Chapter 11- The River
Cohoes Falls & Gorge
Discovery: Cohoes Falls
and Gorge
July 22, 2002, 85 degrees, Sunny
The plan was simple. Launch the canoe a half-mile
below Cohoes Falls, paddle upstream for a quarter mile and walk on rocks
to the bottom of the falls. Worked like a charm and then some.
The Mohawk River plummets 70 feet into the Hudson
Valley at Cohoes, and then flows a couple miles through a gorge and around
islands before merging with the waters of the Hudson River. During highwater
periods it's impossible to explore the gorge and falls, but during the
summer months when most of the water is used to feed the Erie Canal and
the Cohoes Power Plant, there is only a trickle of water coming over the
falls and much of the bottom of the gorge is dry.
The only public (and safe) access is at the lower
end of the gorge, off Mohawk Street in the village of Cohoes. It was at
this parking area, just downstream from the old Harmony Mill, where Dave
Hamilton and I launched the canoe at 9:30 a.m. I was excited. After
all Cohoes Falls was the sight of a major Mohican village, and where Deganawida,
founder of the League of the Iroquois, fell into the gorge in the 1500s.
And the gorge was where the Cohoes Mastodon
was discovered in 1866.
We paddled upstream on the south side of the
gorge until the canoe bottomed out. After wading around in the shallow
water, discovering potholes and catching some small bass, we towed and
carried the canoe upstream to deeper water and crossed over to the north
side of the gorge. After parking the canoe in a water-filled pothole, we
walked to the bottom of Cohoes Falls.
We were surprised to discover the sedimentary rock---mostly
shale---that comprised the gorge and falls was almost vertical. We were,
in fact, walking on the ends of layers of eroded rock. Long after mud was
deposited in an ancient sea and converted to stone by millions of years
of compression and heat, and upheaval turned it on end in the Cohoes area.
Today, large trees like cottonwood grow along the south shore of the gorge, while the often-flooded north shore vegetation consists of young poplar and clumps of grass. We discovered a single plant of purple loosestrife growing among the rocks. Despite this species much-deserved bad reputation, we had to admire its tenacity. The most fascinating vegetation in the gorge was algae. Depending on its depth and how it was effected by water and current, it varied in form from green slime, to coral, to felt, to mesh, to canvas.
The view from the top of the falls was spectacular.
The gorge is also home to hundreds of waterfowl,
including Canada geese, mallards, mergansers and sea gulls. We counted
50 birds in three "families" of young mallards.
Smallmouth bass were abundant but small; indicating
this stretch of river is a major nursery. Smallies gobbled my gold spoon
in almost every run, in some of the potholes and in the plunge pool below
the falls. A plastic jig bounced off the bottom in some of the deeper holes
may have produced bigger fish.
We reached the bottom of Cohoes Falls at 10:30.
After photographing the falls, and the Cohoes mills and power plant, I
suggested we climb to the top of the falls. Dave responded, "I'll stay
down here in case I have to call the paramedics."
Algae-covered
rock on each side of the trickle of water coming over the falls looked
like the easiest climb to the top, so I headed in that direction. My felt-bottom
wading boots proved to be ideal for climbing the shale escarpment. The
view of the gorge from the top of the falls was spectacular.
The dry river-bottom above the falls looked like
a moonscape: acres of jagged rock. I hiked around an amazing variety of
potholes until I came to a rock-bound lake. It was difficult to imagine
that this entire area was underwater just a few weeks earlier.
Climbing down the falls escarpment was
much more difficult than going up. Despite the rough surface, I negotiated
the steeper areas by sitting on my butt, using hands and feet to control
descent.
While I was gone, Dave had started up the falls,
but when shale crumbled beneath his feet, he decided to stick to his original
plan. On the way back to the canoe, I followed Dave to the north side of
the gorge where he had discovered nodules and rocks imbedded in the almost
vertical layers of shale. In some areas water running down the side of
the gorge had turned the grey shale to black, giving the rockface a striped
appearance.
When
we got back to the canoe, we decided to carry it a little further upstream
and then paddle up to the power plant where the river water was coming
over an overflow falls and from the bottom of the power plant. From the
power plant we could see there was enough water to continue upstream to
the bottom of the falls.
After canoeing in the plunge pool at the bottom of
the biggest falls in the Mohawk Valley, we turned the canoe around, ran
several short rapids and bounced off a couple of ledges before reaching
calmer waters at the lower end of the gorge. Despite the near 90 degree
heat, a breeze blowing up the river made the gorge quite comfortable. We
continued downstream, paddling under the railroad and highway bridges,
and on to the canal feeder dam. A cable prevented us from reaching the
top of the dam, so we paddled back to the launch site, completing the discovery
of Cohoes Falls and Gorge at 12:15.
The following day we parked behind the museum in
Waterford, walked down to the canal feeder dam and explored the section
of river between the cable and the dam. Hate to miss even a few feet of
the river.
and Gorge during highwater periods.
From Waterford we drove over to Simmons Island, parked
the car beside the Golden Krust Restaurant and explored the river from
there to the bottom of the canal feeder dam. As was the case in the gorge,
the river was loaded with small bass. The biggest fish of the entire trip---a
13-inch smallmouth---ate my gold spoon below the dam.
When we finished up that afternoon, I could hardly
wait to return to explore the three branches of the river that flow north,
south and east to the Hudson River.
Photographs by David W. Hamilton and M. Paul Keesler
Follow the path of this discovery trip by clicking on Mohawk
Valley Maps: by Maptech.
Type Cohoes select New York, press GO!
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