I began my 127-mile paddle down the Monongahela River on May 14 when my wife Maureen and daughter Jennie dropped me off at Palatine Park in Fairmont, West Virginia. It was pouring rain, and that was to be the norm for the next week, the nation under a weather system that wouldn't let up.  I ended it six days later at the Pittsburgh Point where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers form the Ohio River. 

My thanks to my wife and family for putting up with all my wild ideas (this wasn't the only one....) and to Rob Perks at American Rivers for encouragement about  how my trip fits into a national movement , and to my Mon Revival sponsors CompHigh, the nation's first on-line high school, the Upper Monongahela River Association Incorporated, Green Space Coalition, and the City of Morgantown.  Note:  These vignettes are not necessarily in order - somewhat, but not exactly. I'll have to consult my river charts and figure out the order later. I've been distracted with the Mon River Revival. This has been quite a project for cleaning up litter in the river. (I'd say a smashing success)  Tell me what you think. E-mail me

I didn't take many photos the first day. Paddled like hell to get through the first three locks quickly.  Opekiska, 10 miles down from Fairmont opens at 7 a.m., then there's Hildebrand, then Morgantown, which closes at 3 p.m.  It's a 26 mile paddle and explains why I had to leave Fairmont at 4 a.m. to get to the first lock early in order to get at Morgantown before 3 p.m.  The lock folks were really good, though.  They said for me not to worry if I was a little late getting to Morgantown; they'd wait.

Speaking  of great lock folks, this is Larry Spisak and lock dog Midnight at the first lock below Morgantown, Point Marion. I was, of course soaked, and Larry asked me in, offered me coffee, let me dry out and showed me around the lock.  He's been with the locks 28 years and built a working model of a lock that he shows at exhibits and schools.  He was also among a group that re-enacted the  Lewis and Clark expedition.

Deckhand Bob M aboard the Elizabeth D at the Point Marion Lock headed upriver. Several days later, the last towboat I passed, going through Lock 2 just up from Pittsburgh, was the Elizabeth D.  She and I locked down through in adjacent chambers at the same time.

Note about towboats: Last night I dreamed about them. You see, I spent 11 years in the prime of my life on these boats (30 days on 30 days off) working on a fuel boat in Louisville, then to Midwest Towing on the Mississippi, then to Ohio Barge line on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. I often dream about being on towboats. If you are on the river with them, remember, they have no brakes, so they stop very slowly.  

Don't  get in front of them  They have to keep in the channel, marked with red and green buoys, so if you have to cross a channel, look both ways, cross, and then stay to the edges of the channel or nearer the banks.  I always paddled point to point. 

That is, I did not paddle in the bends. I may have cut miles from my trip by not following the channel but trying for a straight line, point to point (the bend is on one side, points on the  other).  

So that meant I had to cross the channel often. I watched for a boat and if there was one, timed my crossing to keep well out of the way.

Also, they will give you a bounce with wakes.  Be aware of this and prepared. The real threat to paddlers on the Mon and just about everywhere are speed boats, especially with drunk drivers.  They can be deadly. They move quickly and the drivers are often distracted.  For paddlers, our defense is our ability to paddle near the shore in shallow water and out of their way. I stopped at Greensboro next and visited with Betty Longo.  More

The sun is coming up, somewhere on the other side of the clouds, and of course, it's getting ready to rain again.  I must say, though, that the only time it was raining when I set up camp or took it down was up in Fairmont that  first evening and morning.  That's when you really don't want rain.

No hook-ups!  Camping along the Mon is no problem, but watch out for poison ivy!  It's prolific.  Here I'm setting up my galley for dinner on about as little camping area as you could imagine.  

A little too close to the river because of towboat wakes.  But I watched the first one go by and the wake didn't reach my tent.  Four boats passed in the night.

Tie your boat down,  or the wakes may  float it away.  

This is just below Alicia, Pa. Still on the Upper Monongahela River Water Trail.

Pretty soon I came to Rices Landing, where there's always a great welcome from Norma and Murray Klien.  Murray took me on a tour of an amazing artifact right by the riverside: the W.A Young Foundry. You can see it too, if you have Flash.  Click

The Mon River was a conduit for coal during the industrial era.  Artifacts of the period, abandoned and rusted for the most part, are evidence of the coal industry's  rise and fall.  Don't get me wrong--there's still plenty of coal coming out of West Virginia, but it comes out largely by train (you'll hear lots of them if you paddle the Mon).  

But many mines gone now, long ago played out. These artifacts are spooky, and it's easy to imagine one time when men were here and barges were loaded with coal and the nearby towns thrived on income from coal. Historical Note

For photographers, the Mon offers lots of visual treats. Notice the hanging front-end loader.

The Mon during the 20th Century is all about coal. Before then, there's the colorful story of flat boats, keel boats (did you know Mike Fink was a real person from Pittsburgh?) and then the steamboat, a revolution in transportation, given the fact that men like Mike were using brute strength to move cargoes down the river.  Along came Fulton's New Orleans, built near Pittsburgh, and the steam boat race began. 

