Flooding – Splattered Brains

Hope For A New Routine

We made two trips to the towpath this week. First, there was our usual Sunday morning walk – this time from Point of Rocks to Catoctin Aqueduct and beyond. And then, with new bike in hand, and the old one back in the hands of its original owner, we went out together for a bike ride on Wednesday. We rode upstream from Sycamore Landing to Whites Ferry and beyond. I am hoping that joint bike rides along the towpath will also become a regular habit going forward.

But the idea of joint bike rides has also opened up another issue to consider, one of transportation of bikes on the back of the car to whichever place we happen to be going. Carrying two bikes is more problematic than carrying one. Fortunately, we did manage to carry the bikes on the older Honda using the original trunk mounted bike rack that we have had for many years. We were successful in spite of a broken rubber strap on the carrier. Since that strap was meant for the bike that would have to be placed in the inner position, closer to the car, it turned out to not be a critical issue. The bike in the outer position was secured and we made sure that the one in the inner location did not move. Nevertheless, I was extra cautious about the bikes on the back of the car while driving. I had visions of bikes flying off the back just because I had forgotten to consider some aspect of the process of tying them down.

We still have to figure out how to carry the two bikes on the Prius. The shape of the rear end of the car makes it impossible to use a regular trunk bike carrier.

We started the walk last Sunday very early in the morning since we had a later engagement. Water levels were back to normal at Point of Rocks. The brown color of the water from the sediment being carried during the flooding event had vanished. You could see the clumps of mud that the overflowing river had left behind around the boat ramp. The mud made things slippery.

It is always nice to see the bridge across the river at Point of Rocks in the morning light.

This is the entrance to the first of two tunnels for the railroad just north of Point of Rocks.The tunnels are a result of the lack of space for both the canal and the railroad tracks beside the river at the time when both of these entities came into existence. The C&O canal and the B&O railroad companies were in competition with each other in those days and this was a compromise that was forced on them by the authorities. At the end of the day, over the long run, there was really no competition since the railroad provided a much more cost effective solution to moving goods and people around in these parts.

It was rather chilly when we started our bike ride on Wednesday. (A few days earlier, we were using the air conditioner in the house. The weather pattern has been crazy recently!) We rode our bikes for a few hours and did warm up during that time. It has been a few years we have last went out on a bike ride together. Some things needed to be relearned. There were adjustments to be made. One had to become familiar with the bike once again. In the end, everything went well. There was the expected soreness that a first timer can expect to experience after the first ride.It was sad to see the Jubal A. Early “beached” like a dying whale during our rest stop at Whites Ferry.The ferry service has been closed since December 2020 because the operator lost their landing rights on the Virginia side of the river. There is a conflict between the owners of the land in Virginia and the owners of the ferry. Ownership of the ferry has changed more recently, but the new owner has also not been able to find a solution. The issues involved are proving to be intractable and difficult to resolve. The local governments are also eager to help resolve the issue because the ferry was still being used as a commuting resource by people living in the area working on the other side of the river. This ferry service had been operational since 1786, and it is (was?) the only remaining ferry service across the Potomac river. I hope they can reopen.

On a different note, the flooding that happened a few weeks ago has caused severe damage to the trail upstream of Whites Ferry.I remember there having been issues like this during past flooding events. The newly refurbished and reinforced trail seems to have been no match for the force of the water flowing from the canal bed across the trail. I feel that some other approach needs to be taken to mitigate the problem.

The white Rosa Multiflora flowers seem to be dominating the canal scene in these parts these days. The flowers of Spring are slowly fading away.

Video Of Barges Going Over Dam 4

I talked about this incident in my previous blog. You can see the moment when these barges went over Dam 4 in the video below starting just before the 2 minute mark.

This And That

We walked from Noland Ferry to Point of Rocks last Sunday. When we arrived at Nolands Ferry, we found that the road to the parking lot that we normally use was closed because of the flooding that had taken place the previous week. We ended up parking in the extended parking area on the other side of the trail, closer to the main road. Once parked, we walked beyond the gate preventing our access to the original parking lot to see what the flooding had left behind. The road to the boat ramp was covered in a layer of mud deposited by the river. It looked quite slippery.

We have been using a app on our mobile phones during our walks the last few months to help us identify some of the birds that we have been listening to. There have been names of birds that have shown up on the app that I know nothing about. Last weekend I believe we heard the sound of the bird in the picture below. I am seeing this bird for the first time in our woods.According to Merlin, it is called an Acadian Flycatcher.

Talking about the Merlin app, I was hoping that one would be able to learn bird sounds so that I could identify the birds in the future without help from the app. I realize now that this is a hopeless endeavor. There is no way that I will be able to remember the individual patterns of sound. Even a software app is better at this!

I was relaxed enough during this walk to be looking around the trail and notice the small leaf in the picture below. I thought that the picture would be nice to use for an artist’s interpretation, be it either a sketch or a painting. I might be convinced to send a higher-resolution picture to whoever might be interested in such an endeavor.

