View of the Delaware River from Mt. Minsi in Pennsylvania on Day 85.

The Appalachian Trail crosses many rivers. Fortunately, most of them have bridges and don't have to be forded!

Unfortunately, most of the bridges also carry vehicles.

Fortunately, the beauty and intrigue of the rivers helps you forget about the traffic whizzing by at rates that stun hikers who've just emerged from the peace and quiet of the woods.

Everything has a trade-off, it seems.

If you can believe it, I probably took even more photos of rivers during my AT trek than I took of creeks. Rivers are grand. They are milestones along the 2,175-mile Trail corridor, helping thru-hikers measure progress on their long journey.

And they are memorable.

How can I ever forget crossing the mighty Hudson River on foot over the Bear Mountain Bridge? Or the beautiful Penobscot River with Mt. Katahdin, my journey's end, reflected in its waters? Or fording the flooded Little Wilson River and wondering if I'd live to write about it??

Obviously, I did!

Come along with me northbound as we cross many of the rivers along the AT, rivers that captivate the imagination and reflect our fears and dreams.

NORTH CAROLINA & TENNESSEE

The first river I photographed during my run was the Nantahala, which is very popular for white-water rafting.

This photo shows the bridge at the Nantahala Outdoor Center (NOC) near Wesser, NC where the AT crosses the river. It was very shallow on Day 12 but the water was moving swiftly:

Hikers sometimes get multiple views of the same river from various vantage points, especially before the leaves come out in the spring.

Although some of my views were obscured by leaves I was able to get pictures on Day 19 of the French Broad River at Hot Springs, NC from the auto bridge the AT crosses, from half a mile of Trail along the bank of the river, and from about a thousand feet up on Lover's Leap:     

 

I was also able to get good views 1,500 feet down to the Nolichucky River and Erwin, TN from Cliff Rocks at the end of my run on Day 23, despite all the leaves:

Some creeks look more like rivers to me, and some rivers, like the Elk (below) look more like creeks.

I unexpectedly skirted the Elk River in Tennessee for a while on Day 25 during a relocation I wasn't expecting. (Lesson learned = check for updates to your old maps and guides! That day's section was about four miles longer than I thought it would be.)

VIRGINIA & WEST VIRGINIA

The North Fork of the Holston River looked very peaceful and inviting on Day 34 as I approached Tilison's Mill from the south. To the right of the Trail was an attractive fence and farm, to the left were lots of irises and purple flowers blooming along the quiet, shallow river:

The AT crosses the river on that low concrete bridge and follows the river upstream. It wouldn't take much of a storm for the bridge to be under water. It would still be easier to cross than most flooded creeks and rivers, however.

You can see other photos of this beautiful area in the journal on Day 34 and in Photos 6.

The James River is one of many that you can see from ridges on either side as well as at eye level. This view is from Day 48 as I approached from south of the river:

Jim took this dramatic photo of the Foot Bridge (that's the real name, which is why it's capitalized) across the James. It's the longest foot bridge on the entire AT. I appreciated not having to share the bridge with vehicles.

You can see other views of the river and bridge in the journal on Days 48 and 49.

Because of trees and haze I was not able to get any good valley shots of the Shenandoah River to the west of Shenandoah National Park. I took this photo up close on Day 59 just before I climbed the steps to the long vehicular bridge that crosses the river to Harper's Ferry, West Virginia:

After I traipsed through town following white blazes I came to the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers, shown below, which I consider one of the grandest sights on the entire Appalachian Trail:

The Potomac comes in from the left. You can see other views of both rivers, their confluence, and the two bridges hikers follow in the journal on Day 60 and in Post 12 (favorite places), Photos 10 (bridges), and Photos 22 (clouds).

MID-ATLANTIC STATES (PA, NJ, & NY)

The AT crosses several large rivers on vehicular bridges in Pennsylvania.

The first one going northbound is the Susquehanna River on the outskirts of Duncannon (Day 69). I took the next photo from the bridge over the nearby Juniata River, which merges right there with the Susquehanna. There is another shot in Photos 10.

I liked the quiet little Schuylkill River near the Reading Railroad in Port Clinton better, however (Day 82):

Have you ever seen the Schuylkill River farther downstream in Philadelphia? It's much wider there, before it empties into the Delaware Bay. Here it is reminiscent of New England, with the red barn in the background.

My views of the lovely Delaware River on the PA-NJ state line were mostly obscured by leaves but I got a few shots of it from the ridges and across the bridge on Days 85 (at the top of this page) and 86.

There's a picture of the Delaware River and its bridge from "eye level" in Photos 10 and another view toward the river from Kittatinny Ridge in New Jersey on Day 89.

Jim and I took at least a dozen photos of the mighty Hudson River in New York. Mine were views from the AT; Jim's were from a run he did around West Point Military Academy, where we camped for a couple days.

