View Passaic River Dec 25th 2011 in a larger map


Christmas Day 2011. Moderately cold = around 0C.  Light winds.
Put in at the 2nd of the two bridges I came to on Two Bridges Rd. Fairfield NJ.
There was no ramp, just a track and a steepish bank- The water is still relatively high, but the backwaters and lagoons are starting to freeze over. 

The winter season is starting to grow on me. Where once everything looked dead to me , now it just looks like winter . I like that I can see the actually see the topography; the lay of the land.

The backwaters are beginning to ice up.

Even stone chooks get me hankering after them. Life without them is not ideal(real ones that is, not stone ones)  .

One of many small tributaries.

Housing that has seen better days. This section of houses on the river bank are very  low; I imagine that they sustained extensive flood damage in the wake of Irene and subsequent flooding.

This cute little cabin

A work in progress.

I fixer-upper that didn't quite get fixed upped.

One of the two bridges at Two Bridges Rd. You can get an idea of the flood height by the debris .

The other...

The launch site is just beyond the bridge on the left/

There was some  animal action; I saw a  bunch of deer. Also a red- bellied woodpecker, female,  looking through the tree bark for goodies. A belted kingfisher swooped down and grab a small fish from the water; that nice to see. A turkey vulture was the only raptor seen.  There was quite  an amount of small bird action, but despite the lack of foliage, my abysmal knowledge of North American birds, and their flightiness,  left me  wondering what they all were. 
The Passaic is New Jersey's most polluted river. Up stream here, it actually looks pretty good...would not drink the water though.