Middle Delaware National Scenic River

Located just beyond the New York Metropolitan Area, Middle Delaware National Scenic River spans 40 miles of dynamic riverine ecosystem north of the famous Delaware Water Gap. I canoe camped the entire span and then some as part of a three day trip with my friend Jake, an experienced fisherman and woodsman, camping along the river, fishing, and enjoying what must currently be one of the best wildlife experiences on the East Coast.

Like many of my trips, I was eager to treat the Middle Delaware National Scenic River as an end-to-end excursion, covering all 40 miles in a single span. The previous year, I had done a smaller section with my friends Mason and Heather, but this only covered a section within the park, not the entire run, which is located fully within the boundaries of Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. Because the traditional access points lie within the boundaries of the park, we had to get creative with our beginning and debarkation points, and weren’t able to take advantage of standard services like the River Runner.

For our starting and ending points, we chose Port Jervis as our beginning, as it lies several miles north of the Middle Delaware Section, and Portland PA as our terminus, just downstream of the end of the park. For parking, I called the Borough of Portland, whose friendly town manager allowed me to park for the two nights on Delaware Avenue right near Portland Waterfront Park.

Given we were parked at the terminus, we needed a shuttle to bring us to Port Jervis. Luckily, A Yak or Two offered us a very reasonable rate for an early morning shuttle from Portland up to West End Beach in Port Jervis. Andrew, the owner, was friendly, communicative, and knowledgeable, and I’d recommend his service for anyone requiring livery along the river.

Camping in this part of the river requires permits based on a zone system from the NPS. You can read more about that here, and I describe below which zones we stayed in for our trip.

This is bear country, so prepare accordingly.

One thing to be aware of on any river is its height and speed. The NPS provides a handy guide on the optimal height and safety here. We paddled the river at roughly 5.5ft at the Montague gauge, which was low but passable. Drier conditions may not have been as easily passable or might have required portaging over riffles and shallows.

If you plan on fishing, you’ll need either a Pennsylvania or New Jersey license, and have a physical copy on open display. The nice thing here is – so long as you are fishing in the Delaware River itself – you need a license from either state regardless of which shoreline you cast off from.

Finally, I had picked up Gary Letcher’s Paddler’s Guide to the Delaware River to use as a turn-by-turn guide. It is a fantastic book, perhaps the best trail guide I have ever had the pleasure of using, rich with mileage and hazard information, history tidbits, and wise advice. In my opinion, this is a must-have for a paddle trip down the river.

Day one began early with grey skies and mild temperatures as we met Andrew from A Yak or Two in Portland t0 shuttle us north. I tucked my car along Delaware Ave, unloaded our canoe and gear, and started the 90 minute drive north to our starting point.

Andrew dropped us off at West End Beach in Port Jervis, a small municipal beach with a paved access to the river at mile 256. We assembled our kit in the canoe, made sure we had secured our personal effects, and pushed off into the river with gray skies overhead.

The river south of Port Jervis was calm and straightforward, passing under the 1939 Mid Delaware bridge and then Interstate 84. The beginning section has a few rapids, namely Peters Rift, Sheep Pasture Rift, and Punkys Rift, which we navigated without issue. Between the rapids, Jake trawled a fishing line behind us in hopes of snagging trout in the fast moving waters.

Within a few minutes, we had passed into the border of the official National Scenic River and Jake snagged a smallmouth bass. We passed the Kittatinny River Beach access on the Pennsylvania shore and continued paddling downstream through Quicks Rift. Across the river on the New Jersey bank, we spotted a boulder of puddingstone – NJ’s unofficial state rock.

For lunch, we pulled off at Milford Beach and dried out our gear from the morning’s rain.

South of Milford, we began to see our first taste of the wildlife that the river had to offer, spotting a bald eagle in flight along the river. Over the past 50 years, bald eagles have recovered from near extinction to a regular sight along rivers and lakes in the region, a massive conservation success story.

By 3PM we approached our campsite, at the Sandyston sites along mile 241. This is right in the middle of the NPS’s Zone Two, which spans from Milford (m 246) to just south of the Dingman’s bridge (m 239.5). Each zone contains one or more campsites and requires a reservation.

There’s a bit of game theory to choosing which site in a zone you’d like: since zones – but not individual campsites are reserved, you have to anticipate how other campers before you may have filled the rest of the sites in the zone, lest you have to paddle back upriver to an open site if the downriver ones are occupied. Since it was midweek in an off-season, we saw zero other campers on the river and were confident that we could snag any spot we wanted.

We ended up pulling off river midway through the 7 Sandyston sites, scurrying up the embankment and setting up camp & a fire. Despite the proximity of the highway across the river, the wildlife here was splendid; two bald eagles nested just above camp, watching over us from atop their sentinel trees. At dusk, Jake spotted a black bear foraging on the Pennsylvania short. And after the sun dropped, we heard a symphony of barred owls calling to each other from both sides of the river, along with the gentle drumming of rain on our tents.

