7/17 Reflections at row's end

 

Hammondsport, Keuka Lake

No miles, not a stroke

 

Alan has taken me for a whirlwind tour of Hammondsport and its environs.  His deep family history here shows up at every turn, revealing ‘community’ in the best sense of the word. Weeks ago I whimsically named this blog ‘Laker to Laker,’ and a day with ‘a lake guy’ 400 rowing miles away from ‘my’ lake is simply a mirror image of what he’ll see in me when we head back to Lake George. We went out for a boat ride last night and Alan opined how remarkable it is when one can ‘geo-locate’ on a lake at night simply using the sightlines of mountain silhouettes, the juxtaposition of lights, and the dimly-lit contours of shoreline. It’s knowing a place by heart, by decades of memory and experience and meaning and love, and knowing that what you know is never-changing, a kind of north star. ‘Lakers’ enjoy the unearned privilege of this intimacy with a place through time, and with it, I think, a responsibility to pay it forward.

Hammondsport hosted a wooden boat show this weekend, an event sabotaged by today’s relentless downpour, but a smattering of Centurys, Gars, and Chris Crafts gave the waterfront an old-timey feel. The wooden boat bug isn’t all too different from the kind of environmental protection and stewardship that’s so much on my mind on this adventure. Care, commitment, vigilance, monitoring, corrective or curative action … these are the attributes of the wooden boat owners as well as of the environmental advocate. We inherit something through no doing of our own, and we aspire to care for it, to preserve it, and to pass it on.     

To be blunt – now that I’m coming to the end of this blog as a capstone to this adventure – we’re going to reach a crossroads at Lake George, if indeed we have not already arrived. Unmonitored, untested, or non-compliant septic systems will take us to our next HAB, and the one after that, and we’ll act, but after much natural and reputational damage will have been done. The failure rate of assessed systems points to this outcome.

Or, can we (every constituency that has an economical, emotional, or moral interest in Lake George) act in unison and collaborate to fashion a best path before too much damage is done? What’s in the way of doing what Keuka Lake has done? Why can’t we act before our preservation must become reclamation? That we are not now actively monitoring, assessing, and improving septic systems around the entire lake as a regular practice of protection will someday be seen as the public policy negligence that it is.   

Really, why not now? ‘Best practices’ are out there, great people are in leadership positions, the institutions are in place … and the Lake doesn’t care about politics or process. Time will tell if we are listening to her. Our actions will tell if we are hearing her.

Day 11 - arrival in Hammondsport

 

Penn Yan to Hammondsport

23 miles

 

My boat sits in the grass in Alan’s back yard here in Hammondsport. I think I hear it whimpering, or panting. It wants to go further. I love my boat.

Me? I’m showered, shaved, hydrated, and now liberated from the stocks of the oars and foot brace. I’m at once sad that it’s over, like my boat, but also ready to ‘stop rocking’ and get back to friends, family, and home.    

Today’s row was by far the most pleasurable. Keuka Lake is utterly charming: great water, accessible shorelines, nice vistas of vineyards and forests, and today, not much boat traffic. The aquatic grasses don’t seem to be as prevalent as on Seneca, and as I rowed the shoreline I took great comfort and even envy that each of these residences receives an inspection of their septic system every 5 years. This commitment to a common standard for the common good, a recognition of each property owner’s responsibility, makes me believe that if I come back here in five or ten years, I’ll see a remarkably clean lake. Well done, Keuka community! I sure hope we Lake George natives can follow your example in the name of prevention and not out of a need for future remediation!

So, it’s over. My friend Alan will squire me around Hammondsport and its environs for the next few days, and then he’ll drive me home, and I'll do my best to reciprocate. One thing's for sure, I can never repay the many kindnesses that a score or more people have shown me over the last eleven days, but I can pay it forward to the next person, and then the next, and in that way try to close a loop, make a chain.

I do find myself wondering how this may have worked as a ‘fundraiser.’ The Lake George Association, The Friends of the Outlet Trail, The Keuka Lake Association …hopefully they saw some checks trickle in?

I hope, too, that through the banality and silly stories the reader may have been incited to investigate and prod processes that will lead to cleaner water, to more thoughtful and even urgent environmental stewardship. Everybody’s going a mile a minute these days, stressed and distracted, and I’ve had the profound luxury of eleven days facing backwards in a boat going 4 mph. Such time ignites reflection. Such views off the stern invite awe, joy, and alarm in equal measure.

I do hope we can do what we have to do to save it before we lose it. If these pages have brought you outside to think about these things with me, then that’s something.    

I’m already missing you.

xxoo

Day 10 - Seneca Lake and Keuka Outlet Trail

 

Waterloo NY to Keuka Outlet Trail to Keuka / Penn Yan

28 miles  (20 rowing, 8 walking)

 

Today was a sample plate at the all-you-can-eat buffet of life on the water. Up at 5, on the canal by 5:40 to see a fog-enrobed sunrise, out on the wide open waters of Seneca Lake by 7:30, across 2 miles of open water in a rising breeze … then 17 miles of upwind/crosswind rowing to Dresden.

