A Whale's Tale: Falling Behind a Little

June 19 – 20, 2011

Valley town of Little Falls

The small town of Little Falls is nestled in the narrowest point in the Mohawk Valley. I think it is the most picturesque village we will pass on the canal. It is also noted for having the highest lock lift, 40'. Back in the early days, Little Falls was noted for being a cheese capital. Farmers from all around would bring in their huge rounds of cheese to have it auctioned off and sent on the canal boats down river.

Hello down there

Tourists who park in town take the walk out to the lock to watch the interesting lift in operation. It is fascinating to see boats enter the lock. Unlike the other locks we have used whose gates open back and forth, Lock 17's gate is a vertical lift gate. Boats have to go under the dripping gate, and you and all your stuff will get wet if your boat doesn't have a cover. Because of the size of the lock, a LOT of water has to get pumped in, and the fill process can be quite “violent” with boats really getting pushed against the wall. This is the only lock that requires boats to tie only to the south side to try to minimize the push from the fill process When we locked through, we asked for a slow fill so FLUKE wouldn't get slammed into the wall as much, and it really made a huge difference for us line handlers.

Most of the lockmasters are very friendly and cooperative. If opening the lock is going to take longer than anticipated because of traffic in the opposite direction they will let you know so you can decide how you want to wait. Some cruisers will tie up to the wall if it is going to be a long wait. We had to go into one lock where the west gate was having work done to it. I heard the lockmaster ask an eastbound tug what his beam was and if he had enough room to get through the gate and he was narrower than we were. So, after he locked through and it was our turn to enter, we asked if the gate was going to be a problem for us. The lockmaster asked our beam and when we told him it was 18', he said he would talk to the workers about getting both gates open so we would be able to get out. It took over an hour (instead of the usual 20 min.) for us to lock through since they had to use a barge and cable to pull open the second gate. The wind had kicked up and we had a difficult time holding FLUKE steady in the full lock while we were waiting for the gate to get open enough for us to get out. My arms were sore the next day from holding the lines so tightly.

Hold on tightly

Tourists also come to watch the rock climbers. A climbing permit costs $3/day. Cruisers can also watch the action as they go by like the people on the sailboat in this photo. The climbers are climbing on what is known geologically as gneiss (pronounced nice) rock formation. It is considered to be the oldest type of rock in the Adirondacks. The climbers here use two types of rock climbing techniques depending on if they are trying to climb a wall with a lot of outcroppings or if they are just trying to go up a flat face. The one shown here requires a climber to go to the top of the formation and secure the lines with a pulley system to the top climbing point. Someone else has to function as a counterweight and line handler whereby they stand on the ground (like the woman in the photo ) and keep watch on the person climbing. If the climber falls, his descent distance will be reduced by the line handler. Rather than falling all the way to the ground, he will just swing a short distance and get smashed into the rock wall if he can't get his feet to block his direction.

Spiderwoman

This woman is climbing up the face of the wall. She has to go along and find cracks in the rock to cram pins into. She attaches a safety rope that is attached to her to the pin, with the theory that if she begins to fall, her safety rope will be held in place by the pin. The guy on the ground is there in case the pins in the wall get pulled out from the weight of her falling, and he has to call 911. At least she is wearing a helmet. We FLUKESTERS have tried a variety of sports, but this won't be one of them, using either technique.

These boulders form the canal side face for what is called Moss Island. It is a lovely, small island with fascinating rock formations, small caves, dense vegetation, and lots of moss. The trails are very good, and a walk here should not be missed.

This is the third time we have stopped at Little Falls, and we have always tied up to the eastern most end of the canal wall on the east side of the lock. You don't need to worry about the water rushing out from the lock and causing too much turbulence to your boat, and even though you are under the highway bridge, the noise is minimized from how far down you are.
The walk up and over the lock and into town is a pleasant one.

Our destination in town this time was to specifically go to the Little Falls Community Co-Op. It is the best one of these kinds of stores we have ever been to. There is every kind of spice you can think of, sold in bulk amounts by the ounce. If you only want 1 ounce, just put it in a plastic bag yourself. There are many types of organic products, flours, home cooking and canning products, and locally grown produce when its available. The prices are very reasonable. Wayne was searching for some specialty flours, particularly pumpernickel.

So, we when we walked up to the store early on Monday morning we were happy to see 2 cars in the parking area since we didn't know if we were too early. We walked right in the store, and a woman came up and told us the store was closed on Mondays, and they were in the process of doing inventory. We told her about our adventure and how we were really counting on shopping there as we had done in the past. She told us just to go ahead and get whatever we wanted!

The shopping result

Wayne made these 2 loaves of pumpernickel bread. The dark one is produced by the addition of cocoa to the dough, but you don't get any of the cocoa flavor.

The CanalWay Trail runs by here in an elevated area on the south side. It is a great place to walk and get elevated views of the village and surrounding countryside. You also walk through a couple of sections with more of the gneiss rock formations. We took a footpath off the CWT that went by a little waterfall and opened to a small neighborhood higher up the hillside. A friendly woman invited us into her yard to see the fabulous views of the village and its surrounds.

The claw barge

I've mentioned that there has been a lot of debris in the water because of the rainy spring (and rainy summer so far from our observations!), and that the maintenance crews do a good job of keeping the waterway clean. This is one of the types of vessels that they use to grab big logs out of the waterway, usually pushed around by a cute little tug.

Herkimer is 10 miles from Little Falls. We planned to stop there for the day so Eddie and I could walk to a nearby WalMart for a few items that had accumulated on our shopping list, like an umbrella for Eddie. I had to listen to Eddie whine the whole way back about our shopping cart being too heavy for him to pull, even though I offered to trade to pull the cart if he carried the totes I was lugging. We lucked out when we passed a woman selling fresh-picked strawberries. I offered to trade Eddie for some berries, but she wanted cash instead.

In the 2009 blog I told you about our fun adventure trying to find some Herkimer diamonds. Well, if the weather had been better this year I would have talked Eddie into riding his bike with me to the outside of town where the rock mines are located and tourists can dig for their own Herkimer diamonds. Another factor in favor of not staying at the Herkimer dock for the night is the fact that it is right next to the entrance to the NY State Thruway, and the traffic noise is the worst ever. I did manage to scavenge another nice bouquet from a nearby weedy area though.