Hudson River Run # 465

Dropped the boat in on Saturday afternoon for what we thought would be a quick run on the river. We headed south on a flat river under cloudy skies. Surprisingly, not a lot of traffic for a holiday weekend although all the sites on the island were full. We had just cleared the Castleton Bridge when an eagle, a juvenile, swoops down in front of the boat; he missed his catch, and then flew up to the tree line. Wow those eagles are becoming a common sight on the river...how cool is that? We turned back at the Athens’s Lighthouse, but not before I got to spy the three heron nests on the power line tower. I had read about theses on the Hudson River Almanac newsletter I subscribe to. We also spied another bird sitting on the tower, after much debate and it took flight we could see it was another eagle, older because we could see the white tail feather. It started spitting a little on the way back but we outran it. The evening was so nice we decided to head to the barge in Watervliet for dinner. We ran home in the dark on a mirror like river, but the bugs! We were headed into the wind and the bugs were like little bullets pelting us…yuck! We got back to Bethlehem with no problems and just like motel six, they left the lights on. Nice thing about the Bethlehem launch, the launch is very well lit at night so no probs getting the boat back on the trailer in the dark.

Wildlife talley for this trip;
2 Eagles
3 white Ibis
1 heron
a bouy full of Cormorants
multiple Gulls, Ducks & Geese

Cheney Pond - 12/31/06 New Year's Eve

Cheney pond is a quick little jaunt to a beautiful wilderness pond, located in the Vanderwhacker Moutain Wild Forest. We hit the road late as we were a bit lazy and unorganized this morning, so this nessitated just a bit of a stretch of the legs. We had McGreggor with us and he's not use to snow and cold. I wanted to explore this pond for a while, it should be great for a paddle in the warmer months. My only worry is that at only a mile in, it proably gets a lot of use. There was a picnic table and privy and just enough snow to make it look pretty. We drove down Blue Ridge Rd to North Hudson then took rt9 all the way to Lake George and stopped into the Garrison for some burgers. A Great way to kick out 2006.