Roundout

After our recent float on the fat and glossy Delaware River whose current gathered strength after recent rains, we are seeking quiet waters much closer to home. The Delaware has its long and dam-free channel, its speedy shad and magical John McPhee's writings about its watery soul and the fish within. And the Roundout Creek, our home stream, is -- according to a fellow paddler -- easy, gentle and kind. 

The creek emerges from the slopes of Rocky Mountain in the eastern Catskills, rushes downhill and dives into the Roundout Reservoir, then emerges again and squeezes between the Catskills and the Shawangunk Ridge. Then it slows down on its way to High Falls, joins the Wallkill River and spills into the Hudson near Kingston, NY. It is 63 miles long and changes from its mountain-rambunctious headwaters to the already mentioned easy, gentle and kind stream, also known as flat water. But even flat waters can roar, and after prolonged rains our Roundout Creek does inundates backyards, streets and roads. A local geologist wrote that during one of the major floods, on Sunday, August 28, 1955, between midnight and noon when the rain was the heaviest, the creek rose from 10 to 27 feet and hit the flood stage at 6am. He noted that "folks went to bed with a normal river and woke up to raging floodwaters" which filled streets and basements of Rosendale, a village built partly on a natural floodplain.

That much for the kind stream and its sudden changes but I am curious what other paddlers discovered here. In his long ago written essay, "A Bed of Boughs," naturalist John Burroughs commented on the purity of the creek' waters and compared its transparency to that of the air. He drank from its cool pools, called their sun-dappled sheen the "untarnished diamonds" and concluded by saying: "If I were a trout, I should ascend every stream till I found the Roundout. It is the ideal brook."

No longer. In 2010, almost 3,000 tons of terribly contaminated soil were removed from the mouth of the creek. The area, full of boats and swimmers, was denounced by the state as the place presenting "a significant threat to public health or the environment." More appeals to clean the stream followed and still not much has been done. The pollution comes from a number of sources but the major contributor is the B.Millens Scrap Yard which leaches hazardous waste into the lowest stretch of the Roundout. Other hazards are more spotty and seasonal, and the recent drowning of a teenager in the fast current bellow the High Falls is just another in a series of swimming accidents along the creek. 

We have no plans to swim, so we just put our canoe in above the falls. And before I even find a good center of gravity on my seat, a mature bald eagle swoops above our heads. I follow the bird with my camera's lens but only the last picture, cropped by the bird slipping out of my frame and flying downriver, clearly reflects its passing but powerful presence.

©Yva Momatiuk