Rolling on the River

Harry Jameson had just about had it. As a young man, he developed a love for drawing and drafting, and considered a career at it, until he visited the IBM campus and saw “a huge room with a bunch of guys, wearing coke-bottle glasses, hunched over their desks under ourescent lights. That’s when I said, ‘the heck with this, I’m gonna be a forest ranger!’” Still, graduation found him on a minimum wage production line where the lack of opportunity started to make the Navy look good. He joined up, and became a ight simulator instructor. From there, it was the life of a €eld engineer, on the road a lot, no control over where he could live, both feet in the corporate world.

Harry found himself thinking a lot about better times, as a child in the Catskills, swimming, €shing, tubing down the Esopus Creek, where he and some friends would pack a picnic, and spend entire days on the water. On one particularly stressful day, something €nally clicked in his head: Wouldn’t it be great to go back to get off the rat track, return to the Catskills, and start his own business, providing the tubing experience he had loved as a kid to others, and make a decent living at it?

As it turned out, the Esopus proved to be an ideal location. As part of the water system that supplies the greater New York City area, it links the Schoharie Reservoir with the Ashokan. Four times a year, a portal is opened, and the water level is raised up to a foot higher, bringing the water temperature down, and contributing to turbidity. While contributing to the maintenance of the aquatic habitat, it also creates a 4-mile stretch on both sides of Phoenicia ideal for tubing enthusiasts.

Of course, there would be some hurdles. When Harry went through the process of determining the environmental impact of his business, the local €shermen came out pretty strongly against it, as did the group Trout Unlimited. While some just wouldn’t countenance tube-toting tourists opping all over their beloved creek, most realized that the environmental impact of Harry’s business would be minimal, and might actually spur some economic growth in an area that needed it. With the permissions and legalities in place, in 1979 Harry was off and running, with a barnful of truck tubes, and access to that 4-mile stretch, which divided nicely into two tube runs: one slow and easy, and one with a series of rapids and calm areas.

It’s the latter that my 13-year old son and I opt for when we drive up to The Town Tinker Tube Rental place, just off Route 28 in Phoenicia. A red trolley greets you on the right side by the parking area, housing a concession stand that sells items of particular value to the tube set: river shoes, water-proof carrying cases and cameras. On the left side of the road is a big red barn, with multiple stacks of truck tubes, with wooden disks roped into the middles (there’s a good reason for this.) We sign indemni€ cation forms, absolving Town Tinker from anything stupid we choose to do on the creek, and get some quick instruction on proper tube technique. We are advised to sit in the tubes, leaning back rather than forward, and to paddle vigorously when needed. We’re told to stay with the tube at all times, to avoid standing in over knee-deep water (this is very rarely necessary,) to stay to left under the €rst bridge (the right is shallow, you will be walking!) and to pull out at bridge #4. We are handed life-jackets and helmets for the kids, and mill about with 20 or so others, waiting for the bus.

A big white Bluebird ex-school bus huffs into the lot, and we hoist our tubes into the back. Dennis, the big, bald, well-mustachioed driver throws the bus into gear, and we ride upstream about two miles. At the drop-off, we grab our tubes, and trundle down to the creek’s edge, throw our tubes in, and hop on with a splash. WOOOH, that’s some chilly water!

For the next 1 1/2 to 2 hours, I see where Harry was coming from. During the calm parts, you just lean back and oat along, enjoying the scenery, feeling like Huck Finn. Then, along comes the € rst series of rapids, and the bobbing and spinning begins. Both of us €nd ourselves whooping as we bounce off the rocks, and I am suddenly thankful for the wooden disk I’m sitting on. You never really get up to any dangerous speed, so the worst that happens are small bumps and bruises, no more that you get from your average hike or bike. It’s a real blast, and much more fun than an antiseptic theme park experience. Every now and then, it does get a little too shallow for progress, and you have to get out of your tube, grab the rope, and haul it to deeper water, but that’s part of the fun. The rapids do get progressively more interesting, and yes, it’s possible to ip off the tube (as my son did, whooping the whole time,) which usually just adds to the post-run boasting. The creek really doesn’t get deep enough to be a danger on this run, but like most fun things, it’s not completely risk-free.

We pull our tubes out at the #4 bridge, and tote them back to the barn, still soaking wet and grinning. Jessica Boyer, local Phoenician and 10 years at the barn, takes our tubes, and takes a free moment to chat. Town Tinker has become a steady attraction over the years, renting between 15 and 20 thousand tubes a season, she tells us. Since the Internet, reservations have actually come in from all over the world, most recently from Holland, Panama, and the U.K., with up to 500,000 hits on the website. The site also supplies a link to the USGS information site, giving updates on the current water conditions, so folks can know what they’re getting into before making the drive out. Jessica obviously enjoys the job; the only downside is that the hours can get long, especially when she has to go out to the creek to look for stragglers.

“Some folks just don’t want to go home,” she chuckles.