A rainy past couple of days presented us with a grey cloudy morning in which to drive to our Delaware Water Gap (DWG or Gap) kayaking trip with the Hackensack River Canoe and Kayak Club (HRCKC). John Franzetti in the red canoe was our organizer and kudos to him for executing a perfect trip. The water was great, the weather was great and the people on the trip were all nice. I think this is what the HRCKC is all about and I am glad I found it.
Kathy and I so far in our recent journey have only paddled the Passaic and Rockaway Rivers. While we have both gone down the Delaware with work and friends in the not-so-recent past, this would be our first trip in our own kayaks. This time we were putting in south of where either of us has paddled before going through Delaware Water Gap and taking out in Belvidere, NJ. Seemed like a pretty long trip, 12 miles so I thought, but with the current of the Delaware pushing you along, it should be a joy to paddle.
Right on time, at 9:00 we arrived at the National Park Visitor’s Center rendezvous located at the last exit in NJ off of Route 80. Once there we found out we were going to caravan up 3-mile to the campgrounds at Worthington State Park. We spent 30 minutes schmoozing here using flush toilets, taking pictures before heading up to Worthington on Old Mill Road which parallels the Delaware. Kathy and I have camped at Worthington before and are familiar with the location.
At 9:40 we started to unload the boats at the Worthington boat ramp parking lot and then one person per car shuttled up to Belvidere. In Belvidere it was garage sale day and the whole town was for sale. There is no option to stop with a group like this especially considering the paddle was dominated by women who seemed to be especially ravenous at the thought of a town-wide garage sale. We found the take out point at the end of Front Street, filled up the parking lot and squeezed into 3 cars and shuttled back to Worthington State Park. We arrived back at Worthington at 11:15. Here we had one last chance to use a composting toilet and in the river we went at 11:30. The put in had a great concrete boat ramp and getting in for me was dry and smooth. I immediately unpacked the camera and camcorder and started taking shots.
One thing you notice when comparing the Delaware to the Rockaway and Passaic Rivers is the bigness of the Delaware. There is a lot of water flowing and the mountains, especially in and around the gap are big and you can see distances. The other rivers are dominated by personal woodlands on the banks and you are much closer to everything. In the Delaware you look far and wide. In addition, the Delaware is much deeper at points and the water seems much cleaner. We saw virtually no litter or pollution and the water was not muddy or murky at all.
With respect to wildlife, there was little to see and enjoy. Buzzards circling high over the cliffs were everywhere, a few geese, one heron, no fish, mammals, reptiles. There were some wild kids threatening life and limb jumping off a railroad trestle just before lunch.
Along the way it was mostly undeveloped, undevelopable land, but after leaving the Gap, more and more homes appeared along the shore. More so on the PA side. Many had developed their access to the river. There were a few private swim clubs and motor boats and jet-skis made their minor presence known in the river. It is amazing what the wake from a small boat does to the kayak. Pretty cool.
Speaking of which, this trip down the Delaware presented Kathy and I with the most turbulent waters we have yet faced. This also was pretty cool and exciting. In addition, compared to my vague memories of trips I took decades ago, the strong riffles/rapids we faced in this trip happened often, Not just once or twice over the course of the day. I would guess we had 12 or so episodes of rapids into riffles into waves which were something to deal with. At times the crests of the waves dwarfed our kayaks and when you hit one right, splash! It was more of a thrill than I expected and you got a lot of it. It’s time for Kathy to get her own bilge pump and it’s time for me to keep my bilge pump at the ready. In addition, we both need to get big automobile sponges to sop up the mess after you get soaked. To date all my camera protections and precautions have worked, but it maybe time to get a water-proof camcorder so I can relax a bit and enjoy the ride. It wasn’t too bad where I was paranoid so it was still worth the effort and risk. In closing with respect to the water and the movement of it, it was a lot of fun and I cannot wait to do it again. Hopefully the video shows some of the excitement.
Back to the itinerary. We spotted the Route 80 overpass around 12:00 and Route 80 for the next hour or made it’s presence know with its constant din and occasional odd sound of a truck doing something that sounds like it is killing its engine. At 12:09 I was under the Route 80 overpass making a left turn toward the Delaware Water Gap. There were many nice turns and new vistas presented in this trip and this left furn from Route 80 to the Gap was one of the best. Mount Tammany dominates the scene for a while but it is what the Gap is all about.
There were lots of overpasses to go under in this trip, Route 80 was one but there were several abandoned bridges and trestles along the way. As previously mentioned, we saw two crazy teenagers jump off one of them. One other was a cool stone multi-arch bridge. Unlike the the other rivers we have been on, bridge abutments didn’t poses and navigational challenges in the currents of this river and didn’t impact the flow to any appreciable degree.
At 12:30 we passed the launching area where we assembled at 9:00 in the morning. A few people got out to use the bathrooms so we just hung for a while with Mount Tammany and the Gap looming in the foreground. By 12:45 we were passing through the Gap directly under Mount Tammany as we say good bye to it and all its glory.
From this point on the river got deeper stronger and more exciting. We encounter more recreational uses of the river, more riffles and less scenery. It’s not that it was ugly, it just wasn’t as majestic as the gap.
