Urban Kayaking - Cincinnati Paddlest 2010 & bonus shots from Carew Tower
 

So here is the Cincinnati edition of my continuing urban kayaking adventures. For this one I took part in Paddlefest 2010, the 9th annual running of the event which is billed as the nation’s largest on-water canoe and kayak festival with over 2,000 boats participating. The organizers shut down all river traffic for several hours on a Saturday morning so that we paddlers had about a 9 mile stretch of the Ohio river all to ourselves. Along with exploring the tributaries of the little Miami and Licking Rivers, my total course was probably around 11 miles.

The Ohio river is freaking HUGE! It was a much different urban kayaking experience than my previous forays in Chicago and Milwaukee, which have tiny little cozy urban creeks running through them. On the Ohio everything is big, and cozy it is certainly not. I really got a good sense of the power and majesty that a real river like the Ohio has as it runs past a river city like Cincinnati. And this tour isn’t a pure water tour, as Chris (coldayman) took me on a very extensive tour of the area on Sunday afternoon culminating in a trip up to the top of the carew tower, so there are some bonus non-kayak shots tacked on at the end.

So, without further ado, here’s the tour, and if you dig this urban kayaking thing, be sure to check out my previous threads if you haven’t seen them before:

Chicago River: north branch
Chicago River: south branch
Milwaukee River & other waterways


My Route:
http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/7690/00map.jpg




1. the put-in at coney island. For 2,000 boats it was well orchestrated and very non-chaotic.
http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/9454/01putin.jpg




2. the I-275 bridge crossing the river. Early on there was still some lingering fog hanging out in the bottom of the valley.
http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/3162/02i275.jpg



3. I-275 close-up.
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/2528/03i275.jpg




4. general river scene.
http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/3533/04river.jpg




5. a large building, possibly apartments or a hotel, perched high on the bluffs.
http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/4582/05mansion.jpg




6. an odd structure along the bank on the kentuck side. No idea what is/was.
http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/9200/06unknown.jpg




7. homes high on the bluff on the Kentucky side.
http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/8...luffhouses.jpg




8. hundreds of canoes & kayaks dot the riverscape.
http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/9470/08kayaks.jpg




9. another riverfront structure whose function I could not discern.
http://img816.imageshack.us/img816/4484/09block.jpg




10. paddling up the little Miami river, a tributary to the Ohio. It flows through a wide flat plain absent of the high bluffs found along the Ohio itself.
http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/1281/10littlemiami.jpg




11. paddling back down the little Miami as it opens up into the ohio in the distance
http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/5655/11littlemiami.jpg




12. a cozy little nest high above on the Kentucky side
http://img704.imageshack.us/img704/7659/12mnasion.jpg




13. Sohio? WTF? I hadn’t seen one of those signs in a while.
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/3344/13sohio.jpg




14. and old working tug turned party boat.
http://img810.imageshack.us/img810/1...paddleboat.jpg




15. a river bank marina along the Kentucky side.
http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/9295/15marina.jpg




16. a residential highrise in the Columbia-Tusculum neighborhood.
http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/2391/16tusculum.jpg




17. and old paddle wheeler rotting away.
http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/5474/17derilict.jpg




18. east side neighborhoods of Cincinnati finally come into view
http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/7...eastwalnut.jpg




19. highrises of edgecliff
http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/6885/19edgecliff.jpg




20. more city high on the bluffs above.
http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/9613/20city.jpg




21. the first glimpse of the skyline as I begin to round the big bend in the ohio east of downtown.
http://img818.imageshack.us/img818/3482/21skyline.jpg




22. still rounding the bend, there’s mount adams.
http://img709.imageshack.us/img709/2032/22skyline.jpg




23. buildings, hills, and trees, trees, trees. Cincy has one hell of a tree canopy covering it’s urban hills.
http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/6072/23bluffs.jpg




24. edgecliff highrises
http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/4106/24edgecliff.jpg




25. the big mac bridge comes into view in the distance.
http://img717.imageshack.us/img717/1594/25bigmac.jpg