Seneca’s clear waters are colder because this is a very deep lake. The clarity, sadly, reveals a lot of milfoil/vegetation that crowds out everything in the shallow water, a shame because the water itself seems so pure, so healthy. Aquatic weeds are fun sponges.

Seneca conveys a sense of size because it offers such a broad horizon, its gently rising farmland and plateaus offering long distance vistas, not close-in mountain ranges. It’s really grand and sweeping and the cloud formations today masqueraded as mountains in the sky. I once heard a western skier describe Stowe as ‘claustrophobic’ because of the nearby adjacent peaks, and could imagine a Seneca Laker applying that term to Lake George’s mountain-ringed shores. Me?  I love ‘em both.

I reached Dresden at noon and met my crack logistical team - Keith and Phillip in the lead, with additional good-hearted muscle whose names I’ve lost. They took my boat and gear to Steve’s house, here on the very northern shore of Keuka, and it will be an easy launch to Hammondsport, 22 miles south, tomorrow morning.

Phillip is president of Friends of the Outlet and a prince among men. His passion for environmental stewardship and his humble yet assertive and tremendously knowledgeable leadership show in his recounting of history, accomplishments, and challenges. We walked the 8 mile trail together, from the shore of Seneca Lake to Penn Yan, and I soon found myself wishing we had the likes of Phillip at all levels of leadership and administration in government. When I asked him, at about mile 4, what he thought of when he walked this trail, he said, with a pause, ‘People …the people that worked these locks and factories that lined it, and now my fellow volunteers who give everything to preserve and protect it.’

Gentle readers, their website is at www.keukaoutlettrail.org. What a cool group, what a model for volunteerism! Thanks, Phillip, for the ‘insider tour’ of the trail, a walk I now know you’d do for anyone because of who you are. You’ve given me another model, another fabulous example of environmental advocacy at its best.

So now I’m at Steve’s house on the very north end of Keuka Lake. I’ve had a long, refreshing swim, and I await a vanilla malt from the stand down the street. Ryder, Steve’s enterprising grandson, is on a mission.

Early this morning I rowed past a big fake bird on a post, the kind of thing that people buy to scare away other birds or pests. The thing was so overdone, so gaudy in its exaggeration of what a real bald eagle looks like, I did an eye-roll at the cheesy extent to which industry caricatures the bald eagle and people get swept in and nail the damn plastic likeness to a pole.    

Then, as I rowed on by, it flew away.

Later, I found a swim spot along the west shore of Seneca. I rowed in close, hopped out in my Crocs into knee deep water, and came face to face with a lamprey eel. They’re harmless to humans, they say, but they say a lot of things. I rowed on.

Phillip took me to a pub after my 20 mile row and our 8 mile uphill walk. I drank 7 Cokes and ate a Beyond Burger.

Tomorrow is a 22 mile sprint to the finish line on Keuka Lake. Alan, who bought mom’s ‘Princess’ pontoon boat, plans to find me and feed me during the row, and I’ll plan to drink all the chocolate milk the Princess can carry.

With only one day to go, I’m already getting misty about finishing – Steve, Phillip, Keith, Mark, Mitch, Lindsey, Tom … lovely people along the way, giving unconditional support just because they can.

It’s really heartening to see this side of America so clearly, so personally. We’re better than we present ourselves to be, I think.

xxoo

 

 

 

Day 9 - on the Cayuga-Seneca Canal

 

7/14 Waterloo, NY (Birthplace of Memorial Day)

Lock CS4  (CS4 meets C-12 platter)

10 miles 2:30 hours

 

Over 15 years of rowing expeditions, I have never been so bold as to combine a C-12 combo platter with the rigors of rowing. Tonight I make that bet. Tonight I take that chance. Tomorrow will tell the tale.

This short day on the water has been long on engagement with people along the way. Tom motoring a beautiful Alberg 28 sailboat from Buffalo to Seneca Falls, where he and it will spend the summer, modeled his Cambodian fishing hat … a lovely garment indeed! He admired my boat and adventure as much as I admired his ‘plastic classic’ and mariner’s aura.

Later on, waiting out the rain in a public pavilion in the park, I met Mark, by his own admission ‘one of the very few Waterloo liberals and believers that Biden is president.’ We talked politics and culture for well over an hour; I got a distinct sense that he was very hungry to talk with a kindred spirit.  

As if to validate his point, after he left, a couple arrived to tell me that their church group was getting together at the pavilion in about an hour, and that, well, you know, it’s our church group, and we’ll be expecting to have the pavilion …

Does that sound right to you?

So … that’s when I walked into town and found my Chinese. Doors close, doors open.

For all the wrong reasons, this is the first time I’ve felt uneasy about my evening abode. I may row back across the canal and set up at the lock, where I’ll feel somewhat more secure in the embrace of the state, elected by the people.

Too political? Sorry, I just so dislike hypocrisy.

Tomorrow, Seneca Lake (20 miles) and an 8 mile historical hike over the Outlet Trail. The Outlet Trail follows the course of the old locked canal that used to connect Seneca and Keuka Lakes. The Friends of the Outlet – Sally and Keith in particular – have taken an interest in my row and plan to meet me in Dresden and help me with my stuff. I ask you, where do we find such friends?