Here's a view you want to avoid. If you are ever this close to barges under way, it's likely too late for you.  However, these are tied to the bank.  Also, remember that currents can push you under a barge like this - it has happened.  

I'm downstream and floating away from the bow of this barge - you would not want to be in the upstream position floating into it. 

West Brownsville and a remnant of one of the first industries in the Mon Valley - whiskey making.  Old Monongahela Rye was world famous and brought down the Mon first on flatboats during the late 1700s, then on keelboats, then on steamboats after the New Orleans was launched near Pittsburgh on the Mon in 1811.  

Also, this area was the hotbed for the Whiskey Rebellion after the Revolutionary War when the federal government decided to impose a tax on whiskey.  

Locals were not in favor of that, besides most didn't have money and actually used whiskey as barter. How were they supposed to pay? Guess the feds didn't want gallons of whiskey.  Can't understand that, though.....   More on Brownsville

I stopped to admire a tree - it was in bloom and huge and majestic. 

Sorry, I don't know it's name, but I'll find out from my friend Mike Breiding, who knows.  Anyway, right next to it was this mess, jetsam from upriver.  

This is an insult to the Earth and the River.  It's a description of the human race as well - blessed with the beauty of our environment but sitting at home watching reality TV and tossing our litter on the roads and into the waters. 

Lowering down.  I think this is Maxwell Lock.  By the way, watch out for chop coming out of Lock 4.  That was one place that really bothered and worried me.  I programmed  lock phone numbers into my cell phone and called when I got within 10 minutes paddle (the Arrival Point).  But you can also use the pull cord that  is in the wall of the lock at the end - usually in a ladder recess. Give it a couple good pulls and wait.

Audio  Should allow you to hear inside the lock. Very eerie sounds.

If you don't know what a lock is, briefly: Beginning in the 1840s, dams to increase the river's depth and make possible year-round navigation were built. Today, a 9-foot channel is maintained. The lock is a passage through the dam - lowers boats down or raises them up to the next level. 

As I approached Charleroi, Pa., I encountered a fleet of moored barges that I had to go around.  They stretched a 1/4 mile along the left descending bank, and when I was about half way by the sky darkened, and the wind picked up - a storm was nigh.  I paddled hard to get around the fleet, and just as the storm was breaking I saw the end and headed around to get ashore. I pulled my boat up, grabbed my poncho, and ran up the bank to get behind a nearby building, out of the wind. I hunkered down to sit out the storm when I heard a blue streak of curses that would win a championship or at least a place in the book of world records. I thought to myself, "I must be at a riverboat landing...." A head looked around the corner and the spoke to me. "What are you doing?"  It was, I found out, Mike Sosnak, safety and training manager for Campbell Barge Line. "I'm setting out this storm," I replied. 

Next thing I know Mike has hauled me into his Deckhands School and is drying my clothes and offering his own sweatshirt and a cup of great coffee.  He'd read about my trip in a local newspaper that very day.  

I got to visit with Mike and a group of new river men. Don't  know exactly what Mike was cussing, but it did my old river rat's heart good to hear it. We raised the level of cussing to an art on towboats, and I do dearly miss it. 

A couple years ago the Elizabeth M, owned by Campbell, went over Montgomery Dam, and four of the crew were lost.  I wrote a song about that tragedy and performed it here at a music festival that very month.  

So, I think it  was strange, being blown into the arms of that very outfit by a storm and getting such a warm welcome.  I paddled on down the river feeling real good.  Thanks, Mike!  I'll be bringing you sweat shirt back soon. Thanks also  to Steve Grizzel, Campbell' personnel manager. He gave me a real nice Campbell hat. 

Perhaps a mile above the Point under the bridges that cross to the South Side of Pittsburgh.  I'm almost there, but the head wind was a good 8 knots gusting to 10.

What's it like to paddle 127 miles?  Well, don't plan to do it in just 5-6 days. That's too quickly.  I was trying to get to the Point by noon on May 20 for the Venture Outdoors festival.  Otherwise, I would have stopped at places longer, stretched my legs and talked to some people.  As it was, I paddled for long periods, looking for the point, staying out of the bends, shifting positions every half hour, and just plugging away.

I like being in/on a boat, so it felt natural for me, but I also like going ashore. It was pleasant, for example, to stop in Coal Center, Pa., and talk to some people over doughnuts one morning. But I couldn't do that often....

Epilogue: As I approached Pittsburgh, I was passed by three of these. It was surreal.  When they got near, everyone onboard said, "Quack, quack, quack," loudly.  Imagine, a guy who has paddled 127 miles in the rain comes upon this and they quack at him. It was so funny!

Hey, hope you enjoyed my trip.

I have more material to augment this, including audio, but I'll have to do it later.  Maureen and I made preliminary drives down river to Greensboro, Rice's Landing and Brownsville, anticipating that I would not be able to make much of a visit in these historic places.  So I have audio and photos of them I will add later when I have time. 

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