It's late summer and the Schoharie Creek is low. The gage station at Burtonsville is reading eight inches. Time to get out the gear and dive the creek...
No, this isn't the new PADI SCUBA Diver course (Definitely NOT a recommendation... Take a full Open Water class from any of the organizations that teach SCUBA, but not this truncated resort course!) We are going to dive the hole at Cummings Hollow.
For those who don't know, the Schoharie creek's flow is highly variable. In the spring it can really roar having swept away a large bridge over Interstate 90 some years back. I have seen standing waves six feet high in April. Hundreds of years ago settlements sprung up along the creek to make use of it's abundant water power. Many of them were swept away by freshets. You can still see the walls of the mills and raceways built long ago still straight and in excellent shape, a tribute to the skill of their builders who often used no mortar in their construction.
Last week I took some time off to spend with a local youth group, the Environmental Study Team. They are an outdoor group that bases its programs on the study of the Schoharie Creek. In addition to their normal water quality testing, they were conducting an archaeological dig of a spot on the west shore, just upstream of Burtonsville at the end of a natural ford. From the number of artifacts collected, it seems that the area was a popular stopover area for Native Americans. After a few days digging, we trekked upstream a bit and went swimming in the hole at Cummings Hollow.
Cummings Hollow was the site of an old mill and claims to be the site of the first use of the circular saw (not that the Shakers would agree) and a state historical marker, much rusted, still attests to this achievement. The west side of the creek cuts through a steep cliff 50 to 70 feet tall. The rock here is a mix of shale and mudstone. The bedding is flat and in areas the bottom of the stream consists of large sections of perfectly flat bedrock interrupted by long, deep cracks one to three inches wide. The area was used as a ford for a very long time and we found evidence of fish weirs. Below this area there are more boulders in the stream bed making crossing more difficult. Along the sides of the stream, the banks are a mix of boulders and large cobbles. These areas can change considerably during a flooding event and they do not make for easy walking. Upstream of the pool are a series of small waterfalls, two to three feet in height. Some of them are undercut enough that during moderate flow you can sit under them and have a wall of water in front of you. A great place to recreate.
The flow was down that Saturday and with a kick net I estimated the viz at 10 feet, not bad for late summer given algae and the clay content of the soil. We had been studying this area of the creek for years, but had never ventured to look into the deeper spots. We were interested in what stuff might be caught in these natural collection pits. A few of us resolved to come back the next day and dive the pool. The next day didn't happen and we made plans for the following Saturday.
Saturday dawned cloudy, but there were breaks in cloud cover and we had hopes that it would burn off. Four divers, my wife Barb and I as well as Ben and John McKeeby, made the dive. It would have been very difficult to carry our gear along the bank of the creek so were were grateful that the property owner allowed us access via a private ½ mile drive. Given the difficulty of walking the cobbled banks carrying scuba gear, we couldn't have made it otherwise. We unloaded our gear at 10:30 and entered from the middle of the east side of the pool. While suiting up, the property owner came out to watch. To his knowledge no one had ever dived the spot before (the property being in his families possession prior to the Civil War, we were certainly the plank owners.) He mentioned that someone had broken into his home a couple of nights earlier and taken some food and minor items and that he had found some of the remains along the base of the cliff.
During the week since I had last been there, the viz had deteriorated to an optimistic six feet. The four of us pushed off into 8 feet of water and swam upstream to keep any stirred up silt behind us. The bottom contained a slight coating of fine silt on top of flat bedrock. There were occasional sharp rocks and boulders of the same material and cleavage as the cliffs and bottom. There were very few round cobbles. Terraces abounded and while the average depth was 8 feet, it varied precipitously. If you didn't watch out you could easily swim right into a wall as the bottom abruptly plateaued. The deepest we found the bottom was 13 feet at two spots, one just out from our entrance area, the second in the downstream area of the pool near the cliffs.
We brought our eight cell night lights with us in the hopes of increasing illumination when the sun was behind the clouds, but they were useless, except for increasing the range we could “see” each other by a foot or two.
We saw a lot of fry, some moderate sized smallmouth bass and a walleye. Many crayfish were seen around the rocks and the bottom, near the rocks the silt was criss crossed with crayfish tracks. Given the dearth of garbage, I was surprised when John surfaced with a sardine can, one of the items stolen from the house. Soon afterward, I found the other sardine can as well as a kitchen knife, which I returned to the owner.
We were surprised to see so little junk on the bottom, especially as there are a number of short vertical walls in the pool that one would expect to trap items when the current isn't at it's full strength. I only saw a single tree trunk, wedged into some rocks. I found one small spoon shaped depression perhaps 5 feet across that contained a mix of small stones, twigs and of all things corn cobs.
We had a nice time in a beautiful spot and were the first to dive the hole. What more could you ask for.
