Lehigh River (5-Jan-2017)

Cloudy and colder than the previous day I was back to the Lehigh River in the Lehigh Gorge State Park. This time I took the D&L Trail up river to another flood plain I did a lot of work on last year. I found that this wasn't the best area to be working on at this time of year. I think it generally sees less sun than the area I worked on the day prior and there were large sections with snow cover, ice and frozen ground. 

I had to kick this bucket from one of the whitewater companies in order to break it loose from the frozen sand. Too many of these buckets are left in our river! If you care, please contact the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission and tell them you want the whitewater companies to pay for the items their patrons leave behind in our rivers!

Someone very kindly bagged up their bottles. If only they took them along when they left. 

The ice along the rivers edge not only made it hard to find trash, but hard to walk as well. 

Even with the less than ideal conditions I still found and was able to remove items. Though I had to leave behind several pieces of footwear frozen into the ground.

Less than the day before, still a good amount for the time of year! 

When I returned home I found it odd that there were no birds at my feeders until I noticed this in one of my trees. It is a Cooper's Hawk. Cooper's Hawks specialize in hunting song birds. If you feed birds in your backyard there is a good chance you will have a Cooper's Hawk stop by from time to time.

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Lehigh River (4-Jan-2017)

First river clean-up of the year! I tend to stay away from water during the winter months, but it was a nice day and there wasn't much snow cover on the ground. I kept this clean-up close to home and went to the Glen Onoco Access of the Lehigh Gorge State Park where I took a lot of tires out last year. 

 Some of the first items I found were in the water. You would think plastic forks float, but this one was on the bottom. The other item is a military pin. I would really like to know the story of the pin and how it made its way into the river.

I did about a half mile hike along an old section of canal to get to the flood plain area I spent a lot of time at last year. Going through this area, I am extremely pleased with the way it looks. Hardly any trash and a huge difference compared to what it was when I first started on it last year. 

I had really hoped to remove all of the tires from this area, but ones like these are still there. Some I do believe I can remove with the right tools, others I might not be able to get out. There are less than twenty tires still in this area. I have to talk to the DCNR about their removal, most will have to be dug up. I do intend on doing my best to get these gone, like all the others I have already removed.

From the top of the flood plain I decided to work my way down the edge of the river. I have been through this area, but did not spend as much time on it as I did the channels in the flood plain.  

Along the rivers edge I started finding the normal stuff. Including a lot of footwear I must have overlooked last year. I do believe I removed the partner to the blue shoe on another clean-up, just a little further down river from this spot.

Picked up three new pairs of shades to add to my collection. These were fancy, too bad they are missing a lens. 

This was a very odd spot to find this pool toy. It wasn't near any access point and it was up the bank. If you decide to go inner tubing on the Lehigh I would caution that using pool toys like this is not a good idea. These are not designed to run a river and pop easily. It is always best too, to wear a Personal Floatation Device in addition to the inner tube.

By the time I got to the bottom of the flood plain I had been in the shade of the mountain for some time and for a short while there were even flurries. It was a little too cold for my liking, but I did remove a fair amount of trash. 

This was everything. The first river clean-up of the year went well and was the first of many to come in 2017!

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Lehigh Gorge State Park: Rockport Access (12-Oct-2016)

For this trash hike I went up the Lehigh River to the Rockport Access of the Lehigh Gorge State Park.  Like many of the areas I have been hitting lately it is a place I have been to earlier in the year that I am checking on to see what has accumulated over the summer.

Before starting out on the trail I went to check out this man-made tunnel that is off of the side of the access road. I have often found trash in it and today was no exception. 

There was only one item inside, one of worst kinds of items I will pick up, a dirtied diaper. I can't believe where parents leave these things. On the other end of the tunnel there were a couple beer cans and one plastic bottle. The bottle was out of my reach, so unfortunately it had to stay, it will eventually wash down to the access road.

Every view of the river through this section is exceptional. The fall is one of the best times to visit the gorge. The colors are amazing, no noisy rafters on the river and the temperature in my opinion is just about perfect. 

This is Buttermilk Falls. It is just a short walk up river on the D&L Trail from the access point in Rockport. It can be a little more impressive after a rain event. 

