Had an hour or so of free time today so I took a jaunt down to lock 9 and literally jumped down into the middle of the river bed to take some photos. In all my life the river has never been this low, nor low this long(due to the repairs being performed on various bridges and locks). Made for some good time wasting for sure.
Saw some pretty cool shit and where I was standing would normally be under at least 15 feet of water. Found a piece of huge twisted rebar in the bed that was about 3" in diameter, and found an old bridge trunion that’s probably been underwater for at last half a century or more. The nut on that thing is about 6" across!
I’m no photographer and this was a simple PnS camera so go easy on me ok :lol Took a bunch more but am only hosting a few for now. Can post more later.
Yeah I’m not that fancy when it comes to taking pictures of stuff. Wouldn’t know where to begin.
I did notice something in one of the pictures. 4th one down, if you look carefully at the flood locks that are tucked up under the bridge you can see a few that are still twisted and damaged from the force of the water and debris that pushed against them. The Monday following that flood I was standing up on 5s to the far right in that photo, and the water was about a foot or so below the very last girder before touching the pavement. The normal waterline for the river can be seen by the concrete stain about 1.5 feet below the small green/yellow inspection stand on the concrete abutment(support pillar)
Was definitely cool standing out there like a dope looking upstream :lol
Cool shots! You always wonder when you’re out on a boat or see a body of water “Hmm I wonder whats under all that” It’s neat to actually see it for once.
And thats why fishing that river blows when its normal. LOL flat, rocky and very little contours on the bottom.
Safe to say amsterdam and scotia (tornado) got butt raped this past year. Growing up there, its one of those things I will never forget. The amount of natural forces at work there were incredible that’s for sure.
Now is the time to take a dirtbike or dual sport from albany to probably ft plane on the river bed, once in a life time opportunity I bet.
With how fast it’s coming I wouldn’t expect that. It won’t have time to absorb into ground that’s this dry and a lot of it will likely run off instead of soaking in. Even after a few hours of rain yesterday I was still plowing up dry ground and splashing through puddles to do it. :lol
Too late, they dropped the lower gates at lock 9 and brought the river level up over the weekend upstream of the lock. Downstream as of noon today was still down but not nearly as low as it was. The river is pretty much full stretch across bank to bank now(no super low/dry spots anymore).
