Jared and either an immature or female bald eagle have a staring contest along the Delaware River, Oct. 3, 2006.
Jared setting up camp in the 400s at Kittatinny Canoes and Campground, Barryville, NY, Oct. 3, 2006.Crossing over Jersey's Driscoll Bridge is always a pleasant reminder of why we like to escape to the woods and water. We listened to Howard Stern with guest Mr. T on the way up.
Oct. 3, 2006
Upper Delaware (Skinner's Falls to Barryville)/ 63 degrees (air)
This was my third kayak/camping trip on the upper Delaware, this time with Jared. We borrowed Baker's truck -- it was set up with roof racks for easy boat transport. We left Barnegat at 6:55 a.m. and arrived in Narrowsburg, NY around 11:30 a.m. We met up with "Mike" a friend of Chris' that lives up that way. For $20 he shuttled Baker's truck back to our planned takeout. We put in at Skinners Falls at 1 pm. and reached the takeout at Barryville, NY at 4 p.m.
The river was pushing good and I caught a scary hole and some overhead chop right in the beginning at Skinners - best of the day for me. We estimated hitting about 6-7 whitewater spots on this trip. It was mostly flatwater, though.
We spotted about 7 either immature or female bald eagles (they were mottled) along the way.
Weather was great for October, about 63 degrees in the morning. No need for shirts.
We camped at Kittatiny Canoes and Campground on Rt. 97, Barryville, NY. It was $34 for 2 adults for the night. Note: At this time of year there are hardly any other campers here, so the owner always likes to corral what few people there are onto a lawn spot right next to the main building (weird). One year, Chris and I almost wound up lawn camping. Later we discovered that there were tons of secluded cool spots and insisted on moving. (We camped in the 400s on that trip in '05 at "Greatful Dead End," right next to Beaver Brook.) Jared and I camped at #410 on this trip - you have to ask, and it's a few bucks more. *Check in starts at 8 a.m.
We set up camp at 4ish after just a few hours of paddling. We set out into "town" and grabbed a beer at some tavern, where there were only a few locals playing darts. Otherwise, nothing else was going on, so we went back to camp to get our swerve on. Jared brought 2 big bottles of wine that we wound up pounding like 40s. I'm told that I performed the best drunken-almost-in-the-campfire-fall of all time ...