These items were near the base of Buttermilk Falls and next to the river. This was the largest pile of trash for the whole trip. I don't mind at all when this can be considered a large pile. 

When I noticed this can wedged between the rocks I wasn't thinking it would be a full one. There are just too many unopened beers in this river. Same thing with water bottles, so much aluminum and plastic is wasted on products that aren't even used.

This was not my average sort of trash find. What is it you might ask? I really don't have a clue, it still has a lever and at one point it had two.

Penny seemed to have a good time by the river and on the trail. There were a lot of bikers to bark at on the D&L. If you ever see us out on the trail, she will bark at you if you are on a bike. She will possibly bark at you if you are just walking by or have a dog yourself. Barking is just something she likes to do at people, critters and sometimes rocks that look like critters. 

Not as interesting as the piece of trash with a lever, but still something different. This looked to be a home made fin. I wonder if I will eventually find what it was attached to? I am guessing a home made cardboard paddle board. 

In this particular portion of the river some of the fall colors were exceptionally vibrant. 

At the end of today's hike I really didn't have all that much trash. I covered a fair amount of ground though and I am happy that I found so little and that I found a couple items I missed on previous trips.

I will not be able to post again until sometime next week. I will be out looking for trash, but I won't have access to the internet. It is going to be nice to unplug for a few days. 

You too can help with taking out the trash! If you get out hiking take a grocery bag with you, give it a second use and fill it with trash while you are out! Every bit helps. You can also help contributing to this project here: Help Fund Taking Out the Trash

Like this project? Like it on Facebook: Taking Out the Trash in Eastern PA

Lehigh Gorge State Park: Drake's Creek (4-Oct-2016)

With the whitewater season over, I went to check out the condition of Drake's Creek, one of the access points to the Lehigh River in the Lehigh Gorge State Park. I started a little more than half way down the access road and walked it and the creek down to the Lehigh. 

The amount of trash between the access road and the creek was about the same as my first visit to this location. Some of the same spots had the same kinds of trash items in almost the exact same places as before.

The colors of the newly fallen leafs added to the beauty of the creek. For the most part the creek itself was trash free. Only a couple pieces were picked up right on the creek bank. 

Like all of the waterways around the water level was very low. Even the smaller falls only had a trickle flowing over them. 

This was the most trash in one spot along the access road. Both trash and cut Rhododendron was tossed off the side and the trash wasn't the easiest to retrieve. The cut branches of Rhododendron really made it tricky getting to some of the items further down the slope that can't be seen in the photo on the left. On the right is all the trash picked from this particular spot. 

I was not looking for caterpillars on this trip, this one though was hard to miss. A friend identified it as Paonias excaecta. There are several caterpillars that look very similar, so this is one case where a quick internet search could give you a misidentification. It is always best to use guides or ask those who can positively id species if you want to know exactly what you find is.

This area which rafting companies use to get rafts down to the creek and out to the river bothers me. The companies really should do a better job of keeping this area clean. Around this raft sliding apparatus and to the creek I picked up everything in the right photo. Some of the items I found here can definitely be tied directly back to the rafting companies. 

Looking down river on the Lehigh. There was some washed up trash along the bank here and some discarded in the brush between the bridge and the river. 

A whistle! This one is in much better condition than those I carry on my PFD so it is going to replace one of them. Whistles are required while boating in Pennsylvania, so never launch your boat without one. 

Looking up river, the water is extremely low. 

The rail bridge that runs over Drake's Creek. It serves as a pretty cool gateway to the river. 

Penny taking her final looks of the creek before we packed up and headed out. Had a sack full by the end. This was less than my first visit, but on that one there was also a lot of older trash. 

Found a variety of fungus. I am adding the photos because I think the diversity in fungus is interesting, but I am unable to identify these to species.

These were neat. 

The oddest looking fungus of the trip. There were many of these on a steep slope along the access road.

All that was picked up on this trip. After sorting out the recyclables I loaded everything into the car. Luckily it was trash night for me and I was able to quickly dispose of the non-recyclables at home. 
You too can help with taking out the trash! If you get out hiking take a grocery bag with you, give it a second use and fill it with trash while you are out! Every bit helps. You can also help contributing to this project here: Help Fund Taking Out the Trash

Like this project? Like it on Facebook: Taking Out the Trash in Eastern PA