Papscanee Creek

This was another interesting creek to paddle on.  We started from the Henry Hudson Town Park in Bethlehem, NY and paddled across the Hudson River to the entrance of the Papscanee Creek.  A really important note about this creek is it is very dependent on the tide.  When we started on the creek, it must have been high tide and entering the creek the bottoms of the boats scuffed on some old wooden wall that was backfilled with stones and runs across the entire entrance to the creek except for a small opening near the middle of the creek entrance.  We paddled up the creek and were able to explore a lot of different areas. 

At about the point where the Vierda Kill meets up with the Papscanee Creek, we explored what looks like a small pond area on the map.  However, this was only a very small creek just wide enough for the kayaks to get through.  It didn't seem to go anywhere and eventually was unpassable with out boats.  The creek was so small we weren't able to turn the boats around and had to back out quite a distance. 

Where the creek goes under Staats Island Road, you'll have to go through a pipe that's probably about 4 feet in diameter to continue upstream if you want to stay in your boat.  Around this area there are a lot of beavers and actually had one swim right past us while propelling ourselves through the pipe under Staats Island Road.  A little farther upstream we had to paddle through some plants for a short distance in order to continue farther upstream.  Eventually the creek seemed to end and we decided it was a good point to turn around.

On the way out, we didn't have time to explore any of the other small creeks that came into Papscanee Creek such as the Vierda Kill.  We also starting running into problems because the tide was moving out during our entire trip.  We estimated the water level was at least 18 inches lower when we left the creek than when we entered it.  We had a few areas where the boats were dragging on the bottom of the creek and had the water level been about 2 inches lower we would have been forced to get out and carry our boats through the mud.