1970 Easter weekend canoe trip on Delaware River

Canoeists -- paddlers -- 4 of them were also swimmers in the icy Delaware River.

Dan Brangan
Gary Condell
Charlie Flitcraft (Flipper)
Rod Hinwood
Chuck Lake
Bob Thomas

The plan was to drive to Port Jervis -- drop off Flipper's MG and continue to Narrowsburg, NY and leave the pickup truck there. We would paddle down the Delaware to Port Jervis camping on the shore of the river for one night -- after camping one night in Narrowburg before leaving there on Saturday morning and then Flipper and Bob would drive back to get the truck and we would all drive home.

But NATURE!!

One Easter, Rodney Hinwood, Gary Condell, Charlie Flitcraft, Dan Brangan, Chuck Lake and I - we went up to the Delaware River and tried to do Narrowsburg to Port Jervis --- just after ice out - I say "ice out" - but we actually had to crawl over ice floes and drag our canoes over them to get to the open water - which still had some ice bits floating down it.

Rod Hinwood, Bob Thomas, and Gary Condell planning a camping trip to Newfoundland in 1969.

Lake and I did not capsize in the 2nd or 3 rd set of rapids the other guys did - we retrieved their sleeping bags and stuff and hauled them out - had to camp earlier than expected - next day early snow came down hard --- the guys didn't want to canoe in the snow - so we crossed the river to a summer camp closed for the winter. The four swimming canoeists broke into a building and sent Charley and me to hitchhike back to get the truck and fetch them - we were on the "wrong" side of the river - walking through snow in sneakers, etc.

We finally came to a house with lights on. The snowstorm was heavy enough that people needed lights on to be able to read inside a house on such a day.
We knocked - Some old guy answered the door. We told him, "Our boats capsized and we are trying to get back to our truck."
He heard us to say, "The captain died." and gave us a ride back to a bridge so we could get on the "right side" of the river and get rides back to Narrowsburg, NY.

We got the truck and with considerable difficulty on poorly plowed roads we drove back to the guys and got them out of the camp. I remember Condell's skin coming off where his hand froze to one of aluminum canoes as he was dragging it across the snow.

[Difficulty -- empty truck couldn't climb hill that had not been plowed. Got stuck, tried backing down -- wind was blowing and covered my mirrors --- no problem I thought -- open door and look back -- snow covered glasses -- wire guard rail over on one side and rock wall on the other -- jammed on the brakes and prayed -- ended up sideways across the road --

I remember Aunt Lottie and Uncle Max quite well. Grandparents Ernie and Olive used to take us down to Ocean City to visit them. I remember that Max restrung venetian blinds besides making awnings. He used to give Ernie the ends of spools of venetian blind cord and I would get some of them, too. When stuck on a hill on a very slippery snow covered road in an empty pickup truck. The sudden unpredicted storm on an Easter weekend in the spring of 1970 was being pretty much ignored by road crews. The truck was sideways and the back end kept slipping downhill and would soon be jammed against the guardrail and we would "really" be stuck. Lucky me I had some of Uncle Max's venetian blind cord in the back of the truck. My friend and I tied multiple strands of that between the rear bumper and the guard rail and it held long enough for us to get the truck straightened out.]

We piled up all our money - not much and got a motel room which we all shared. The snow mounted up to a foot. None of us ever thought to phone home. None of our parents knew where we could be reached. I remember eating a hot roast beef sandwich in a pretty fancy restaurant for dinner. They were expecting an Easter rush which never appeared due to the weather. Six guys and at least six waiters and waitresses and bus boys!

The ponds near Narrowsburg weren't rippling in the wind when we drove up - they were still frozen over.

When we drove back there was so much snow you couldn't tell whether it was a pond or a flat field.

Rodney and I went back in the summer and did the trip safely and the whole distance.

Those guys - in fact all of us could have died in that river - we had to cross ice piles to launch our canoes... It was much too cold to be out there without wet suits on.
An amazing trip anyway - what did we know about Easter in upstate NY? Easter to us was the baby parade at Atlantic City - warm breezes - big green Easter Lily plants with there large fragrant flowers.