We passed under the abandoned multi-arched bridge at 1:15. It has trees growing on it. and then went under a new looking pedestrian bridge at 1:20. There was another overpass, just past this pedestrian one and I think it is for rail, but I am not sure. Shortly thereafter at 1:35 we come upon a power plant in Pennsylvania, just about the only real industrial complex we found during the while trip. It had 2 large stacks and an effluent release that cascades off of a large concrete block.
At 1:50 we went under the abandoned railroad trestle where the kids were jumping of the bridge. I barely got a shot of one of them jumping and I think I got a video of one of the jumping. None of the footage is that good unfortunately. It is difficult to turn your body in a kayak to take pictures with 2 hands of subjects behind you. I’m glad I didn’t photograph anyone getting hurt as the two daredevils seemed to survive the encounter.
At 1:55 we were pulling over to the pebbly shore of New Jersey to eat lunch. In and out of the kayaks here was easy and eating and standing felt good. I had 2 PB&J sandwiches, Kathy had one, some honey-dew and back we went. At 2:30 we were getting back into the water. Now most of the fun would happen with several stretches of large riffles that randomly soaked a paddler that dared hit the crest of the wave wrong.
As we lagged toward the back of the pack we encountered a few forks in the river starting around 3:00pm that we took. The forks in the river were created by the presence of several large islands in the middle of the water. This provided some smaller channels to go through, which was a nice change of pace, but where the channels came together it usually resulted in some adventurous currents.
With respect to lagging behind, in our 12′ recreational kayaks, it seemed difficult to keep up with the rest of the pack as the day wore on. We paddled hard but it was tough to catch up to everyone else. The day was certainly characterized by a lot of paddling, non-stop for the most part, and there was a lot of arm and shoulder toning going on. It was amazing how effortless it seemed the canoes were in moving swiftly through the waters. By 4:15 I finally worked my way to the front of the armada so I could turn around and get some frontal photographs of the paddlers in the club. Most of these kayaker photos I posted in my Google Picasa Web Album which I shared with the club. You can get to it by using the link below or just enjoy the embedded slideshow.
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| 2009-06-06 Delaware Water Gap HRCKC Paddle |
At 4:25 we staged for landing at the Belvidere overpass into Pennsylvania. I spotted a few swans resting in a patch of vegetation but nothing too exciting. There was a boy scout troop at the take out point that crowded the area but they did help several of us get out of the boats and carry them up to the parking lot. John, help with mine.
At 4:30 I has out of the water and by 4:40 I already had one kayak on the car. We took Route 46 home, all the way, for a change of pace. We got home at 6:00 to feed and walk the dogs. Made a quick turn around unpacked, showered and off to visit Kathy’s brother Joe in Montclair for dinner. We got home after dinner and crashed good. We are now looking forward to having a little more fun on the Delaware River now that we know a little more about what is is all about.
Just a little more “diary of the mouth” from your humble narrator Larry.
This was our first adventure with the 
We arrived at the Jackson Avenue park in Rockaway Borough about 9:20 and there was no problem figuring out where to go. The lineup of a dozen cars with kayaks, canoes and boat racks gave us a strong indication we were in the right spot. We quickly parked, unloaded and staged our kayks for launching. It probably took another 30-45 minutes for everyone else to arrive and for Phil, our trip leader, to organize the shuttle to Tourne Park where we would park most of the cars, eventually shuttling on 3 cars to the Giffith Park take-out point. There is limited parking at Griffith Park and when our convoy rolled into the Tourne parking lot, it showed how this idea was a good one. We almost filled up the Tourne with our12-13 car convoy, which impressively fell into place as we automatically loaded the parking lot. On the way back to Rockaway, I was in the shuttle with Frank, Judy, Mark, Walter, Bob and the name of our driver who I forget. He had a canoe on his roof and seemed very experienced but he wasn’t going on the trip with us just shuttling members back and forth. This was very nice of him. We eventually saw him peering over the armada floating down the Rockaway at the start of the trip as he grabbed a view from the wrong side of a fence on the first bridge we went under.
Back to the beginning, so we started going down the river 11:10 and the group spread out quickly. Kathy and I were more toward the rear with a group of 10-12 for most of the first leg. I tend to lag as I take lots of photos and unfortunately, most of my pictures of the group are from behind. It’s usually the best side of most people anyway. Juts kidding. So I started snapping at 10:53 in the water, we took off downstream at 11:05 and started taking out for lunch at McCarter Park in Denville, at the Stewarts, at 12:02. Not a long first leg, but it is a great place to stop. Easy in-out, picnic benches, a Stewarts with a bathroom across the street. Almost like a drive through. Stewarts should serve people at the banks of the river in their boats like they serve people in their cars.
Going with the group meant most of any wildlife has fled by the time you reach where they were before the might armada upset their peaceful habitat. Geese and ducks were about all I saw.There is nothing thrilling about geese except they do stand still long enough to give you a nice photo-op. Kathy said we saw and I got a few shots of a cormorant, but I thought it was a goose. Maybe if someone knows, they can confirm it in as a comment.
