Tubing the Esopus popular summer pastime

The Associated Press

PHOENICIA -- As this pleasantly cool summer slowly burns away, one tradition here is as popular as ever.

Tubing the Esopus Creek is still a hot summer ticket -- despite the chilly water.

MacIsaac had just floated along a section of the creek and was taking a break in the hamlet of Phoenicia after his friend needed an immediate equipment upgrade.

"My friend lost his shoe, so he had to go buy a pair of shoes," he said.

Water running high

Winter's plentiful snow and a rainy spring led to more flow along the Esopus Creek this summer. The normal summer water depth is about four feet, the creek is running about a foot higher.

"It's great tubing this year," said Harry Jameson, who opened Town Tinker Tube Rental in 1980. "We're definitely doing really well on water."

That first year, he rented about 1,000 tubes for floating down the creek, and this year he expects to rent as many as 20,000.

The course typically followed by tubers is separated into two parts. The first, more advanced sections starts farther west on Route 28, and buses continually ferry tubers to the drop-off point about 2.5 miles from Phoenicia.

Buses usually ferry tubers during the week, but on the weekends the Catskill Mountain Railroad picks tubers up in Mount Pleasant for the return trip to Phoencia.

The railroad runs the 6-mile round trip from its Mount Pleasant station hourly. On the return trip to Mount Pleasant, the train makes a short stop at the Empire State Railway Museum in Phoencia.

Bryan Van Kirk was recently running a World War II-era engine, formerly used as a switching locomotive in a navy yard. The engine clamors and vibrates heavily over the track, which formerly ferried passengers to Catskill Mountain resorts on the Ulster & Delaware Railroad.

Penn Central was the last railroad to use these tracks before the final train ran in 1976. In 1983, the Catskill Mountain Railroad was chartered for tourist passenger service.

During the one-way trip to Phoenicia, Van Kirk sat facing forward, running the controls as the train chugged to the hamlet.

On the return trip to Mount Pleasant, he runs the train by operating the controls from behind his back, only turning around and sitting down to shift the engine's transmission.

"It was designed to work in two different directions," he said, "and I also have to work in two directions."

On the trip back, the comfortable caboose is the front of the train and John Prestopino works as a brakeman outside of the caboose, helping the train ease into the station.

Prestopino is a vice president for the railroad, and he and his other crew members are volunteers who do various tasks.

"We cut the weeds, we fix the equipment," he said.

On a bridge over the Esopus Creek in Phoencia, not far from the railroad crossing and Jameson's busy tube rental center, William Butterworth was sitting quietly, a fishing line dangling in the water below.

He was fishing for trout and also likes to fly fish, which is popular on the Esopus.

"There's an art to (fly fishing)," he said.

Butterworth said he likes snagging fish as they come up for the fly floating on the water's surface.

"That's when you beat the fish," he said.