Sept. 6, 1913. 
FOREST AND STREAM 
307 
Canoeing Down the Ramapo River 
W ELL, we had some trip over the week¬ 
end. Shooting dams (pardon!), rapids, 
whirlpools, etc., down the Ramapo River 
from Tuxedo, N. Y., to Mountain View, N. J., 
about a thirty-five-mile run, on March 29 and 30. 
Hennv and Charley went together in Stan¬ 
ley’s Canadian basswood boat; Ed. and Jack 
went in Ed.’s canvas boat, and Pete and myself 
went in the original La Chelito, and believe me, 
we had all the' excitement that we want for a 
week to come. 
We took the 1104 p. m. express on the Erie 
to Tuxedo and got out there at 2:29, changed 
our clothes in the freight house, and had the 
canoes in the river, ready for the start at 3 
exactly. In spite of the experience of some of 
the other fellows, we had the craziest kind of 
outfits that you ever saw. Pete bought a little 
9 x 24 inch waterproof duffle bag, the same as 
I used, but for some reason he wore a derby 
and brought no other hat. Spenner, who has 
run all the rivers worth running in the United 
States and Canada (almost!) brought a spick and 
span new leather dress suit case, and all the rest 
of the fellows wore the regular stiff-laundered 
linen collars. The only mistake in my outfit 
(modest!) was that I didn't bring enough 
changes of clothing, as you will see later. 
The river where we started was only about 
eighteen feet wide, but deep, and running like 
a mill race, about seven to eight miles per hour. 
Every twist and turn and every boulder caused 
eddies, whirlpools, rapids, etc., and from the 
start it was only constant work and vigilance 
that kept one from being swamped or slammed 
against the bank at the turns. Twenty minutes 
after the start we struck the first of the real 
bad water when we entered a place where the 
river dropped about four feet in 500 feet, and 
that 500 feet was filled with 500 different styles 
and assortments of boulders, and each boulder 
had a collection of 500 different swirls a"nd young 
waterspouts bouncing all around it. Well, Henny 
and Charley were the first, and they, for some 
reason or other, took the right hand side of the 
cut and went through all right, but they took in 
half a boat of water and nut a hole in the bow. 
Pete and I came next, and we followed right in 
the same place and got through with a bump 
and half a boat full of water. Ed. and Jack 
followed in father’s footstens and came through 
with a little water. Now, the funny part is that 
over to the left hand side of the cut the water 
was very fast, but comparatively smooth and 
no rocks to dodge, so when we decided to run 
it over again without the duffle in the boat, while 
Spenner and Henny were mending the hole in 
By LA CHELITO 
their bow, Ed. and Jack ran it first and took 
the easy side and got through in fine shape, and 
I got a good picture of them. Pete and I 
started next, and as we had gone through the 
worst part safely the first time, we thought 
we'd do it over again. Well, we thought we 
would, and that was all. In dodging the first 
boulder it was necessary to shave it on the left 
hand side and take the bounce from that square¬ 
ly on the keel on top of the next one and scrape 
over it into the muss on the other side. Well, 
we didn’t take the bump square on the keel, and 
the result was a swim on the 29th of March in 
water at 45 degrees and running about twenty 
miles per hour at the least. We both went 
down stream, with the canoe and duffle bump¬ 
ing over rocks, etc., until w,e struck smooth 
water ahead, then Pete swam after the paddles 
and cushions, and I tried to get the canoe ashore 
and then it was a case of standing in the swamp 
and changing clothes, mending the holes in the 
boat and starting out again. Well, we got over 
that without much trouble, and as the sun was 
out and we paddled hard, we had little difficulty 
in keeping warm. The next riff we had to run 
looked very bad, so we stopped and looked it 
over and decided to cut close to the right shore 
and skin the left side of a big boulder just be¬ 
low the turn, and as the current swept into a 
pocket to the right of the stone, it meant hard 
work to clear it. We got through, and that was 
all. Pete thought he would help me turn and 
put his paddle across the bow and shot it 
around all right, but the stern made a side¬ 
swipe. and all but took the Sea Horse off 
against the rock. 
After that, everything was fine, until we 
came to a nice curved dam about four feet high, 
and over which the water poured eight inches 
deep. We all carried around this except Charley, 
and he took his canoe over it alone without any 
duffle in it and made the drop in fine style, only 
taking a little water. It was really the prettiest 
sight you can picture. Charley kneeled in the 
middle of the canoe with a single blade, and 
came straight for the center of the dam at a 
fairly good speed, and just as he anproached 
the edge, he gave a last lunge with the paddle 
and stowed it, taking hold of the gunwales to 
steady the canoe in the drop. Instead of shoot¬ 
ing out, the canoe seemed to stick to the water, 
and the bow dipped and pointed straight down 
when not more than half over, and it looked as 
if it must surelv keep on going down, but in 
some manner she turned and slid down the 
rapids below the falls, and Charley brought her 
to shore and emptied out the water he shipped. 
Further down we struck another little dam, 
only about a foot high, but the rapids below it 
were so filled with trees and rocks that it was 
impossible to get through, so Plenny and Charley, 
Pete and myself took our canoes to the right 
hand side and dumped them over into a little 
stream that looked as if it ran right back into 
the main river just a little further on. Ed. 
took his boat to the left, carried over the dam, 
and pretty soon we saw his head and Jack’s 
flaming red shirt go shooting down through the 
trees at a great rate on the main stream, while 
we were landlocked in a little sort of canal and 
had to carry about two hundred yards to the 
main channel again. When we got there, it was 
running like the dickens, and an old postman 
driving past came running down when he saw 
that we intended to paddle down, and yelled 
like a madman that we would lose our lives in 
the rapids below. We reassured him, but he 
shook his head, and stood on the bridge to 
watch us get smashed to smithereens, and when 
he saw us go through, laughing (it was an easy 
run), he climbed back into his one-horse shay 
and drove on, shaking his head and muttering. 
For a couple of hours we had very easy run¬ 
ning, with only an occasional riff or sharp turn, 
until we entered a sort of everglade or swamp 
that was as dismal and desolate as any that ever 
existed, and here the channel narrowed down 
quite a little which made the current swifter, 
but on the turns it shot over the shallow places, 
in between the trees, before getting back to the 
main channel, and this made it extremely hard 
to avoid being swept broadside against a tree 
and swamped, probably smashing the boat and 
losing the outfit and leaving ourselves in a nice 
mess to get out of the swamp. In some man¬ 
ner Jack and Ed. got about half a mile ahead 
of Pete and me, and Charley and Henny were 
right close behind us when we spotted a tree 
that had fallen across the stream, and the 
branches stuck straight down into the water. 
Ed. and Jack had carried around this, as they 
knew the impossibility of trying to make it, but 
Pete and I thought it would be a cinch to switch 
the stern around the branches and make the 
passage, and we didn't hear Spenner and Henny 
yelling for us to land and not try it. Well, we 
got the bow between the branches without any 
trouble at all; in fact, it was extremely easy, 
but to get the rest of the canoe through was 
quite another story, and 1 couldn't for the life 
of me swing that stern. The first thing we 
knew we were swept broadside and slammed 
right up against two branches about as thick 
(Continued on pane 317.) 
