SRT25 - Day 57
Summer 2025 Road Trip
Sunday, June 1, 2025
This morning everyone is packing up to head there separate ways but Bones was very insistent that we get in one last paddle before we head north.
Our first stop this morning is at the Allegheny Outfitters in Warren, PA to see about paddling the Allegheny River later this summer. It was like a madhouse, the staff was running around trying to do a thousand things all at once. Yesterday was the first day that the river had dropped below 5,000 cfs (cubic feet per second) and they were able to let paddlers on the river. Currently they were unloading a group of paddlers that had just gotten off the river from an overnight trip. The first trip of the season. I waited until things calmed down and the group left before I talked to the staff about my plans. They were sorry about the river flow but it is out of their control and I truly understand their problem, especially with all the rain. In no time we had worked out the details and had a plan for me to paddle the Allegheny River upon my return from Maine.
Just upriver from the outfitters is the Kinzua dam. Because of all the rain the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is having to release a lot more water than usual to keep the dam from overflowing. This has really been a wet spring.
While I was checking out the dam, Bones was checking the internet for our next stop. He found out that there is a good chance that we might see the northern lights tonight. So with a little research we found the pest place in the area to watch them and we headed to Cherry Springs State Park, NY.
Cherry Springs State Park offers some of the darkest night skies in the eastern United States. And because of the potential for northern lights tonight they are having a ranger led presentation on the night sky and the Aurora Borealis. By the time it the sun had set and the sky had darkend, there were over 100 people at the park enjoying the night sky.
Unfortunately we didn’t see any lights in the sky. The ranger said that he was disappointed too and that we had several factors working against us tonight. First the Aurora Borealis was staying too far north for us to see them. Second and third was the smoke from the Canadian wildfires creating a haze that the light from a half full moon was illuminating. All this combined to make for a poor night to watch the northern lights.
We were a little disappointed but we understood. The ranger said that not all is lost and that the sun was at the height of its 12 year solar cycle and that we will have more chances to see the Aurora Borealis later this year.
