Easy paddle-pedal on Oswegatchie’s West Branch

A 6-mile flatwater run ends with a 3-mile bike ride

By Tom French

Sometimes when the chance for adventure appears, you have to take it, even if the timing is not right.

Such it was that my daughter Emma and I found ourselves along the West Branch of the Oswegatchie near Belfort, just inside the western Blue Line, on the first day of September when the water was low, the bottom occasionally scratchy, and the wind not ideal.

Emma was in Boston all summer finishing an internship after graduating from college, but now she’s taken a job with Save the River, an environmental organization in Clayton. I’m hoping her proximity to Potsdam will lead to more frequent opportunities for amusements.

‘Off the beaten path’

Emma enjoys exploring off the beaten path, which often results in what I refer to as “Bushwhack Paddles” (see here, here, and here). This motivates me to find remote yet not extreme outings, which led me to a nearly 30-year-old copy of the Adirondack Regional Tourism Council’s 21-page Guide to Paddling ‘The Northeast’s Last Great Wilderness’ where I found a “10-mile flatwater float” east of Croghan, part of which flowed through the Watson’s East Triangle Wild Forest. 

I pondered different float plans to avoid taking two cars, but it was Jamieson (Adirondack Canoe Waters North Flow) who recommended a downstream paddle with bikes deposited at the first of three bridges along the Long Pond Road. I hooked up the rack beneath the stern of the canoe on the car.

After checking out the oldest church between Utica and Montreal in Belfort, we drove north along the Long Pond Road to the first of three bridges over the Oswegatchie where we deposited the bikes. The area around this first bridge is scenic and confusing. Private camps and No Trespassing signs line the shore. A DEC parking area is hidden to the left.

A ‘recreational’ river

We locked the bikes to a tree then continued about three miles to the third bridge. Jamieson discusses a put-in above Round Pond on the river below an “unnavigable gorge of cascades and boulders.” The Oswegatchie Educational Center, owners of the property, would prefer people access from the bridge and leave no trace. 

We wanted to explore the full extent of this “recreational” river, as classified by the DEC, so we headed upstream from the bridge into Long Pond, which is where we first encountered the stiff wind that would plague us on every body of water.

Round Pond is to the left and is accessed through a narrow, marshy swale under a cable bridge connecting two peninsulas – part of a glacial delta with possible kettle pond as hypothesized by my neighborhood geologist, Brian Carl, using LIDAR data. 

Emma and I proceeded to the inlet, passing over a dozen paddle boarders and kayakers from the Educational Center. In addition to summer youth camps, the Educational Center, operated by the New York FFA Leadership Training Foundation, Inc, offers retreats and outdoor opportunities with full accommodations year-round to public schools, universities, corporations, or other private groups such as family reunions and weddings.

Where river meets pond

We crossed a sandy delta where the West Branch flows into Round Pond, then proceeded less than a half mile to the first ripples from upstream. Along the way, we discovered the source of the Oswegatchie’s name. Alleged to mean “Dark” or “Black” Waters, it was a murky brown, probably due to tannins, making it difficult to spot sleepers and logs hidden beneath the surface.

Returning through Round and Long Ponds, we continued down the Oswegatchie. It was quickly scratchy so we walked the canoe for a bit. Though it was still early, and we would never be far from a road or civilization, recollections of a one-mile-per hour paddle haunted me, but we were back in the canoe in short order and entering Rock Pond. 

A number of people were hanging out on a large “boulder” mentioned by Jamieson (more like a rocky point of land), but his description of “more impressive tawny cliffs” on Trout Pond lured us to the north.

As an author, I too try to use a variety of words to describe similar features in order to avoid repetitive prose. Cliffs they were not. Larger they were.

The Educational Center has installed a floating bridge across the “strait” between Rock Pond and Trout Lake. We were quick to grab the bow line as we exited the boat lest we lose it in a gust of wind. The headwind as we reentered Rock Pond quickly compelled us into race mode. We struggled at almost sixty beats per minute to keep the bow pointed so it wouldn’t catch in the wind and veer forty degrees to port or starboard.

Wind and winding rivers

But solace was found as we entered the narrow winding course of the river for the most scenic part of the day. The shore was covered in fields of ferns, and branches of hemlocks and hardwoods arched over the river with occasional riffles. We startled a blue heron who took off and swept awkwardly through the narrow gorge of trees. 

Only a couple sections required us to float the boat, though we did encounter two beaver dams which we easily dispatched with a quick carry over. We debated crashing over one, but with electronics onboard, decided to play it safe.

A fallen tree across the channel was a perfect opportunity for lunch. Needles from the overhanging hemlocks sprinkled us while we ate and pattered on the ferns and forest floor like rain. 

We knew we were nearing an enclave of society when we heard the thump of a bass line emanating from the Buckhorn Bar and Grill near the outlet to Mud Pond. Gusts buttressed us we steered under the middle bridge. Even before we reached open water, we were in race mode again – fighting to keep the eighteen-foot Sundowner straight. Failing multiple times, Emma would draw hard from the bow, and I was forced to rudder and backpaddle – slowing the boat and losing any momentum we had. I took comfort that the wind would be in our favor once we reached the turn of the U-shaped lake. 

Alas, it was a deception as the wind funneled up the river between the forested shores. It would have been easier to paddle upstream. Even as we re-entered the wide channel, it was a cyclone until we spotted the impoundment above the bridge and falls.

Biking back

The easiest exit was to the right across a highly-posted manicured lawn, but we knew the crowded deck of Labor Day Weekend revelers would not have appreciated our trespass. Instead, we landed on an island that splits the drop. After hauling the canoe to the pool below, we paddled the last 150 yards and pulled the canoe out at the DEC parking area where we’d left the bikes. 

Discrepancies between shoreline signage and DEC maps led me to post-trip research. DEC maps, including in a nearby kiosk, suggest the location is a “Water Access Site.” However, according to the DEC, “The Watsons East Triangle Wild Forest (forest preserve land) does not extend below the Mud Pond dam.” DEC-owned Public Fishing Rights downstream from the dam “can be used only for fishing.”

The DEC suggested taking out on the north shore above the dam and bushwhacking to “an old woods road that leads close to the river and comes out to Long Pond Road near the boundary.” 

A herd path at the abutments of the bridge on the western side may be within the road’s right-of-way and legal. 

As soon as we started riding back to the car, the cable to my front gear snapped, and Emma’s bike also acted up. But if you’re going to have bike troubles, this paddle-peddle was the perfect place for the problem. 

The paddle, including lunch, was about three-and-a-half hours. The return to the car was less than a half hour.