Jay H
New member
Since the weekend turned like crap, I spent one day -sunday up in New Paltz with MCorsar. The initial planning was kind of weird, one moment I was going to bring my kayak up and Matt was going to borrow Tmax's rec kayak and we'd kayak the Wallkill, but when I decided not to go to the catskills on friday, no way to get Tmax's kayak to Matt's place so I'd said we'd hike and bike up there in the 'gunks. But after talking to Matt saturday night, he said he did get the 16' Old Town Harmony canoe from his father so off we went on a sunday that was supposed to be half decent.
We launched the canoe from the putin right down the road from Matt's house and paddled south (upriver) a bit til we decided to turn around. Heading downriver now and going north, we see a whole armada of kayaks/canoes heading south, to which we find it's a combo group of Mohawk singles club and the Sierra Club all paddling south. This is kind of gawking at the birds and swallows and martins flying around, matt breaks out the binoculars...
Heading downriver, we pass under the main bridge that Rt 299 goes over the river and points north. Notice there is a big containment boom over a storm drain near a takeout that we stop there to grab some lunch before continuing south. We paddle all the way to the Wallkill Valley Rail Trail bridge over the river and turn around and head back upstream.
At this point, I say to matt that we should stop at the east shore cause I'd like to check out that inner tube that looks beached ashore there. Sure enough, it looks like it's in great shape and salvagable so score!!!
It's a 48" snow tube with 3 grab handles made by Aqua Leisure that says "Uncle Bob" on it. Great shape, mostly inflated and ready to snowtube down a mountain. Cool!
After paddling back to the takeout, we run into the new paltz armada again and we all kind of take out there. Run into a nice lady who has a Hornbeck and we converse about the canoe and stuff.
Back to Matt's house, I take my old MTB out of my Outback and we procede to pedal south on the Rail Trail from basically downtown New Paltz to the southern end of the railtrail. About 8 miles one way and a nice off-road excursion. We bike back along the road til we run into an ice cream place where we stop for ice cream and pizza (Matt has pizza, I have ice cream and 1 slice!). then we start biking back to matt's place. We even saw some skydivers floating down back towards "The Ranch" in gardner.
All in all, it was about 5 miles paddling and about 16 miles pedalling. Couldn't stay for dinner so no hiking miles that day, unfortunately, but it was a nice weekend crammed into 1 day! No rain!
Jay
We launched the canoe from the putin right down the road from Matt's house and paddled south (upriver) a bit til we decided to turn around. Heading downriver now and going north, we see a whole armada of kayaks/canoes heading south, to which we find it's a combo group of Mohawk singles club and the Sierra Club all paddling south. This is kind of gawking at the birds and swallows and martins flying around, matt breaks out the binoculars...
Heading downriver, we pass under the main bridge that Rt 299 goes over the river and points north. Notice there is a big containment boom over a storm drain near a takeout that we stop there to grab some lunch before continuing south. We paddle all the way to the Wallkill Valley Rail Trail bridge over the river and turn around and head back upstream.
At this point, I say to matt that we should stop at the east shore cause I'd like to check out that inner tube that looks beached ashore there. Sure enough, it looks like it's in great shape and salvagable so score!!!
It's a 48" snow tube with 3 grab handles made by Aqua Leisure that says "Uncle Bob" on it. Great shape, mostly inflated and ready to snowtube down a mountain. Cool!
After paddling back to the takeout, we run into the new paltz armada again and we all kind of take out there. Run into a nice lady who has a Hornbeck and we converse about the canoe and stuff.
Back to Matt's house, I take my old MTB out of my Outback and we procede to pedal south on the Rail Trail from basically downtown New Paltz to the southern end of the railtrail. About 8 miles one way and a nice off-road excursion. We bike back along the road til we run into an ice cream place where we stop for ice cream and pizza (Matt has pizza, I have ice cream and 1 slice!). then we start biking back to matt's place. We even saw some skydivers floating down back towards "The Ranch" in gardner.
All in all, it was about 5 miles paddling and about 16 miles pedalling. Couldn't stay for dinner so no hiking miles that day, unfortunately, but it was a nice weekend crammed into 1 day! No rain!
Jay
