Yard Yak

A high-water June ended up with heavy rains throughout most of the Conestoga River watershed as the river breached its banks on July 1 and eventually hit 12.5 feet as measured at the Lancaster USGS station at Walnut and Pleasure Road. After an overnight recession, it was back up and it took a couple of days for the river to recede to near-normal levels. 

While gardens and other plantings may get beat up a bit by the river at flood stage, it is good for what my neighbor calls a yard yak - essentially a paddle out above our neighbors’ yards. The perspective one gets from the river is always awesome and being able to paddle in spaces that don’t usually afford the opportunity to do so is totally worth having to occasionally avoid a tree trunk or other items that have been captured by the current upriver. 

Also, the water is exceptionally fast. Sure, it’s also a bit swirly and down by the “rapids,” a bit bumpy, but for someone who looks to experience the river is all of its expressions, it's the bomb. 

It’s always the bomb, but, hey...

Yark Yak

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Water Week / Paddling Film Festival

A huge thank you to all of the folks at the Lancaster Conservancy for an awesome Water Week this year. Sure, the event was nearly a month ago, but there’s no harm in a retrospective look back in time, right?

In addition to collecting a few trees and shrubs from the Conservancy, I was able to attend a session on riparian zones (yay, Kestrels!), a tour of the meadowing efforts at Clark Nature Preserve and a walk in the proposed nature preserve and center on Sunnyside Peninsula which is a joint project between the City of Lancaster and the High Foundation. I also spent a morning with the Conestoga River Club cleaning up the river along Sunnyside. 

Part of the week was the Conestogia-sponsored Paddling Film Festival which featured a curated selection of the world’s best paddling films. The second year the festival has been a part of Water Week, this year’s films focused on adventure, the love of water, the environment and the way that our waterways bring people together. 

It was clear from the week that our rivers and streams have strong allies and tons of enthusiasts. So… what about a Lancaster County film for the Paddling Film Festival? If you were its producer, what would be the focus of your film? Recreation? Clean-up efforts? History? 

Leave a comment below about how you participated in Water Week and give us the title of your film!

High Water June

Been a big month on the water and as we enter July, let’s just take a moment to give a water level shout out. Anecdotally, if you spent time on the river last year and were out some this June, you know that the water was higher. Stands to reason with all of the rain we had. But, thanks to the USGS, we have data for that.  I’m not going to go wild looking at the data, but no harm having some info on the topic. 

Here’s a link for the June 2024 water levels as found on the USGS Water Data website. Aside from a 24 hour spike to 4.3 feet as measured at the Lancaster NOAA water gauge (Pleasure Road and 23), the river pretty much sat around 3.4 feet or so. It even approached the 3 foot mark later in the month before a slight rebound. Low and slow. Lower water levels invariably mean the lack of precipitation and because the river is not full of runoff silt, the water is usually clear. 

Heavy rain, however, doesn’t necessarily translate to higher river levels. We have had prolonged torrential rainfall here at the house and only realized a slight rise in the river. On the other hand, heavy rains upstream that don’t touch Lancaster City can yield a change in levels. 

Without doubt, we had a lot of rain in June and the river reflected that. According to the USGS we spent most of June with levels above 4 feet and there were five spikes above 5 feet. And that is saying nothing about the water event that occurred during the first days of July where the river hit the “minor” flood stage. (See later post.)

While rain and higher levels mean that the river is far from clear, the one thing it is is fast. It’s awesome going out when the levels are high not only for the different perspective one gets sitting higher in the channel, but for those who like to speed things up, it’s just fun to be on a faster river. 

While I love to take my time down the river, a 1.3 mile rip in 12 minutes is something I can get into. And have.

June 19, 2025 - 6.9 feet of river