Hiking at Moss Island
Hiking at the Lower Canajoharie Gorge
Visiting the Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Moss Island photo slideshow
Canajoharie Gorge photo slideshow
Schoharie Crossing photo slideshow
The instructors' staff meeting which was scheduled to run until 2:30 today ended 90 minutes early, so I decided to take advantage of the extra time and visit a few places in the Mohawk Valley on my way back to Albany. Little did I realize that after sunshine and morning temperatures in the low 80's I would have rain and thunderstorms pursuing me (and on two occasions catching me) all the way home...
Moss Island
Moss Island, just outside of Little Falls, is known primarily for two things - the glacial chimney potholes scoured out of the rock on the northen side of the island, and the cliffs used extensively for rock climbing on the southwestern side. The Erie Canal also runs along the southern side of the island, and Lock 17 is the highest lift lock in New York State, at 40.5 feet.
Ann and I visited Moss Island a little over a year ago, but only got to see part of the island (the potholes) because it started raining while we were there. So I took the opportunity to stop there again today, in hopes of seeing more of the island and getting some nice pictures. Ironically, it started sprinkling not long after I got there, and rained fairly steadily for a while as I was walking around on the trails, somewhat protected by the tree cover. But before I left, the rain let up and the sun came out, giving me some wonderful views of the foliage along the canal and the cliffs along the southwestern tip, both from above and from the access road down below.
While I was there, I also got to watch them lower the eastern gate of the lock - the size of all the equipment involved in that operation is incredible. I can't even begin to imagine how heavy the massive steel gate is. After that they filled the chamber to allow several boats to continue westward along the canal, but I didn't stick around to watch - I wanted to change into a dry shirt!
Lower Canajoharie Gorge
When we visited Moss Island during the summer of 2006, we also stopped at Wintergreen Park in Canajoharie and hiked down to the viewing platform for Canajoharie Falls. I remember it raining lightly while we were there, and the view of the falls wasn't terribly good. I had wanted to see the large circular pothole at the lower end of Canajoharie Gorge, but hadn't brought directions on how to get to it. So today, armed with a copy of Russell Dunn's Mohawk Region Waterfall Guide, I found the parking area and made the short hike down to the lower gorge and the pothole... in the pouring rain. (Fortunately, I had a rain jacket in the back seat of my car!)
One plus to the rain - it drove away most of the folks who'd apparently been hanging out at the creek while the sun was shining. Two fellows were beating a hasty retreat up the path as I came down it, and two other folks spent the entire time I was there crouched under outcroppings along the side of the gorge. Me, I had a good time wandering around the creek bed snapping photos! Saw some small waterfalls, an old dam upstream a ways, and, of course, the pothole which had been ground into the bedrock some ten thousand years ago. It's moderately impressive (probably more so when you're not trying to avoid getting soaked!) and is also the reason that the gorge, creek, and town are named Canajoharie, which is a variation on several names that early settlers had for the pothole.
After leaving the gorge, I stopped briefly on my way out of town and walked a short ways down the bike path to a fairly impressive waterfall that was coursing down a cliff next to the path. I suppose that's another way that the rain was a plus - I suspect there was only a trickle of water there before the downpour!
Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site
Schoharie Crossing is unusual in that it's one of the few places where all three versions of the Erie Canal - the original Clinton's Ditch of 1825, the Enlarged Erie Canal of 1841 (and further enlarged in 1885), and the modern-day Barge Canal - pass in close proximity of each other. The area includes a number of relics of the previous incarnations of the canal, including canal prisms, the remains of several locks, and probably most impressively, the remains of the Schoharie Aqueduct.
The builders of the original Erie Canal encountered a major difficulty at the crossing of the Schoharie Creek, which they first tried to solve by damming the creek to create a slackwater pool. Unfortunately, the creek is occasionally powerful and turbulent enough that the dams were often washed out, and the crossing could be very dangerous. Eventually, when the canal was enlarged in the 1840's, a 624 foot long 14 arch aqueduct was constructed to carry the canal over the creek. (The Erie Canal website has an excellent section on remnants of the old canals with a great deal more information than I've included here; it also has an extensive archive of mainly historical images, though there are also some relatively recent photos included.)
I've visited Schoharie Crossing several times, usually as part of a bike ride along the Erie Canalway trail, which runs right along the edge of the site. After seeing relatively recent-looking pictures of the aqueduct stretching out into the creek, I had looked for it once or twice but all I saw were some ruins in the water. Today I decided to make a greater effort to find whatever remained of it....
As I drove down route 5S toward the historical site, I passed a sign for the Schoharie Crossing Boat Launch and Picnic Area, and pulled in to see if that was what I'd missed previously. I found myself in a paved parking lot along the river, with a number of picnic tables scattered along the edges of a mowed grass field, and off in the distance - the Aqueduct! It turns out the ruins I'd seen were part of the structure, now collapsed and in the water (apparently that section gave way in 1998) but there were a half dozen or so arches still standing, though obscured somewhat by brush. I wandered around for a bit snapping pictures, then headed back to the car and drove over to the actual Historical Site headquarters on the other side of the Schoharie Creek, in the small town of Fort Hunter. From there I followed a mowed grass path along the creek and ended up with a nice view of the aqueduct across the water.
Spent a little while reading some of the informational signs, then noticed that the sky was getting very dark off to the west, with the possible rumbles of some thunder... since I'd gotten wet twice already, I chose discretion and headed home to Albany... where I managed to get everything unpacked and inside moments before the rain hit!
JMH
