Oneonta Gorge - Sandy River

We went to Nike on Saturday to pick up our Hood to Coast packet.  The kids had a fun time playing in the fountain and trying samples of "running food."  From there we headed up to spend the day in the Gorge.

Here we are on our way into Oneonta Gorge.

It was pretty hot up here by the road but when we got into the gorge it was perfect.  We spent an hour or so playing by the mouth of the gorge and snoozing in the hammock, balancing rocks, exploring trails, and splashing in the river before we ate our lunch of bread and cheese.  

After lunch we braved the log jam.  Getting over was not that bad.  The kids were pretty good at staying put when I told them to hold on so I could go ahead and shuttle them one by one to the next safe spot.

After the log jam it's easy going in the shallow water for quite a ways.  We just meandered and splashed around.  Then we hit the deep spot.  Noah was excited to swim through the deep part until he was neck deep in the freezing cold water.  I perched him on a rock to drip dry on the other side and decided that I didn't want to do that 3 more times.  Oneonta was crowded and there was a steady stream of people braving the deep cold water with yelps and screams as the freezing water got deeper and deeper.  No one was scaling the rock wall to avoid the water and I took that way back to get Joshua.  He latched onto my back and we took the wall back to Noah.  By the time I was headed back to get Larkin the wall had become a popular alternative to the drink.  I had to go over or under people that were less confident on the wall with Larkin and Arwen.  Even if you are no rock climber the worst that will happen on the wall is you'll end up in the water where you would have been.  

Here we are at the falls.  It was freezing.  The air was full of freezing mist from the falls and it was windy.  Noah really wanted to swim in the pool under the falls and tried to get to it but got frozen as he got close.

He finally got brave enough to swim just after the deep spot on the way back. 

There were a lot of petrified people on the log jam and the way back and not much movement.  We had to take some crazy routes to get to the other side.

On the other side of the tracks there was sun and shallow water.  We found this little "coffin" and all the kids put on their sad faces.

Noah fighting the current.

Eventually we made our way to sandy river to do some swimming.  It was hot and we hiked a bit to find a good place to swim.  The river here was shallow enough for the kids all the way across.

Somehow I managed to keep all the kids sunburn free and fed all day.  We even found an apple tree on the way to the river.  It was protected by thick blackberry brambles.  After being punctured who knows how many times I was able to get two of them.  They were delicious.