Above the Highlands 4

Still between Newburgh and Beacon, I see the shadows lengthening and light adding rich tints of every color.  Can you already identify the tug-barge unit rounding the corner tower of Bannerman’s Castle seawall. I’ve heard a story of a long-distance canoeist who slept inside that low tower, but I digress.

Here’s a clue to the name of that tug: a few years ago, it had a different name.   From the north and bathed in deep color, it’s a southbound ship. That generating station is at the intriguingly named Danskammer Point. Those Dutch really had such wild imaginations they seemed driven by superstition or at least an acquaintance with the supernatural.

Also southbound with a spotlight that caught my imagination . . .

it’s Evelyn Cutler meeting

Kristin Poling, 

but the Da Ming Shan will proceed as Evelyn holds back.

 

 

The color may not be in the leaves yet, but at this hour the color is on them.

 

 

The tug-barge units pass after

the asphalt tanker has gone on ahead into the Highlands.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who has again missed all the wonderful activities raising funds for restoration or stabilization of the Bannerman’s ruins.

 

Above the Highlands 3

It’s late afternoon when Bruce A McAllister with Double Skin 40 passes my spot, followed

by Marjorie B McAllister, with B. No. 262 behind.

From the south with a motley set of barges . . . .

 

 

it’s Frances. Afternoon light is starting to highlight Mr. Bannerman’s place.

 

That IS a short wire, a necessity given that Marjorie has no upper wheelhouse.

 

 

These low hanging clouds have never left today.

 

 

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who wants to remind you of the Canal Conference in Staten Island coming up in two weeks.

Above the Highlands 2

The day brightens a bit, but I stayed between Newburgh–to my back–and Beacon.

Whenever a boat passed, the gulls followed, feasting on the small fish stunned by the props.

The town below gets its name from the mountain, Mount Beacon.

Local squalls obscured the area north of Newburgh-Beacon.

Following Sarah Ann northbound was the indefatigable Buchanan 12.

 

A few miles upriver Buchanan 12 swapped these scows out for a loaded set, and in a few hours, returned southbound.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Above the Highlands 1

On this day, the area where the Hudson enters the highlands looked every bit the fjord that it technically is. 

I took these photos and was remembering ones sent by Richard Hudson of southern Chile, here.

It’s Breakneck Ridge on the left and Storm King Mountain on the right, with West Point academy buildings in between. Check out those links for all the other names these places have had in the past 400 years.   And who knows what names have existed before then.

By now some of you have identified the two tugs . . .

Brooklyn and Evening Mist.

I was surprised to learn that Poling-Cutler Marine Transportation now operates Brooklyn.

 

Here Evening Mist moves her barge into the terminal in Newburgh.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

World’s End

World’s End is not some lamentation about the single digit temperatures we’ve seen in these parts;  it’s one of the great place names in the Hudson Highlands from 40 to 55 miles north of the the Statue.  Enjoy these summer/winter pics of this curve in the vicinity of World’s End.  West Point is just to the left, and we’re headed north.

Birk Thomas–of tugboat information.com– took this photo in just about the same place less than a week ago.

I took this two summers ago, and that’s Pollepel Island in the distance.

Same place . . . Birk’s photo from last week.  Visibility is so restricted that the Island cannot be seen.

And here are two more shots of the same view in summer, from off Cornell and

Patty Nolan. That’s Buchanan 12 heading north in the photo below.

Photos 2 and 4 used with thanks to Birk Thomas.  All others by Will Van Dorp.

 

Meanwhile Upriver April 2013

Click here for an ice post from two years and two months ago, featuring the very same tug–Kimberly Poling–with a slightly different paint job.  Know this bridge?

Here’s a closer up shot of the tug/barge.   Our destination is the top of the cliff on the far side.  Know the name?

Here’s looking north from below the bridge.  Freight travels on the west side of the Hudson, although this particular CSX train

happened to be pulling this unit . . . CSX SWAT.  Click on the blue info link at the lower left of that link . . . it is what it sounds like.

The east side of the river has AmTrak and commuter passenger lines and

here a New York Naval Militia vessel.

By the time we’re ready to start the serious climb, Kimberly is about ready to make the right turn around the base of Dunderberg Mountain.

Here’s our destination, Anthony’s Nose, as seen with a long lens.

And as seen from the top looking west and

looking south.  By the time, we got up there, Kimberly was already beyond Croton Point.   Here’s a previous tugster post from Croton Point.  The land directly across the river from the base of the flagpole is Iona Island.

and approaching Tappan Zee Bridge, not visible.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Here’s a tugster post from 2.5 years ago showing the Bear Mountain Bridge–the bridge featured here and located about 40 miles north of the Battery— from underneath. . .  scroll through.  Climb Anthony’s Nose soon . . . before the leaves happen.

Whatzit 2

A mentor in Vermont researches sasquatch legends in the ravines of the Green Mountains.  Sasquatch did not come to mind last week when I espied this figure atop a Hudson cliff; rather I thought of ghosts or at least a Washington Irving mountainman of the sort that bedeviled my ancestor Rip van Winkle‘s head with fuddling rum.

Upriver a bend, I identified the figure:  a painter, one of a long tradition along the Hudson.  What could he possible wish to capture on his canvas?

Chesapeake and a light barge passing Storm King, and

Champion Polar of Bergen, which must surely be southbound from Henry’s Northwest Passage, and

Choptank, here cranking through Hudson Highlands and World’s End.

Maybe the artist was doing a series of peaks starting with Anthony’s Nose at Bear Mountain Bridge.

What if the proverbial “bear” for which the bridge is named was larger than a human, very hairy, and primitive?   And who was Anthony?  I’ll answer that last question later.

Photos, WVD.