Hudson River Paddler

10/26/09

With Dorothy dropping me off at Annsville Creek the started off a leisurely 9am.  What a change from the leef peeper traffic mayhem of the day before. 

Today I was skipping bringing the tent, sleeping bag, 4 liters of water (still had 5 aboard), the pantry and kitchen sink all stayed in the car.  Figuring out how this redistributes in the kayak took some fiddling and was getting fed up with gear or my coffee content was getting low.

Once I finally shoved off the day promised to be another picture perfect Fall day.  Once out of Annsville Creek and into Peekskill Bay I was able to see the Bear Mountain Bridge to the North as I was crossing over to the West Bank.

Bear Mtn. Bridge from Peekskill Bay

I knew I only had three hours of ebbing tide working in my favor but also didn’t want to burn myself out so yes Neil, I was keeping a Touring pace. 

The area of the river past Indian Point is not one of my favorites as it very industrialized and today stunk of sulfur.  Given this I was very appreciative of a nice tailwind that cropped up which allowed my to deploy the sail and scoot along to Stony Point in short order.

Stony Point

Stony Point Lighthouse

At this point the wind had died and the length of the Tappan Zee/Havestraw Bay was syrupy smooth.  I know, odd adjective, but the surface of the water almost had a thickness to it.  Staying along the western shore made for better sightseeing and as after Croton Point on the east shore, the river becomes more and more developed.  The west shore on the other hand begins to break into the Palisades Park region and makes for quite a contrast to the opposite shore.

Northern Palisades

As the ebbing tide tailed off I finally crossed under the Tappan Zee Bridge and was able to see Piermont about 1.5 miles to the south.  At the west shore where the Pier of Piermont juts out into the River is a very nice public launch and community garden.  Nice sand beach to land on and a little boardwalk with benches made for an excellent lunch stop and rest-em-up for the next leg which would be all against the tide.

Just getting southward again takes a bit of doing as the Pier extends about a half mile out into the river.  Once around the point I used the light south wind to sail back toward the Piermont Marsh and tried to use the periphery of that for any slackening of the wind and tide it might offer as I continued against the tide.

Piermont Marsh

It’s an interesting perspective peering up at the cliffs towering over you along the Palisades but there are also other events on along the river that can just crop up, like this apartment fire in Yonkers.

Hi-Rise Smoke

Don’t know how that ended other than the smoke stopped after about 20 minutes.

Finally pulling up onto the beach at Alpine, NJ at 5pm sharp makes for 28.1 miles with the George Washington Bridge just visible 8 miles further down river.  For launching or landing this is a very pretty day use area.  There may be a $5 per car parking fee but there is bathroom, picnic, water and snack facilities available for the paddler.

Alpine, NJ Landing

For a GPS Google Map of the day’s travels, click or cut and paste the link below;

 http://maps.google.com/?t=p&z=15&ll=41.2968864440918,-73.93746948242188&q=http://api.motionxlive.com/motionx-remote/api/gps/host/db3034c4-28c0-4e01-9bc0-97363c624ca8

See you on the water,

Marshall

This section of the Paddle was to be a shakedown cruise to see how all the equipment and me worked together on the water. From the Brunton SolarRoll that keeps the backup iPhone batteries up to snuff, to 8 liters of hydration bladders in interior mount cockpit bags, to the 1 meter Pacific Action Sail Kit control lines being tethered to the Northwater Deck Bag which served as a hydration bladder and ProBar snack station.

The Impex Force 4 was loacded to the gills. I really didn’t think that I was packing that heavy but between a Marmot Tent, squashed Big Agnes down bag, kitchen stuff, paddle clothing, terrestrial clothing, fuel cannisters, first aid and gear aid kits, 6 days supply of food, etc. it did not matter that the boat was the lightest that Impex makes. I had, quite effectively made a streamlined freighter.

Now weight aside, I was surprised that it trimmed out quite neatly in the water, and while I could feel the extra inertia on turns using a sweep stroke it still heeled stablely and would skid or carve a turn quite well. I don’t think that I’ll be teaching technique at the Tune-Ups with the kayak quite that laden though.

To take advantage of as much tidal influence as possible Dorothy accompanied me to the Boathouse before sun-up to finish preparations. I got underway at 07:15 with some additional company in the way of Neil and Deb to see me off. Thank you guys, that was really nice. Rumor has it that the three of them went out for an extended breakfast while I was burning off the Starbucks on the water.

The conditions were perfectly placid which was fine as the rising sun started to show the full color of the river bank’s foliage. About 45 minutes down river the sun behind some cirrus clouds treated me to a prismatic ice crystal rainbow high in the sky.

One of the enjoyable aspects of this time of year is the lack of any other motor boats on this part of the river. Just the sound of birds and the gurgle of the little rooster tail behind the kayak to get me into the sightseeing mood.

Approaching the City of Poughkeepsie a few pedestrians on the Walkway over the Hudson peered over the railing to watch as I passed under the remade Poughkeepsie Rail Bridge.

The lines of the Mid Hudson Bridge against the fall colors made for a particularly pretty post card like picture.

With all the rain that we had had the day before I thought that I might be able to poke into the plunge pool of Buttermilk Falls in Milton, NY. Just enough water was under the bridge to poke in enough to snap a picture of the base of the falls. Further up the stream spreads across a broad rock face and cascades down a 75-80 degree slope to make for a sheet of whitewater bouncing down some 100 feet. Quite pretty but treat the property with respect. The folks at the Buttermilk Falls Inn are good people and a gorgeous place to stay at.