A follow up from the flooding that we witnessed couple of weekends ago at Dam 4 – It turns out that we missed all the drama and excitement that day when a couple of barges moored near the area of McMahons Mill on Big Slackwater, a few short miles upstream from Dam 4, got loose due to the flooding and started floating downstream. The barges had been involved in work being done by the National Park Service to repair the trail running beside the river in those parts. (This is a section where the trail gets damaged regularly, and even destroyed on occasion, when the river gets rough.) A big barge, including an excavator on it, got loose on Saturday evening, and a smaller barge broke free from its moorings on Sunday. If we had been there at the right time, we might have seen the barges floating by Dam 4 on the river. The smaller barge was eventually snagged at Dam 4 on Sunday. The big barge (and it was really big!) made it all the way to Harpers Ferry. They had to shut down bridges over the river along the way temporarily because of concerns about the damage that might be caused if the barges smashed into one of the piers. At the end of the day, this barge only struck the railroad bridge at Shepherdstown. Apparently, there was little damage done. There are quite a few news reports and videos about this event to be found if one does a search on Youtube. You can get an idea about the size of the bigger barge in this particular video which was taken at Dam 4.

On a different topic, I want to point readers to a blog that I would highly recommend. My sister-in-law and her husband have started out on the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in Spain. They are following the French Way, starting from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port in France, crossing the Pyrenees from France into Spain during the first (and probably the most difficult) stage, and then walking across Spain from east to west after that. You can follow their travels here.

Dam 4 and Mather Gorge After The Rain

It rained steadily through the later half of last week. Although the rain was not heavy enough to cause flash flooding in the neighborhood, it rained long enough to cause a record or two to be broken in terms of the volume of rainfall we received.

There had been warnings in the weather reports about possible flooding on the river over the weekend because of the rain. It was an unintended invitation for me to check out the conditions at Dam 4 on the Potomac on Sunday. Although the rain had stopped by that time, its impact on the flow of water on the river was still in its early stages.

The water was nearly up to the level of the road as we approached the parking area for Dam 4. The entire trail was under water downstream of Dam 4. In the picture below, you can see the trail vanish into the water as it descends from the level of the dam.

Instead of gently flowing down the side of the dam as it usually does, the water was pouring out with full force well beyond wall of the dam – into a chaotic churning foam of brown whitewater.

All kinds of flotsam and jetsam, including massive tree trunks, were being carried over the top of the dam, only to be caught in a debris field at the bottom of the dam.At one point I even noticed a huge tree truck caught in a upright configuration above the swirling waters. It held that position for an moment or two, somehow magically kept balanced vertically by the chaotic forces of the swirling waters at its base, before finally disappearing into the downstream flow. There was the steady roar of the angry waters of the river in the background.

The road upstream of the dam, in the direction of the parking lot at Big Slackwater, was closed because of the conditions, but the trail was still open. So we took the opportunity to walk towards Big Slackwater to see what the conditions were like there. On one side of the dry trail was the swiftly flowing river, now just a couple of feet below the level of the trail because of its flooded state,and on the other side, well below us, was the canal – usually dry but now full of water because of the rainfall.

The difference in heights of the river and the canal in this section is because they are fully separated. If not, there would have been water close to where we were walking on both sides of the trail, in which case the trail would probably have been closed. As things stood, I still had a nagging concern about the the river possibly cresting above the trail while we were on it.The trail itself looked like it had been recently repaved.

We found parts of the Big Slackwater parking lot partially under water. The boat dock was floating well above its normal level.

The picnic area beyond the parking lot was fully under water.

The trail was marked as being closed beyond this point, but we walked a couple of hundred feet more along the pathway to the inlet lock from the river. No water enters from the river at this point because the lock is now cemented shut.

Just beyond the inlet lock we could see the trail disappearing into the water as it descended to the level of the river.It was clear that we would not be able to continue our travels further upstream. The trail at Big Slackwater was clearly not passable. We had to return to Dam 4.

The parking lot at Dam 4 had been empty when we first arrived, but there were many more vehicles there by this time. Some people were fishing at the stop lock and others were watching the water flowing over the dam.

Since we were still interested in seeing the impact of the high water on the river, and since we had not walked much at the point, we decided to drive to Great Falls, closer to home, to take another look at the river.

We encountered the usual weekend park traffic when we arrived later in the morning at Great Falls. The parking lot was about half-full. The walkway to Olmsted Island, from which vantage point you can see the actual Great Falls, was closed because of the level of the water. So was the Billy Goat Trail over Mather Gorge.

But one did not have to leave the towpath itself to see the impact of the flooding. Water was pouring over Dam 2 just upstream of The Tavern at Great Falls,and all of the rocks that one would normally see in the path of the river next to the towpath in the area just downstream of the tavern were completely under water.

The were cascades in places that were normally above water.

The section of Mather Gorge next to the towpath was full. This is how the area looked under normal conditions a few months ago.

We did continue our walk along the towpath towards the far end of Widewater, to the place where the Billy Goat Trail ends. Being separated from the river, the water in this section of the canal was at its normal level. Everything was calm.You would have had no suspicion that the river was in its full fury just close by – just a few hundred yards away on the other side of the trail.

We encountered many people on the trail, both on foot and on bikes, during this part of the morning walk. Many people live in this area of Montgomery County. It must have felt good for them to be able to get outside after having been cooped up indoors because of the rain.

I will end with a final note that the river does usually return to its normal levels very soon after an episode like this.

The Flooding at the Monocacy Aqueduct

These pictures were taken during one of our Sunday walks towards the end of May. The aqueduct carries the C&O canal across the Monocacy river.

This kind of flooding happens every once in a while, and most often during the spring season when we get a lot of rain. The accumulation of the debris is somewhat unusual. The last time it happened they had to bring in heavy equipment to remove the tree branches that were caught on the structure of the aqueduct and putting pressure on it.