A full water report tomorrow! I expect to do some Seneca swimming.  

Bonus Blog #2 from Seneca Falls

 

Seneca Falls

Bonus Blog #2

 

I’m halfway through what will be a sinfully leisurely 10 mile day, sitting in a nice café in Seneca Falls, drying out and sipping my first cup o’ Joe since last Tuesday. Luxury indeed!

Seneca Falls is an exceedingly charming town that nonetheless looks like it’s catching its breath for another run; nine ‘for sale’ signs on the main street hint at some economic struggle here. But the history is rich, and the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Park and murals are powerful and, sadly, still so timely, so germane.

I’ll poke around this afternoon if the rain abates and will settle in at the final lock leading to Seneca Lake, my 25^th. The locks ‘on the lake’ are lovely, and the water – lake water – is getting clearer as I proceed. I had a long talk with a lockkeeper this morning, and he provided a bit of history on canal stewardship (from the purview of the NYS Thruway Authority to, today, the NYS Power Authority) and staffing challenges. The lockkeepers love their jobs – being operators, mechanics, curators, historians and such – but tight budgets have caused labor/staffing/training issues.

I hope NYS doesn’t lose sight of or care for this incredible infrastructure. It’s woefully under-utilized, but it’s so unique, such a testament to slower, simpler, even ‘mechanical’ times … times that duffers like me pine for (over our hot coffee and creature comforts.)

And in my haste to get buttoned down for last night’s storm, I neglected to give proper props to Mitch at Cayuga Seneca Lock #1. Yes, he cooked me a cheeseburger, introduced me to Lindsey, provided advice for positioning the boat before the storm … just a great guy, the kind of person who offers unconditional kindness and infectious enthusiasm for this thing called living. Thanks, Mitch and Lindsey, for making my ‘port in a storm’ seem more like home away from home.

I asked a lockkeeper about the challenges of ‘invasive species’ here. It seemed to me that a lock leading from ‘the rest of the world’ to Cayuga and then to Seneca Lakes sort of invites invasion … and indeed it has. He cited zebra mussels, Asian carp, and milfoil as the issues of the day, the difference here being in expectations. Here, the name of the game is ‘control,’ or ‘defense,’ not eradication.

‘When these lock gates started swinging over 100 years ago, that horse left the barn,’ he said.

A trip to these challenged yet beautiful lakes teaches in full measure the importance of ‘prevention’ at a place like Lake George, a place that has held a line because of the forward-thinking and hard work of the LGA, the Fund, the Nature Conservancy, the LG Park Commission, and environmentally responsible public officials – and hundreds of volunteers. We live in a garden spot. Tending a garden takes a keen eye, vigilance, and persistence, but oh, it’s worth it!

I’ll be on the main body of Seneca Lake tomorrow for 20 miles or so, to Dresden, where I’ll trek 8 miles to the top of Keuka. I look forward to a swim in the clear waters of Seneca!

For now, one more cup o’ Joe while the rain clears!

     

Bonus blog from early this morning

 

Bonus Blog – 7/14 6:15 AM

I had a song in my head this morning, and it was for a reason. Remember at the end of ‘The Poseidon Adventure,’ the first one, when the survivors bang like crazy on the steel hull to gather the attention of the rescuers outside? Even Rogo, played by Ernest Borgnine, lamenting the loss of his wife, Stella Stevens, (and parenthetically, who wouldn’t cry if you’d just lost Stella Stevens in 1972?) is reduced to tears by his improbable survival.

Overlaying Rogo’s dual epiphanies is Maureen McGovern’s soon-to-be hit single, “There’s got to be a Morning After,” a saccharine yet fitting close to a hokey movie about loss and new beginnings, albeit for Rogo, not Stella.

Anyway, Maureen’s song was/is in my head as I unzipped my tent this morning and fell out into the wet grass. Last night’s storms were fierce – terrifying, really – and they went on and on, and I spent it all inside a tubular frame underneath the largest tree within miles.    

So I have my morning after yet ahead. And a day, at last, on the lakes.

Day 8 - Baldwinsville to Cayuga

 

Baldwinsville to Cayuga Lake Lock #1

35.5 miles

11.5 hours

 

Some days are tougher than others, and this was one of those days. The Seneca River is 3 feet about normal, running hard to the east, so my day was uphill all the way.

The lockkeeper let me through at 35.5 miles, and within 5 minutes I was:

1. Handed a cheeseburger and a coke

2. Provided with a power outlet

3. Shown to a lovely campsite
4. Given a brief history of the issues of invasive species from the canal (i.e. the world) to Cayuga and Seneca Lakes
5. Shown a faucet so I can ‘wash’

Folks, I am so spent I’ll have to write later, and a second storm is due here in an hour, and I still have to make camp.

I can’t dunk, throw, dance, cook, or skate, but I can row for 11.5 hours straight and write in a little black book. Each has his or her gifts, yes?

More tomorrow!!

ZZZZZ