Postscript to a Year

Flowing from the west,

November afternoon sun

Blesses the river.

Last week near sunset just before the Ottauquechee goes into the Connecticut.

River Rising

While I am not committing to pictures of the river for "most days," as I did over the past year, I could not resist sharing this one on this rainy day.  In contrast, last week looked like this:

The Top of the River

Last Friday, I drove as far up the Ottauquechee watershed as I could, following River Road west past the Sherburne Library and Killington Town Hall. I took a very steep dead-end dirt road up Wolf Hill, which rises at the end of the gentle valley River Road valley.  The watercourse which evolves into the river is down on the right somewhere in this picture.  I had neither the will or footwear to bushwhack my way to find it.  I thought this was as close as I would get to the headwaters and so mused about the mysterious beginnings of this river I sought to know.

I did not quite have it right.  Driving back down Wolf Hill Road in low gear, I turned right to take the last piece of River Road, heading north toward Rt. 100.  My map suggested that a northerly branch of the headwaters might be visible until it reached its source.  Just short of Rt. 100, I saw through the trees on some land marked "Private" what looked like a small pond.  I decided this must be the head of the river.  Beyond Rt. 100, the map shows a shift in topography and the beginning of a different watershed.

The stream emerged from the private patch to follow River Road.  As I drove back down the hill, the infant Ottauquechee flanked the road, little more than a drainage ditch.

Day 365 - Some More to Come

This is the view of the Ottauquechee from the Middle Bridge around 4:30 Saturday, September 26.  I began the blog with a picture taken on September 27, 2014.  With this post, I share the last of my year's worth of images.  I set out to take a picture from the same spot on the bridge "most days." I have done most days, although I am a bit disappointed I did not do more.  In the end, I took pictures on 287 of the 365 days.  I am gratified and grateful that the blog received an average of more than 10 page views a day, and while this is not exactly going "viral," I felt I was in conversation with friends about something meaningful.  Thank you for joining me in this enterprise!

While this is the last post of a daily picture of the river, I will share with you in the days ahead some of the hours I spent driving along the length of the Ottauquechee from its source in a gentle valley under Wolf Hill in Killington to its flowing into the Connecticut River just after a sharp drop over falls by two covered bridges in Hartland.

And as a teaser...

On this next to last day of my year of blogging on the river, I began earlier than usual.  This picture I took about 6:40 a.m.

Upriver, the scene was like this:

A few minutes later, I took one more, from a a different spot on the bridge, 

looking downstream again.

I spent the afternoon, driving the length of the Ottauquchee, from its Killington headwaters to the Connecticut River.  More on this later.

Shrinking Stream