We've been getting tons of rain the last few weeks, and that, in combination with the heavy snowfall (and subsequent melt) we had this winter/spring, resulted in crazy flooding...

Knowing that it is unwise to go paddling in flooded rivers, and worse to do it solo, I waited until my wife was out of town for the weekend before I grabbed my boat and went out on a local river to explore the flooded river valley...



The water was around 40 degrees, and it was odd to paddle over the State Forest Preserve...



I had a great time slaloming my way through the forest of tree trunks...



I was very glad to have my GPS with me today, lots of the time my boat was gliding over what my GPS indicated was dry land, and having a touchstone to keep me on the right track was a comforting thing...it was very easy to get turned around in the trees...



Once I joined the Raquette River, the current picked up and it got even trickier to wend my way through the trunks and branches...at one point, I poked my 260cm paddle down into the water right next to one of the trees, and couldn't touch the bottom...



At the bottom of my paddle route, I found the DEC sign-in box stranded in 4 feet of water...normally this box is well up the shore from the launch, but today I was able to paddle up to it to fill out the book...

It was a great trip, although in the future I would love to do it again with a group of similar crazies, and suspend hammocks for lunch-breaks and maybe even for camping over the water...the greyness of the day and lack of people or wildlife along the flooded route reminded me of "The Road"...

Jamie - nfa