The Inbetweens

I returned to the Mattabasset.  Three days ago, I was here when the Hartford gauge was reading 16 feet, about 10 feet above normal. A couple days of rain kept the levels up, so I decided last night to come back and explore some more of the flooded river bottom forest.  By the time I put in, the gauge is at 18 feet.

From the put-in, I cut straight across the river and into the woods. It is fairly open paddling with some weaving around trees and watching for poison ivy that is vining up some of the trunks.  The ground level poison ivy, which is amazingly plentiful here, is well under water and out of the way.

I get down to the Great Meadow without using the river channel.  This time, I'll follow the river-left edge of  the "meadow", which is a mile wide pond at this water level.  An Osprey and a mature Bald Eagle fly past heading upriver. In the river channel, more than a half mile away, I spot three canoeists - it's Outrigger Guy and a pair that I've seen with him before.  They're canoe racers, racing around in their canoes. In my mind, it's not the worst thing you could do in a canoe, but it's close. At least they are in a canoe.  Canoeing has taken on a spiritual nature for me, and racing one seems like going into "competitive religion".

Part way down the "meadow", I turn into the forest, which is well flooded.  Getting in maybe a hundred yards, I can see open sky ahead.  I continue in that direction and come out into an open clearing.  This is probably a shrubby open meadow in normal conditions.  The plants are saplings and shrubs, and when the water is shallow enough, I can see ferns below. I never knew this was over here.  I take a big loopy clockwise circle. I find the remains of a beaver lodge, but the wood is too old to tell if it was a conical lodge or a bank burrow.  However, it means that there is a narrow creek channel somewhere below me. I also find a frog that is willing to pose for a close-up, and some box and painted turtles, and Wood Ducks.

My loop brings me back into the forest, but I find high ground and have to retreat.  I head in an upstream direction until the ground falls away and then head back into the woods.  I find an old dirt road bed, follow it until it rises again, and then cut through the woods back into the Great Meadows.  

The wind has come up rather fierce, so I skirt the edge of the trees upriver until I am in the forested section of the river.  

I head upstream through the woods until the bridge above the put-in.  This forces me into the river channel.  I pass two Barcalounger type kayakers, who are doing about half my speed.  About a quarter mile later, I here the reports of several firecrackers, and then a splash. It's the splash that didn't make sense. I look back to find a 50 foot tall tree that has fallen across the river about 75 yards behind me.  The firecrackers were the branches and roots of the tree snapping.  I wait a minute for the Barcaloungers to come into view, just to be double sure that they weren't in the tree.  Then, I continue up.

The new deadfall is the one with the leaves, right of center

I turn at the deadfall above the highway bridge, just as I did on my last trip.  

At the new deadfall, there is a pair of rather upset Red-Shouldered Hawks.  One is flying around with a mouthful of branches.  I look and find their nest in a crook of the fallen tree.  The nest is intact, but if they had eggs or new hatched young, they are gone. 

Hawk nest

When I take out, I have a talk with a guy fishing from the launch.  I've seen him before.  He's rather shy, but when I get him started, he goes on and on.  So, I learn some new things about the fish that are in this river.