We knew the forecast for our three day jaunt was iffy, and the second morning confirmed it. A full night’s worth of rain had fallen and continued into the morning as we broke camp and readied ourselves for our longest day of paddling. I stowed my digital camera and the rest of my remaining clothing in my waterproof bag and donned my poncho to stay as dry as I could.

Despite the discomfort, the rain was beneficial in two ways.

First, it sped up the low, slow-moving river and gave us great mileage on our second morning. We quickly made it through Dingman’s Ferry crossing and under its bridge – one of the last private toll bridges in the country – and past the Dingman’s Shallows, Hornbeck, and Jerry Lee’s campsites.

The other benefit was the fishing. Jake took advantage of the increased river speed to cast and trawl as we paddled along, catching several smallmouth bass, a largemouth bass, a walleye, and several fallfish.

Within a few hours we had made it to Mile 228 and towards the Bushkill access, used as one of the NPS’s main service points along the river. The rain slowly abated, transitioning from downpour to shower to trickle to simple overcast weather, and we took the opportunity to slow our pace down and enjoy the scenery a bit more.

After Bushkill, the river enters Walpack Bend, my favorite section of our trip. Two hundred years ago, this curve in the river would have been busy with ferries, log drivers, and settlements, but today it’s a scenic S-bend carving a path through Kittatinny mountain. With the humidity in the air, the river was sheathed in a layer of fog. We kept a keen watch as we passed south, then northeast, then southwest, as rocks and several sets of riffles emerged from the shallows.

Apart from the excitement from the rapids and splendor of the hills, we also spotted an eagle’s nest and yet another pair of Bald Eagles along our path.

Just after the bend, the river enters Sambo and Mary’s Rift, a string of Class I+ rapids that forces paddlers to stay keen to avoid the huge boulders just below. After the rift, we were nearly at our destination for the evening, the Zone 4 “Hamilton” campsites.

But before we made it there, we caught a glimpse of my favorite wildlife experience of the trip – river otters! 100m downstream, Jake and I watched a trio of river otters bob and dive in the river, grabbing freshwater mussels and keeping a healthy distance from us. I had suspected we might see a beaver or two, since we had passed a number of lodges along the riverbank, but otters were a wonderful surprise.

Soon we arrived at our destination for the night, the Zone 4 Hamilton area campsites. Located on a small perch above the river, the sites are clean, well-appointed, and very scenic. Jake and I gathered firewood and made camp ahead of the evening thunderstorm, then cranked up a warm fire and prepared ourselves a steak dinner.

In the evening, the concert of barred owls from the previous night had yielded to a series of great horned owls who called and cooed through the evening.

By our third morning, all traces of the rain had vanished. We awoke to bright blue skies and a radiant sun. After a few cups of coffee on the shoreline, we pushed off and began our final leg of the journey.

South of the Hamilton sites, the river widens and slows. We had been alone on the river for the journey so far, but past Smithfield Beach access we began seeing kayakers, fishermen, and other recreational users of the river. The section of river is frequently used by day rental services to drop off paddlers who paddle the run from here to Kittatinny Point.

Past Tocks Island we chose to stay right in the channels on the westward side of Depue Island and the Shawnee golf course. Doing so gave us a quieter, more shaded run with the opportunity to see great blue- and green-herons wading in the shallows for lunch. Instead of bald eagles, here we also spotted more and more ospreys nesting atop the tall trees on the riverbank.

Past a series of old NYS&W bridge pylons and a fast moving set of rapids, we finally entered the famous Delaware Water Gap.

With Mt. Minsi in Pennsylvania to our right and New Jersey’s Mt. Tammany to our left, Jake and I slowed to an easy pace and took lunch on the river, humbled by the towering quartzite peaks we were passing between.

One great aspect of our route is that it stayed exciting throughout the trip, with the swiftest, most difficult, and most exhilarating rapids right at the end. After the gap we made our way through Gap Island Rift, a fast moving pair of channels filled with boulders and obstructions.

Two miles later, we passed under the Delaware River Viaduct, an abandoned but gorgeous concrete archway easily recognized by anyone who’s driven on Interstate 80. Jake and I teamed up to maneuver around submerged boulders and powered through two foot standing waves, getting soaked in the process but making it under safely.

Finally we made it to Portland, where we had left my car two days earlier. We pulled the canoe right into Portland’s Waterfront Park, nestled right under the town’s pedestrian bridge.

With 3 days and 48 miles of paddling behind us, it felt nice to be on dry land again. The trip was a true delight – exciting, historical, overflowing with natural beauty and teeming with wildlife, the Middle Delaware National Scenic River is a gem nestled barely an hour from New York City. For anyone with basic paddling skills who wants a fresh perspective on the region, I highly recommend it.