Throughout history, even seasoned explorers have embarked on expeditions to unknown regions, never having full knowledge in advance of the difficult terrain or strange peoples they would encounter. Many of the most famous archaeological finds, be they Pharaonic tombs or Asian or Mayan temples, were accidental finds. In that regard Jake was to discover that an exploratory car trip he would undertake from the comfort of his Teaneck home would bring him face to face with the full impact of nature at its most devastating!
It was in November 2011 that Jake, who had bicycled through the region 45 years earlier, decided to drive all the way through the Catskill Park in New York from east to west; he would then travel to the Iroquois Indian Museum due north along the Schoharie Creek just to the west of Albany in the Mohawk River Valley.
In more detail, it was hoped that the trip would answer two questions Jake had wished to answer for years. First, he was very familiar with the eastern and central sections of the Catskill Park. This was the region that included Hunter, Tannersville and Haines Falls, all towns that Jake had summered in as a teenager. To reach this section of the mountain range required a rather steep climb from the sea level elevation of Kingston and Saugerties, New York, and the New York Thruway that bordered the Hudson River on its winding course northward. From those cities, the traveler would ascend abruptly to an elevation of more than 2,000 feet above sea level in the course of a handful of miles, passing the famous Kaaterskill Falls (at 200 feet, the highest falls in the Catskills) on the equally famous Rip Van Winkle Road (NY Route 23A).
What Jake was seeking on that clear November morning was to learn what lay to the west and northwest of the central part of the Catskill Park. What exactly was the topography of the region in that direction—equally steep descents out of the mountains to match the heights on entering the region from the east or something different? Jake’s route that day would roughly follow the Schoharie Creek, one of the two principal tributaries of the Mohawk River 93 miles to the north.
The second reason Jake desired to make this trip north was to visit the Mohawk River Valley, a New York State region made famous over 120 years earlier around the time of the American Revolution. About two months before the trip, Jake had completed reading a spellbinding volume entitled “Bloody Mohawk: The French and Indian War and American Revolution on New York’s Frontier” by Richard Berleth. The author described the detailed history of the Iroquois Indian tribe who partnered first with the French and later with the British against the American colonists occupying the area east of Fort Orange (now Albany), New York.
The Iroquois, known also as the Six Nations Confederation (comprising the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, Cayuga and Tuscarora tribes) were the dominant Native Americans in the Northeast, culturally and militarily. They regularly ranged from the Mohawk Valley south along the Susquehanna River (at 444 miles the longest river on the East Coast of the United States) and adjacent country as far south as east central Pennsylvania.
The Iroquois also used the Schoharie Creek to access the region where Jake proposed to travel. Though no longer a region where Iroquois raids or hunting parties ranged, Schoharie, New York (the northern terminus for Jake’s trip) was the modern home of the Iroquois Museum, around where the descendants of the Iroquois today largely lived. Jake desired to visit the Iroquois on their ancestral lands and learn firsthand about the tribe and their adjustment to modern times.
The weather on November 6, 2011 was bright and cloudless, the temperature that morning in the high 40’s. Jake began his trip from Teaneck a little after 8:00 a.m. The route from Teaneck to Saugerties on the New York Thruway was a fairly straight, uneventful 91 miles. Upon exiting the Thruway at Saugerties, he began the familiar, abrupt ascent into the Catskill Mountain region about 2,000 feet above the Thruway along NYS Route 23A. Jake’s first stop along his lengthy trip was to be Hunter, New York, about 17 miles west of Saugerties.
The route Jake was traveling along passed a winding, somewhat treacherous stretch called the Rip Van Winkle Trail, marked at its midway point by the aforementioned famous Kaaterskill Falls. But on this occasion, the falls, often little more than a trickle at this time of the year, was a veritable torrent, spilling over onto the twisting road. While unable to explain to himself the cause of this unexpected hazard, Jake carefully navigated his car past the watery obstacle and continued on his way into Hunter.
As he entered Hunter, Jake paused to stop and visit some of his old haunts where he had lived during summers past, decades earlier. As one might have expected, much had changed over the years. The bungalows he had called home had been bulldozed over, and in their place stood more modern structures, strip malls and single-family homes. With a mixture of some nostalgia and sadness, Jake left Hunter, now as then mostly famous as a winter ski resort, and continued through the village past the unchanged Hunter Synagogue (1914) on the left side of the road, since 1999 on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
Roughly paralleling Route 23A through Hunter was the Schoharie Creek, at some places merely a small stream no more than a few feet wide, which had emerged from the northern side of Indian Head mountain to the southeast some 20 miles away; the Creek would frequently widen as it made its way through the mountains on its way to the Mohawk River more than 70 miles to the north/northwest. From Hunter Jake drove due west along 23A to Lexington, New York, eight miles away. At this point the Schoharie widened to about 400 feet across, moving briskly as Jake motored by.
