville. |
This view describes my course.
And this view shows a simplified map.
As it happens, I encountered a brace of Class I whitewater rapids
that turned me back about two-thirds of the way to Perkiomen creek.
Valley Forge is a popular kayaking destination. These people
were packing up as I arrived.
The women I had spoken to the previous week had seemed
skeptical about going upstream. They thought it too shallow
and preferred the deeper waters downstream.
I figured: I can always go that way another time.
Here's my boat - the orange Tsunami - almost ready to depart.
As it happened, I had climbed aboard and nearly pushed off
before realizing I had left my paddle in the car. D'oh!
There's a good-sized island immediately upstream of the boat launch.
Since I had put out across the river, I kept to my course and paddled
past the island on the south side (river-right).
This turned out to be the shallow side and my paddle was scraping stones
for most of the first 20 minutes. You are looking at the way
I should have gone.
Unlike the lower Schuylkill in the city, with its bridges and
statuary along the banks, this stretch of the river is mostly plain
and featureless.
Paddling upstream is not necessarily hard. It takes some effort;
but the frustrating thing is you can't stop paddling to take a picture.
As soon as you stop, the current catched the bow of your boat and starts
to turn it one way or the other.
Most of what was interesting was found on the riverbanks.
Here, a pair of equestrians ride past.
I passed this pair of paddlers coming downstream
and asked their guidance away from the shallows.
Stay to that side, they said, meaning river-left,
but I found that to be exactly opposite, as I went farther upstream.
At one point I just got tired of fighting the current, salmonlike,
and pitched my anchor over the side. I rested for a bit and munched
a few handfulls of peanuts (you can see the anchor line here).
There wasn't a lot of wildlife in evidence. Some big haws up in the sky.
Here, I saw a heron near the mouth of Valley creek.
Either he was extremely domesticated, or he knew the rocks and current
would keep me away, but the heron didn't flinch as I drew very close.
Valley creek is a nice little freshet that runs through the national park
at Valley Forge. If you drive route 23 through the park, you have crossed
Valley creek. Presumably, colonial soldiers used it for drinking water
and bathing. This rather impressive concrete arch supports a freight
rail line.
As the river changes elevation, and the contours of its bed vary,
you can see a change in the patterns of flow across the surface.
Or sometimes it was just blooms of vegetation.
Finally, though, I met up with a ridge of rocks and
no clear way up and through them.
These fishermen had set up just beneath the rapids.
Maybe they knew something I didn't; I hadn't seen much evidence
of fish life in the whole paddle upstream. Later, I did see one
splash that had to be a fish jumping at a flying insect.
To the right of this picture (river-left) it might have
been possible to bull my way up the rapids. In retrospect, though
I should have just taken out on the shallow gravel (see next picture) and
portaged around the rocks. It was only about 10 yards.
This young family were able to carry on a normal-volume conversation
with the fishermen in their boat.
I was pretty tired, though, from fighting the current.
So, I turned around and headed back downstream.
Considering how much work it had been to pull myself upstream
for almost 2 hours, I thought I might just sit back and
let the current carry me back down. Now, however, the river seemed
to be running much slower.
This time past Valley creek, I was in a better position to
approach its mouth. I saw no sign of the heron.
Still too shallow to enter, I pulled back and moved on.
More of those surface riffles. In this area, the deep side
is on the left (river-left now, as I head downstream).
Up around the bend, it would change, and the shallows
would be on the left.
Here's a rare bit of wildlife. Two ducks sharing a
branch with two turtles.
Nearby I observed this obviously man-made relic.
Traveling in comfort, I brought my lunch, some tea,
and snacks in a waterproof deck bag and a water bottle
always in easy reach.
Nearly back to my starting point, this is part of the view
from the northern passage around the island.
The middle of the afternoon seems to be a time that
the birds in Valley Forge take siesta.
A trip from the Valley Forge boat launch downstream
looks to be more populous. At least, there's sign of
residential development. Probably there will be more boats.
Motor boats.
This bridge is where Rte. 422 crosses the river.
Here, the Tsunami is all packed and ready to go home.
A trip downstream from Valley Forge will have to wait
for another day. This year? We'll see.
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