These photos of the Hudson are from Day 94 (view from West Point looking north) and Day 95 (view from the AT crossing on the Bear Mountain Bridge):

 

You can see another view of the Hudson that Jim took from campus and one I took from Bear Mountain State Park in Photos 30 and how it looks to cross the bridge the AT over the river on Day 95. 

CONNECTICUT AND MASSACHUSETTS

"The mark of a successful man is one who has spent the entire day on the bank of a river and not felt guilty about it." - unknown

That would be a very difficult thing for me to do!

 

Since I retired seven years ago I've been gradually morphing from a hyperactive Type A personality into a more mellow Type B, but I'm a work in progress.

 

If I ever arrive at a serene enough mental state that I can spend an entire day on the bank of a river and not feel guilty about it, this is one of the rivers in the eastern U.S. that I'd consider:

 

The Appalachian Trail follows the scenic Housatonic River, a tributary of the Hudson River, off and on through Connecticut and Massachusetts. Hikers descend several times into the Housatonic Valley from three mountain ranges - the Taconic Range, Berkshire Highlands, and Greylock massif - and skirt the river.

In some places the river is very placid ("lazy") and doesn't appear to be moving very fast. In other places the drops are more significant and there are more rocks, rapids, and waterfalls. I'll show you one of the Appalachian Trail's nicest waterfalls in Falls Village, CT in the next essay.

Some of the flattest, most runnable trail on the AT is along the Housatonic:

I talked about those sections in some detail on Days 98, 99, 100, and 102. You can see other views of the river in the first two of those entries and in Photos 35.

VERMONT AND NEW HAMPSHIRE

If you've read the daily journal you know how grateful I was for all the bridges across the major streams along the AT in most of the states. Maine and New Hampshire were the least likely to have bridges hikers could use.

The photo below shows Clarendon Gorge, through which the Mill River flows. The AT crosses the rocky gorge only a tenth of a mile from VT 103 in western Vermont (this section is also part of the Long Trail).

Several years ago a hiker named Robert Brugman drowned fording the river. Thankfully, now there is a suspension bridge for hikers to use. It is dedicated to Brugman.

I took this photo on a foggy afternoon (Day 109) when the water was low:

It was also very foggy the day (113) I crossed over the Connecticut River on the Vermont-New Hampshire state line.

Several rowers were gliding silently by on the calm water under the vehicular bridge the AT uses:

 

I was very grateful for the sturdy suspension bridge across the West Branch of the Peabody River south of Pinkham Notch on Day 121. You can see a photo of the bridge in the journal that day.

The picture below shows some of the large boulders in the river. Too bad there isn't a person down there to show perspective. The water was low but very fast that day; I would have had trouble crossing it without the bridge. I could hear the roar of the water from quite a distance away.

MAINE

You probably guessed I'd have a separate essay on Maine, didn't you?? It does have an abundance of rivers, but I'll include the main ones here. I also wrote quite a bit about Maine's waterways in Photos 11.

I thought of the nice foot bridge across the Peabody when I approached the South Branch of the Carrabassett River on Day 134. This is one of those "streams" with warnings in the guide books about how difficult it can be to ford during high water. It hadn't rained recently, to my knowledge, but my fears were fueled by the roar of the river from high above it on the saddle between Sugarloaf and Spaulding Mountains.

Oh, dear. If it sounds that bad up here, what's it like down there??

After a challenging two-mile, 1700-foot descent through boulders to the river, what did I notice first (after confirming there was, indeed, no bridge)?? "Patches," a thru-hiker, napping on a large boulder in the middle of the river (below)!

I tried to ford the river without disturbing him but he noticed me and said hello.

I love that photo because it not only shows a hiker relaxing to the max, but it also gives perspective on just how big those rocks are.

Now imagine trying to ford this river when it's flooded and you can't see the bottom.

No, thanks. I was nervous about it on a good day.

The water was really moving through that narrow channel. I knew I couldn't hop the boulders next to Patches because they were too high, so I scouted up and downstream for a better place to cross. I managed to boulder-hop to the left where the water was calmer (i.e., lower and more spread out), in case I fell in. I got across OK and was mighty relieved. Silly, in fact, as you can see in the journal that day.

This is a new view of the river to the right. The larger boulders are three to six feet above the water:

One of the "milestone" rivers along the AT is the Kennebec, near the town of Caratunk, ME.  It's the only river on the Trail for which the AT Conservancy hires a company to ferry hikers across.

Some hikers tempt the river gods by fording the river a couple hundred feet upstream from the ferry crossing, but I wasn't going to be one of them. I really looked forward to going across on the canoe and it is one of my fondest memories of the entire trek.

