No fool like an…

Old fool. One day, several years ago, Barb and I fished an area on the Beaverkill that had some very pretty water.

The only problem with fishing this area was the long walk upstream from the parking area. I noticed a small tributary pitching down a steep fall just before it entered the Beaverkill. I wondered if we could park a car along Old Route 17 and then follow that trib down to the Beaverkill.

The following week, I took an exploratory trip to see if this was feasible. I had considerable difficulty finding the trib where it ran under Old Route 17. I had not realized that it passes underneath both the Quickway and the old 17 roadway through a pipe.

When it exits the pipe, the stream is 15 feet lower than old 17. Roadside brush prevented getting a good look at the tiny trib. I found that following it down to the Beaverkill was no easy task, as the slope was pretty steep. However, I considered it doable.

Next year, during the Graham brothers’ visit, I suggested we try that area of the Beaverkill. We drove to the area, but despite walking up and down the road several times, none of us were able to locate the position of the trib.

Frustration set in and we drove off to fish an area further upstream.

But the desire to find the trib again and fish the Beaverkill at that point stayed with me. Last week, I decided to drive over one evening and hunt it down. I first checked its location as best as I could by examining a geodetic survey map of the area in question.

When I arrived at the general location, I parked the car and started walking along the side of the road. The brush alongside the road was so thick it was impossible to catch a glimpse of the tiny tributary.

Then I had a stroke of luck. Traffic along the Quickway just behind me slackened. The faint sound of running water reached my ears. I pushed through the scrub, and there, 20 feet or so below me, was the trib. I tried to follow the original way I had gone down the first time some years back.

To my chagrin, I found my way blocked by a bare earth drop of some 35 feet, which was nearly vertical. If I had any brains, I would have given up at that point. Instead, I backtracked upstream, scrambled down into the the trib itself and struggled for 25 minutes through blow downs and loose rocks that rolled under my feet before I finally reached the banks of the Beaverkill.

Somehow, I avoided breaking a leg or my neck.

It had taken so long to find the trib and descend it that the sun had now set. I briefly debated: should I put together my rod and make a few casts or start back up?

I gazed up the way I had come down and gulped. From the bottom it seemed even steeper than it had looked coming down. Was I going to be able to get out of here?

Rather than fight my way through the numerous blow downs that had barred my path on the way down, I tried to climb the wooded slope, just downstream from the trib. First, I had to get up out of the waist high Beaverkill floodway. With my bamboo rod in one hand, I reached up with my free hand, grasped a small sapling and just managed to heave my body out of the floodway and up onto the steep wooded slope. Some 15 minutes later, I was only halfway up the slope, darkness was falling, and I was panting and exhausted.

The slope was so steep that I was actually crawling up it on my belly. I dragged my body from one small tree to another, each time gaining two or three precious feet further up the hill. At one point, I had to toss the rod upslope so that I could lunge for the next tree above me. Both sections of the rod came sliding back down towards me.

I caught the butt section but missed the tip section. Had it slipped all the way back down? After a frantic search in the brown leaves, my hand found it lying alongside my left leg. Whew!

Thirty minutes after starting the climb out, I finally reached the top with a sigh of relief. I had spent the entire evening mountaineering and never made a single cast.

By any rights, I could have easily broken an ankle or a leg during this adventure. When I first viewed the difficulties of descending and then having to ascend this route to the river, why didn’t I simply get back in the car and drive over to the East Branch? Go back to the heading of this column.