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These areas are “rural”, which means that in places there are people’s houses backing to the river and in come cases, parks. I do notice a fairly big proportion of sports gear mixed in, soccer balls etc, along with all the “disposable” plastic. I guess the good news is that once you get past it, you tend not to see much more downstream!
This was further downstream, and fortunately there was clear passage off to the right. Not much trash! Sorry, another ugly picture…let’s return to the previously scheduled programming.
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The river where trash is the worse has no development over the majority of it’s length except at it’s head waters. I jokingly call it the River of Balls for the numerous ball of all sizes and sports found in the debris collected in sweepers and log jams.
Things that float left out in the yard will and do float into ditches when heavy rain causes water to sheet the ground temporarily deep enough to float i.t With a bit of wind off it goes. Over time I found 3 closed cell foam panels that are 3" thick and 3’X4’ caught in the trees far down river.
Big floods that go over the banks tends to remove lots of trash off the river and into the adjoining woods. On rivers below dams I see a lot less trash than on undammed rivers. on larger rivers the trash just goes on by and ends up in the ocean where it is less visible.
A few photos of a clean up with a friend a few years ago.
If you notice there are multiple balls in the trash photos, and most of the river is wild not urban. I count 4 balls in the second photo, and 7 balls in the 3rd photo. The fact that balls aren’t often thrown away out a car window leads me to believe much of this stuff came from back yards in the upstate. Of course plastic bottles are the most common form of trash, and are thrown out car windows.
Not long after these photos the river flooded and blew out the major log jams. The river looked much better, but on a trip a couple of weeks ago there are some new jams with trash building up.
Looks like Brown tract into raquette lake. I caught a monster brook trout once in Pittsburg… hit a moose the same day
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The inlet area does look similar. According to the META data it was right around here:
45.18777618589388, -71.14976576719846
And OMG, a moose!? It was enough excitement for us when the Jeep’s windshield got really friendly with a full grown turkey. I can’t imagine a moose (even a baby one). I assume the car took damage. Hopefully everyone was okay except for a bad case of “What the hell just happened”.
First time kayaking on open sea. Was visiting friends in Bellingham, WA and decided to get some rentals.
The other images are front hikes around several lakes near my friend’s house.
First time posting here 
, hopefully is something worth of this forum.
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Everything is worth it. Forum is pleased. Thanks.
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Nice photos. Thanks for sharing your experience.
My first evening paddle. I’ve enjoyed sunrise paddles but man, it’s cold out there now. I had forgotten that the ridges block the sun early.
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Very nice. Looks cold.
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Morning fog on Lake Francis in Pittsburg NH. This started lifting around 10:45AM. We had been lazing around the house waiting for the fog to lift and I was craving a breakfast sandwich from Youngs, so we headed out there around 10AM and the fog was gone everywhere else, it was just a lake fog. We could have been on the water much earlier!
You can see how the drought has affect the lake level in northern NH.
And you just gotta have foliage. We’re 1-2 days past peak here but it is still nice.
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