Lehigh River (9-Aug-2015)

The original hope for today was to kayak from the West Bowmans river access in Carbon Co. to Treichler's Bridge in Lehigh Co. It is not a hard paddle, but when collecting trash it was a little too ambitious. I ended up not even going half that distance. By the time I got to the access by the Lehigh Gap Nature Center, my hull was full, my bow and stern deck was full and I was dragging a bag of recyclables off the side. Above are all of the recyclables collected on the trip. No photo of all of the trash together today, the boat launch in Lehigh Gap was extremely busy. I had to throw the boat right on my car with everything in it instead of cleaning it out there and snapping a shot of everything. The junk I collected today was placed by a full trash can at the nearest parking lot. I did clean out recyclables from the top of that trash can as well. I can't stand recyclables going to a dump when either I or someone else can make money off of them and give the items a new life.    

I thought keeping the cooler balanced on the back was going to be an annoyance, but it stayed pretty stable throughout the trip. It worked nicely on the back and it was filled with whitewater splashing buckets. Way too many of those buckets end up in the river and stay there. They are also generally very obvious while paddling. If the rafting places just sent one person down a week to collect them it would do a lot to clean up the banks, they wouldn't need to buy new ones and they might find some of their lost paddles in the process too. 

Was hopping the water gun was intact. They work well as bailers and I could have used one today after a couple of the small rapids.

Although almost every debris pile looks the same, you never know what surprises you'll find inside them. 

This one had nothing special, just the same old stuff.

Second child size aluminum bat this year. Like the first one it will be given to a kid that might get some more use out of it. This one was beaten up by the river and has a few dents, but I don't think that will matter.

Need a larger boat for this section of canoe hull. I debated trying to rig it to the back of the kayak, but I just imagined that going badly when I got to the rougher water on the route.

Anyone need a Nalgene bottle? I am going to start cleaning these up and doing something with them instead of putting them in recycling.

There was a brief downpour and I snapped this shot of kayakers and tubers caught in the rain.

More trash.

View of the west side of Lehigh Gap.

I have taken way to many photos of Lehigh Gap this year, but I have cleaned up just about every piece shore line here at least once this summer. 

These female mallards did not care I was floating by and just kept preening away. 

It was a good day for finding lures. Haven't found this many in such good shape in one trip in a long time.

This trip also had the most river beers I have collected in one trip. I have said it before and I am saying it again. If you find a river beer do not drink it. It is just not a good idea.

The trash minus everything that was in my hull. I would say it was pretty good for the top of a kayak. The bucket of river beer was in the hull too, but I didn't want them busting on top of my car.

Not much as far as wildlife, but I did find this katydid after I got off the water. For as large as they are they are awesome at blending in with their surroundings. As long as their surroundings are not the back of someones hand.

Tomorrow is going to be a long day, so my next post won't be up until really late or not until Tuesday.