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| North Lake Reservoir, source of the Black River Feeder Canal for the Erie Canal |
I bikepacked the hard way to the source of New York's Erie Canal, the source of mid-west America's growth and prosperity, the source of economic prosperity for Northern, Central and Western NY and home of NY's 750mi bikepacking route, the Empire State Trail.
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| The Little Collie monkey on my back |
Sometimes these exploratory trips suck, but they build resilience for future times. If I was injured or had a serious mechanical I'd accept help, but I'm out there to ride, often hike, and always seek to be challenged. The worst case scenario is it sucks, I'm miserable and I raise the bar for future adventures by looking back on the experience.
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| The views |
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| The interlude between the suck |
I can't resist getting pedantic about "the source of the Erie Canal." It's hard to claim any particular water as being 'the source' since the feeders come from so many places. If you were to take the highest-elevation source, you'd have to recognize that the east end of the canal uses Hudson River water, and use Lake Tear of the Clouds (officially) or the headwaters of the Opalescent River on the west side of Mount Marcy (higher elevation but not the "source of the Hudson").
ReplyDeleteIf you wanted the feeder with the greatest single contribution of water, it would probably be the West Canada Creek below Hinkley, which would place "the" source somewhere in the swamps near Pillsbury Lake in the West Canada Lakes Wilderness.
The highest-elevation source to the south would have to be one of the streams on Black Dome that drain to the Schoharie via Colgate Lake and the East Kill. (At least, I don''t think there's higher open water on Hunter Mouintain, and Slide Mountain doesn't drain to the Mohawk, only the Delaware (via Dry Brook, the East Branch, and the Neversink) and the Hudson (via the Esopus).
None of which is bikepackable, of course. But all of it is every bit as muddy. As I'm sure you're aware, since I've seen pictures from you in most of those places. Nice pictures they are, too!
If you're ever on the Empire State Trail/Erie Canalway around Niskayuna, give me a holler and we can go to lunch or something. I live a couple of blocks off the trail.
I love the info and the thoughts on it. I thought about it as well but apparently the Black River Canal was designed solely to feed the Erie with any bonus being the canal itself which had a fairly short life as a canal. And the fact north lake (reservoir) is created s to feed the Black to feed the Erie. I think also supposedly the Black River Canal flows upstream and downstream at certain points, though that is perhaps something I'm making up from too much researching routes. But I was trying to figure out how it was the actual source myself considering it's at the halfway point of the canal on the downstream side as it flows into the Hudson, so it was definitely something I struggled with.
DeleteOf course it makes for a better title than "I biked through some terrain that the DEC has the audacity to call roads and it sucked more than anything." The truth is the suck was mostly because those trails are called roads on the map. When I think of a road, I think of something a wheeled vehicle could possibly navigate...and that set some really obscene expectations that I'd be riding my bike and not pushing and carrying it for miles and miles. You know it's horrendous when the way back would have been downhill almost entirely and I still chose to ride pavement with a dog on my back. I hate riding pavement and hate it more with a 40lb dog shaped backpack. This was a one and done for me. If I ever do it again it will be in winter on a fatbike or XC skis.
I'll definitely give you a shout at some point. I ride through there on occasion.