Armed with his double trip objectives, Jake continued his drive to the north along Route 23A. the road descending slightly as he made his way toward Prattsville 9 miles away. As he proceeded, he noticed large collections of debris (fallen trees, timber and flotsam) on both sides of the highway, signs of devastation more than hinting that some sort of major cataclysm had occurred. Prattsville itself looked like a war zone, the road being detoured away from the Schoharie at several points.
“Something crazy must have taken place here,” Jake thought to himself, but he had no explanation for what he was seeing.
Similar signs of destruction followed as Jake drove past Prattsville into Gilboa and Blenheim, New York. where a major dam impounded the Schoharie shortly before Route 23A joined route 30 North. This road headed towards the town of Schoharie itself and the Mohawk River almost 30 miles distant. The creek was wide at intervals, and showed frequent signs of having left its normal channel some time earlier before returning roughly to its regular path as Jake drove past. In the matter of an hour Jake had descended from the Catskills in a much more gradual fashion than had occurred when he had ascended up into the region from Saugerties two hours earlier. Jake now had the answer to the first question that had motivated his expedition: Overall the topography was much less dramatic on the northwestern exit from the Catskills in comparison to the eastern approach. However the signs of destruction and devastation along the route required an explanation that would have to await Jake’s return home later that day.
At this point in the early afternoon, Jake had one remaining objective: to visit the Iroquois Museum near Schoharie and learn about the tribes he had read so much about. As soon as he arrived at the museum at 1:30 p.m., he stopped to eat his lunch in the parking lot in front of a 200-foot long replica of a traditional Iroquois elm bark longhouse that contained the museum and its artifacts. Following lunch, he entered the museum, where he encountered the staff, all members of the Mohawk tribe. He spent half an hour interviewing them, discovering that among the Iroquois, the ruling council was made up of women who were tasked with selecting the male tribal chiefs, a reversal of most tribal customs. The women were thought to be better judges of the candidates for leadership. Jake concluded that given the historic dominant Iroquois success at making peace and war and their successful transition to modern life, their recognition and elevation of the women of their tribe to positions of leadership probably has played an essential part.
Jake wanted to drive back home while it was still light so he quickly gathered some five or six books about the Iroquois to add to his library, said his farewell to his Iroquois guides and headed home via the Thruway (I-97) which he picked up in Albany. Just under three hours and 134 miles later, Jake drove onto his driveway in Teaneck.
Author’s Note: In reviewing his 350-mile round trip later that evening, Jake was satisfied that, while he had essentially accomplished his dual objectives, there remained a question in his mind, an explanation for the devastation he had seen in the central part of the Schoharie Creek Valley. The answer was not long in coming.
In a matter of minutes, Jake discovered on the internet that his expedition that day had inadvertently crossed the main destructive path of Hurricane Irene, which had flooded and destroyed large portions of the region he had earlier driven through. The storm that struck on August 28, 2011 was considered a “once in 500 years storm” with flooding of the Great Deluge force, causing a record total of $13 billion in damage. The towns he had driven through and passed, such as Prattsville and North Blenheim, had been largely wiped off the map as the Schoharie Creek had left its normal channel and poured into and through these towns. No one was spared.
Jake discovered multiple YouTube videos of the flooding taken contemporaneously with Irene’s arrival. These videos are worth watching today, almost 10 years later—if you don’t frighten easily. They demonstrate that natural catastrophes can equal or even exceed by a large measure in terrifying people and destructive force than can supernatural monsters or occurrences. Consider these random record flow statistics of the Schoharie Creek, recorded on August 28, 2011, in comparison to the lowest flows on record:
8/28/11 7/30/02
Lexington, New York: 40,500 cubic foot per second 4.8 cf. per second
1/30/76
Blenheim, New York: 111,000 cubic foot per second.4 cf. per second
On that November day in 2011, Jake had unexpectedly driven through what was a living, watery “hell,” a mere two months before, an experience he has never forgotten.
Joseph Rotenberg, a frequent contributor to The Jewish Link, has resided in Teaneck for over 45 years with his wife, Barbara. His first collection of short stories and essays, entitled “Timeless Travels: Tales of Mystery, Intrigue, Humor and Enchantment,” was published in 2018 by Gefen Books and is available online at Amazon.com. He is currently working on a followup volume of stories and essays.