This is a photo I took from the south side of the river as I waited for the canoe guy to show up; there are only two crossing times per day. I haven't shown this one in the journal previously:

Before long, Jim and the dogs appeared on the far side.

At that point, the ferry guide estimated the river was 220 feet wide; he expected it to reach 250 feet pretty soon (the river rises and falls unexpectedly because of releases at the hydroelectric plant upstream).

The guide said the river was at least 17 feet deep at the time we crossed. In the next photo you can see the red canoe on the shore:

Meanwhile, Jim took this photo of several of us waiting on the far side for the canoe. That's Pierce Pond Stream merging with the Kennebec to the far left (one of my favorite creeks on the whole Trail):

You can read all about this adventure in the journal and see more photos of the canoe ride on Day 137 and in Photos 11. Very fun!

I had to ford two more potentially dangerous rivers on Day 140, the east and west branches of the Piscataquis River. Both are listed as dangerous when flooded, so I was pretty nervous approaching them.

But neither was flooded. In fact, they were both only knee deep, and although the water was flowing pretty quickly and the rocks were slick on the bottoms, at least I could see bottom in the clear water.

The next photo shows beautiful Bald Mountain Stream, which I followed about three miles until it merged with the West Branch of the Piscataquis River:

This is where the AT crosses the West Branch of the Piscataquis:

Bald Mountain Stream comes in from the left to merge with the river. I followed the white blazes to the "island" between the streams, then across the other side of the river and up a steep bank.

The next six miles of the AT follow the West Branch, one of the most beautiful "river walks" on the entire AT. Finally, hikers cross the wider East Branch of the Piscataquis a few miles south of Monson, ME.

Then there was my scariest river adventure on the entire trek: crossing the flooded Little Wilson Stream and Thompson Brook twice each on Day 141.

Thank goodness I had only a few more days on the Trail after that, because I'm not sure I could have kept fording Maine's "streams" much longer. Seven months later I continue to have occasional nightmares about the experience and think about it during my waking hours. I was damn lucky that day. I still love to run and hike along creeks and rivers, but fording them is another story.

Little Wilson doesn't even come with high-water warnings in the guide book or map, but it was a churning, dangerous crossing after several inches of rain apparently fell before I arrived that day.

We'd been warned by seasoned veterans of the Trail ("Bear," an overseer in the Hundred-Mile Wilderness, and Regis Shivers, who nearly drowned in the two Wilson rivers when he ran the AT in 2003) about the dangers of crossing these streams after a lot of rain has fallen.

Here are three photos I took after crossing the flooded Little Wilson Stream on the AT. This is the first time I've shown the third one:

 

 

You say, "Oh, that doesn't look so bad!"

You had to be there. The water was fast and furious, too dark to see bottom or the boulders lurking beneath the surface. I clung to a serendipitous rope, the only one I ever saw across a river on the AT, and lost my footing completely about two-thirds of the way across when the water was up to my chest. Somehow both Cody-pup and I made it across.

If you've never read the journal entry for Day 141, I encourage you to go back and read it now (there's even more about that crossing and Jim's and my subsequent rendezvous in Photos 11).

This was only the beginning of the challenges I faced that day.

I was supposed to cross the Big Wilson Stream a few miles later, but it would've been my death for sure. I met another hiker ("Kokomo") who tried, twice, to cross it. He was so traumatized from nearly drowning that he vowed to end his thru-hike then and there (he did finish most of the rest of the way and intends to return this summer to do this section).

I took the official high water detour (ha!) along the Big Wilson but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

This is what the river looked like that I refused to ford. It was a hundred feet wide, or more, 'way over its banks. The second view is new to the journal:

 

Someday I want to do that section again so I can see what the Wilson  rivers look like at normal levels.

I still had several rivers to ford after that, including the wide but shallow (and, well, pleasant)  West Branch of the Pleasant River three days later when the floodwaters had subsided:

One of the most beautiful scenes we saw last summer was looking over the Penobscot River from Abol Bridge and our campsite next to the bridge, with magnificent Mt. Katahdin.in the background.

Here are my favorite photos from Day 147, my next-to-last day on the Trail. I could definitely spend a lot of hours simply looking at this river as the light changes throughout the day:

 

 

 

Jim's photo of the fisherman is almost enticing enough to make me want to take up fishing for a hobby! And it's an appropriate finale to this river essay.

"A river . . . has so many things to say that it is hard to know what it says to each of us." 

- Norman MacLean, A River Runs Through It

Next up: cascades, flumes, and waterfalls along the Appalachian Trail.

Happy trails,

Sue "Runtrails & Company" - Sue Norwood, Jim O'Neil, Cody, and Tater Previous       Next Send an e-mail message to Sue & Jim   © 2006 Sue Norwood and Jim O'Neil