I stayed along the west side of the River until Roseton Powerplant and crossed near Chelsea so as to continue past Beacon Harbor with a quick stop at Denning’s Point before continuing on Bannerman’s Castle on Pollepel Island. The Pollepel was motoring out from Newburgh across the river and was barely going faster than me. Ha! Paddle power vs Prop Power!

Bannerman's - East Face

Just after Bannerman’s my additional battery pack on my iPhone was failing and power had dropped to under 20%. I didn’t want to have the phone go dead so I stopped the MotionX GPS program at 23 miles but still had another 15 or so to go, so there’s a gap for a bit as Dorothy mentioned in one of her posts. I’m not going to mention the maker of the battery pack as they are going to proportedly make good on their product as it wasn’t an inexpensive bit of gear that I had gotten two of. We’ll see how that goes before I sing the praises of slam the product.

Happy to say that I got a break all the way to Cold Spring. The wind kicked in in a favorable direction so I could pop the Pacific Action Sail on tethered to the front of the kayak. Now it wasn’t a screaming wind that allowed me to simply use my paddle as a rudder and zoom along but the maybe 20% boost was appreciated as I was able to slow down my cadence and let the wind help.

Breakneck Ridge

Breakneck Ridge

Storm King

Storm King

Speaking of cadence. Begining in May I’m usually working 60+ to 80 hours a week so my own paddling is usually an hour early in the AM before I open the Showroom. Now mind you I’m often on the water 5 days a week and sometimes more but this is the first long distance paddle where I didn’t have time constraints on me other than daylight. How does this relate to cadence? My usual paddles are typically 10 minute miles or a touch faster for an hour so throtling my speed down to a more efficient 4.5 mph was actually a difficult habitual cadence to match. Paddle, pause, look at the scenery, feel the boat come off speed, paddle, pause look at the scenerey on the other side rather than paddle, peak power, paddle peak power, yadayadayada. For the distances I’m looking to cover not burning myself out is a conscious task.

Just north of Little Stony Point my phone rang. It was Dean MacGeorge. He had called me earlier to see where I was on the water as he thought he’d meet up with me a bit. I redesvouzed with him just south of Little Stony Point where he paddled with me back to Foundry Dock Cove in Cold Spring at about 13:15. Unfortunately Dean’s idea of paddling was interupted by need to feed my face for about 45 minutes. Go figure, kayaking’s hard work! Good thing it’s fun.

At the Foundary Dock, Dorothy was waiting to meet me as I landed.

Dorothy's on the left

I think I made better time than she anticipated. With all the leaf peepers out I probably made better time paddling than she did driving which turned out to almost be the case on the second half of the day.

After refueling, I mean lunching, Dean joined me for a bit going around Constitution Island

Dean off Foundry Cove

and down to West Point Military Academy.

Remains of Fort Constitution

West Point from Garrison, NY

Dean departed at this point as he had plans for the afternoon which left me paddling through a picturesque but tough section of the river as the tide had definitely turned against me. Being that my gps program was of a this point I can guestimate that I was doing 3mph against the current because the Bear Mountain Bridge just didn’t seem to want to get any closer. It finally did and after a call from Dorothy past when I got past the bridge the going got a bit easier as high tide was approaching and the flood would end shortly.

Trying to catch some wind

Bear Mountain Bridge from the North

Tomorrow’s section from Peekskill, NY to Alpine, NJ probably will take more doing as the timing of the tides won’t allow for as long of a ride on the ebb as today. Weather’s supposed to be like today though so I can’t complain too much.

See you on the water,

Marshall

Marshall put in at our Boathouse in Hyde Park and took off at Peekskill. Overall, he paddled about 40 miles of the Hudson River in about 9 hours.

Marshall is using a program called MotionX-GPS to track daily progress. Unfortunately it stopped working at about Bannerman’s Castle yesterday, so we only have output from Hyde Park to there from that widget. We used a second device, a Pharos GPS chip, from Cold Spring to Peekskill. Obviously we are still trying to work out some of the electronic gadgetry, so hopefully I will be able to post a more complete map set & some photos a bit later today.

Stats from Hyde Park to Bannerman’s Castle
Date: Oct 25, 2009 7:16 am
Distance: 23.6 miles
Elapsed Time: 5:14:50
Avg Speed: 4.5 mph
Max Speed: 13.4 mph
Avg Pace: 13′ 19″ per mile
Min Altitude: 36 ft
Max Altitude: 138 ft

Start Time: 2009-10-25T11:16:45Z
Start Location:
Latitude: 41.787921º N
Longitude: 73.946446º W
End Time: 2009-10-25T16:31:35Z
End Location:
Latitude: 41.457400º N
Longitude: 73.985946º W

Day 1 MotionX-GPS Track: Hyde Park to Bannermans Castle

NB: We would like to thank Neil and Deb for assisting with the daybreak launch. Also, thanks go out to Dean for joining Marshall from about Cold Spring to West Point.

Marshall launched just before 7:15am this morning from Hyde Park. Winds were calm and the sun just rising. Looks to be a great day on the water.

The weather f0r today (Saturday 10/24/09) is ugly and potentially dangerous for this afternoon with thunderstorms possible and 20+mph winds out of the South.  Will wait till tomorrow to start this whole shindig.

Just a quick note before we are off on our 350 mile journey southward.  We’ll be paddling there, of course.  We will be updating the blog from the water (specifically the Hudson River, the Atlantic Ocean and the Chesapeake Bay).

Hoping to include photos and videos for all to partake in this journey with us.