26. some colorful houses along the riverbank.
http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/1082/26colorful.jpg




27. edgecliff.
http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/8868/27edgecliff.jpg




28. a cool looking crane.
http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/4995/28crane.jpg




29. the developing urban waterfront of Bellevue kentucky
http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/3713/29kentucky.jpg




30. mount adams, one of my favorite nabes of cincy.
http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/4...mountadams.jpg




31. unusual architecture atop mount adams.
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/995/31weird.jpg




32. looking back over my shoulder at the east side neighborhoods along the river.
http://img816.imageshack.us/img816/4...ookingback.jpg




33. the building in the foreground is the boathouse, a satellite restaurant of the famous Montgomery Inn, home of the best ribs I’ve ever eaten.
http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/7641/33boathouse.jpg




34. a new highrise condo tower in Bellevue, chris told me it’s planned to get a taller sibling in the future.
http://img806.imageshack.us/img806/4979/34kentucky.jpg




35. the beautiful yellow fanasticness of the big mac bridge.
http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/4184/35bigmac.jpg





36. big mac again.
http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/8519/36bigmac.jpg




37. floating restaurant barges on the Kentucky side.
http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/3335/37partydecks.jpg




38. former railroad bridge turned pedestrian bridge known locally as “the purple people eater bridge”.
http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/6...rplepeople.jpg




39. a view of the downtown skyline.
http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/1193/39skyline.jpg




40. queen city square looking good. not much more to go.
http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/9105/40qcs.jpg




41. the skyline of Covington with liebeskind’s recent curvy, swooping addition.
http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/5517/41covington.jpg




42. I was happy to see the magnificent old Roebling suspension bridge getting some TLC, but I was also frustrated that it meant I wouldn’t get any good shots of it.
http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/6307/42roebling.jpg




43. paul brown stadium, home of the bengals
http://img709.imageshack.us/img709/8458/43paulbrown.jpg




44. great american ballpark, home of the reds.
http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/7876/44gab.jpg




45. the licking river, a tributary on the Kentucky side that splits Newport from Covington.
http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/993/45licking.jpg




46. millionaire’s row right on the river in Covington, adjacent to the mouth of the licking river.
http://img813.imageshack.us/img813/2...illionaire.jpg




47. the skyline, front and center
http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/9152/47skyline.jpg




48. carew and PNC, two classics that look great together.
http://img682.imageshack.us/img682/1592/48carew.jpg




49. and the paddle came to an end with our take-out at the public boat landing next to great American ballpark.
http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/3803/49takeout.jpg




And that ends the on the water tour, here are a few bonus shots, mostly from the top of carew tower.




50. a view of the skyline from a hill in Newport, Kentucky.
http://img541.imageshack.us/img541/8417/50skyline.jpg



51. the oh so cute and quaint and charming neighborhood of mount adams as seen from above.
http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/7...mountadams.jpg




52. the neighborhood of Pendleton, chris said it’s a ghetto shithole, but it looks nice from up here.
http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/9672/52pendleton.jpg




53. over the rhine, what’s not to love. Some of the best 19th century urbanism in the Midwest.
http://img816.imageshack.us/img816/4383/53rhine.jpg




54. more over the rhine
http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/2600/54rhine.jpg




55. Queen city square almost topped out
http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/4688/55qcs.jpg




56. PNC tower in all of its glory
http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/773/56pnc.jpg




57. bellevue, kentucky
http://img815.imageshack.us/img815/3166/57bellevue.jpg




58. Newport, kentucky
http://img697.imageshack.us/img697/4500/58newport.jpg




59. Covington, kentucky
http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/1975/59covington.jpg




60. the old sun times building, and art deco treasure
http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/3238/60suntimes.jpg




61. city hall
http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/5425/61cityhall.jpg




62. one last shot, waiting for megabus, PNC & friends catching the long rays of the setting sun.
http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/6785/62pnc.jpg

and here's a downtown riverscape pano:

http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/8527/panod.jpg

great tour, thanks.

