The Pine River had been running at 600 cubic feet per second (CFS) on Sunday, but today it was down to about 400 CFS (note: normal is around 250 CFS). To us that meant it was possible to run the cleanup trip, but the river would be pushy, and we would have to be careful.
We had a small but skilled crew: Mark Miltner and Ed Shankland in a tandem canoe, Kurt Reinhart on a sit-on-top kayak, Jocelyn Trepte and Lois Goldstein in solo canoes, and myself in my 12.5 ft. kayak. The river was cloudy due to the runoff, so we knew we were not going to be able to find anything on the river bottom. Because the weather has been so cool and rainy, we thought there would not have been many drunks out on the river partying. So we hoped there would be less litter than normal.
We were right; we found much less litter than we normally do, and the stuff we did find was hidden deep in large log jams. Luckily we had Kurt and Mark along - they both have great balance, so they were willing to climb around on floating logs to get items that were beyond the reach of our grabbers. In the end we found enough trash that we didn’t feel our efforts were wasted.
Photos by John and Jocelyn
The crew
Lois makes her way down the river.
Lois and Jocelyn pick up stuff on the edges, while Mark gets trash deep in the pile.
Jocelyn shows the piece of trash she was hunting.
Mark shows off his long jump skills.
It took Mark several attempts with his knife before he was able to cut this cushion free.
Kurt and Mark show off their skills balancing on floating logs.
Mark shows off for the camera
John empties a bottle he finds in the river
A beautiful flowering bush along the river - common name bristly locust scientific name robinia hispida.
Lois recruits some young men to help her with her canoe
The crew with their haul of trash
