Hudson

We completed a 2-man paddle of the Hudson from North River to Riparius bridge in a 16' Mohawk Blazer canoe. No spray deck or float bags, but in hindsight we should definitely have had the latter.

Trip:

Our departure from North River was 10:00am across the road from Adirondack Outfitters. The staff there was very friendly and even let us drop our canoe at their shop and offered a shuttle so we could get our car to the Riparius bridge and have it waiting for us. It's an awesome shop and the staff were super knowledgable. We gave them some cash for their advice and the ride, as well as temporary canoe storage.

The put-in was just upstream from Mouse and Mouse Tail rapids. If  you start a trip where we did, expect to dive in head-first. At the levels we ran them at they were probably class II. We managed them fine. River left was the channel to be in.

Perry Ethyls rapid was about a mile further down. I'm not confident enough to speculate what class it was at the levels we were running at, but we both felt it was beyond our skill level and decided to line it from left shore. Adirondack Outfitters advised us that this would be the most challenging rapid on the route. The channel appeared to be all river left, but we didn't attempt it so take that with a grain of salt.

The paddle down to North Creek went off without a hitch with mostly flat water and some occasional swifts that were very manageable after tackling Mouse.

Below North Creek the river bends away from the road and it's sort of a no-turning-back point until you hit Riparius Bridge. We found this out the hard way after going for a swim in a rapid shortly after NC. No injuries or boat damage, and we put back in and continued on.

The river below North Creek had a number of rapids that were strewn with boulders, and I'd be interested to see how those sections characters change at higher water levels. We lined two or three more times due to the sheer number of boulders and the lack of obvious lines in many cases. I'll note that we're both learning in this and that a more experienced paddler could likely have navigated these sections.

The final rapid was a long one that ended just up river from Riparius Bridge. We decided to try and run it and took on some water right at the top- not what we wanted on such a long rapid. There were no obvious opportunities to pull out or eddy to bail the water so we ended up running the whole thing with a sloshing boat. A couple drops in that section were fun, but nerve racking with so much water in the boat. We managed it, though and pulled out at river right immediately after Riparius Bridge at 4:00pm.

We had a lot of fun on this section and I hope to go back and paddle it again... maybe once we've gotten a little more experience under our belts and are confident we can manage the entirety!

Other Notes:

Wildlife. We didn't see much wildlife on the trip, which was a bit surprising. A few hawks were about it. We also noticed some wild strawberries on the river bank while scouting. And spiders- beware patches of ferns if your not a fan of arachnids.

Water Levels. I will add this to the river description because I think it's probably important to most people planning a trip on this section of the Hudson, but a dam release farther upstream reaches North River at about 2:00, raising levels and increasing some of the rapids' ratings. We ran it 'at natural levels' before 'the bubble' hit. The outfitters noted that once you're south of North Creek you're unlikely to even feel/notice the added volume as the river is wider there.