Lovin' how Queen City is coming out.

Excellent shots.... Queen City Square is looking better than I thought she would.

Great great great shots Dan! Glad you enjoyed the Queen City and Jungle Jim's!

Great tour. So different than what we normally see.

And just to answer some of your questions Dan:

#5 are apartments
#6 & #9 are intake stations along the Ohio River.
#17 is actually a Haunted House (riverboat) called the USS Nightmare

Really good and interesting photos from some unusual vantages! Cincinatti looks great.

oh, makes sense now, thanks for the info.

and thanks again for the awesome tours of cincy and its environs over the weekend, it was a lot of fun. and the BBQ sauce from jungle jims is friggin delicious, thanks for the recommendation. :tup:

cool tour. i've thought about getting into urban kayaking (since i now live 3/4 a mile from a river dock and there's also a big canal here.) what camera do you use? is it waterproofed? do you own or rent kayaks? if you own, how do you get it around?

-

Very cool, I really enjoy your threads offering a new vantage point of Midwestern cities. You should check out Tulsa sometime, we have an industrial riverfront with nice skyline views you would appreciate.

I thought #5 was Carmel Manor, the retirement home in Fort Thomas?

Total nostalgia trip at the beginning there (used to live in Anderson Township, spent summers at Coney Island). My brother used to call that weird looking building in picture #6 the "boat castle."

Definitely not your usual Cincinnati photo thread. Great perspective from the mighty/murky Ohio :tup:

Oh, and 800 Broadway in #60 used to house the Cincinnati Times-Star, not the Sun-Times ;)

That was an outstanding thread! I can't get over how amazing Cincinnati is. My favorite OH city and it gives Pittsburgh in PA a run for best OH river city IMO.

Lovely thread. Cincinnati is such a marvelous city that I continually find myself seeking out information and images that detail it (particularly at its urban peak).

Oh, and I believe you might be interested in this:

Click Here.

Bingo. :tup:

Great pictures, and maybe I'll be there next year.

a little panasonic lumix point and shoot.




no.




i own my own kayak.





i have a folding kayak, and it collapses down into a backpack, which makes it immensely transportable, especially for me considering that i don't own an automobile. i can take it on the el, city buses, metra commuter rail, or even on megabus, as i did for my trip down to cincy. i can hike for miles with it on my back and i've even ridden with it on my bike, though that set-up is a touch top-heavy, with the backpack weighing over 25 pounds. the best part though is that my condo in marina city is wicked tiny, so i can store my kayak in my hall closet, and when i want to go for a paddle, i simply grab the back pack and take the elevator down to the marina level, set-up my boat, and put-in directly to the chicago river. it's a pretty sweet arrangement.


here's the back pack that the boat fits into:

http://img54.imageshack.us/img54/5654/openpackdc5.jpg




then you build the frame:

http://img352.imageshack.us/img352/5754/framegy2.jpg





and then you slip on the hull and you're ready to paddle:

http://img378.imageshack.us/img378/2095/completeeg5.jpg

Very very cool. The Ohio looks like such a peaceful river, and I love those hills. I very much hope you sometime get a chance to paddle the Mississippi, perhaps from Alton (about 23 river miles north of downtown) with its amtrak access. The Mississippi has a very different personality (at least I think so) from the Ohio near St. Louis (which you may or may not appreciate, its a changable body of water with massive pools, shoals, sandbars, unstable - even sometimes scary confluences, shallow rapids at the chain of rocks, to a narrow, mean, barge crushing current downtown). Let me reiterate, if you do it, be careful at the chain of rocks. If you need any logistical information let me know. I have yet to paddle it, but i fish for big blue catfish at the sandbars near the confluence (and even downtown) and study the channel of the Mississippi north of and at St. Louis a lot, at least from the shore. Thanks again for this thread!

Cool stuff mate :)

i was actually surprised by how tame and well behaved the ohio was. there was a current, but it was not terribly strong at all. i know the ohio can get pretty savage during high water floods, but i must have just hit it at a real peaceful time. it was a joy to paddle on.