Written by Lindsey Kessler, 2019 citizen science summer intern

One of the best parts of Tremont in the summer is THE RIVER!!! In such hot weather, nothing feels better than a dip in the icy water. As that fresh mountain water rushes over your body, you can’t help but feel completely refreshed and renewed—especially after a long day of hiking, exploring, and playing.

Tremont has a deep enough swimming hole that you actually can’t stand up in it (unless you’re at least 6 feet tall!), with a small natural water slide that you can enjoy when the water is high enough. It goes down a couple of small rapids, so you might bang your booty a little bit, but it’s so much fun to let the water push you downstream along the soft moss slide into the deeper pool. I really love to put on one of the many PFD’s (Personal Floatation Devices) we have here and just bob in the water, let it push me around, and not have to do any physical work other than just sit there and enjoy the water.

As that fresh mountain water rushes over your body, you can’t help but feel completely refreshed and renewed—especially after a long day of hiking, exploring, and playing.

The Middle Prong of Little River

Another great way to spend time enjoying all different aspects of the river is by engaging in what we here at Tremont like to call a “creek crawl.” That term can mean different things to different people, but to us Tremonsters it means literally crawling up the creek! You just pick a section of river that doesn’t get too deep or too swift, and work your way up the middle of it. The balancing and jumping from rock to rock can be precarious so you might get a few bruises and scrapes along the way, but being able to look back at the end and see the long distance you took your time coming up is so fulfilling—plus you get to take your time and truly observe and notice the little critters and cool rocks along the way. Something we tend to really enjoy and do often is creek crawling from a small island upstream (Girl Scout Island, as we like to call it) all the way down to the swimming hole, which is about a half mile distance through the river that starts and ends in two very different but equally fun locations.

Tremont campers examine stream life found in the Middle Prong

Photo by David Bryant

One of the most exciting and interesting parts of the river though, isn’t the actual water, but what you can find living within it. We take groups of kiddos down to the water for river exploration time and can find things like water strider insects, crawfish, salamanders, stonefly and mayfly larvae, gigantic fishing spiders, and so much more! And for anyone who feels a little bit more adventurous, we have snorkels and goggles for swimming around and finding and catching small fish.

One of the most exciting and interesting parts of the river though, isn’t the actual water, but what you can find living within it.

The Little River is full of small trout, dart fish, and minnows that we can catch with small nets and put into small tubs on the riverbank for closer examining and identifying, then release back into the water. Something uncommon but possible is finding Hellbenders in our river! That’s a species of giant salamander, and there have been two different summer camp groups that have found juvenile Hellbenders in the Tremont swimming hole, which is super special because typically that species lives in much wider, faster rivers. That kind of unique experience just goes to show that you never know what you’ll come across in the Middle Prong of the Little River.

Lindsey Kessler, 2019 Tremont citizen science intern

Photo by David Bryant

One of my favorite memories from this summer happened in the river, and it combined all of those fun things I mentioned! During one of the Discovery Camp nature clubs, I was able to go with a group of nine kids for a day of incredibly fun river play. We started our fun by creek crawling about half a mile, each taking time to pick out the “coolest” rock we stumbled across to share with the group, and giving the rock’s names and life stories; I decided mine was named Rocket Town and had 2 rock siblings, one in the East Prong and one in the West Prong.

 

It was such an incredible time of exploration and discovery, and a lot of the kids in that group found new wonder in the water.

Once we crawled our way down to the swimming hole, we spent some time splashing and floating around in the pool; we didn’t stay there for long though, because the earlier in the summer it is, the colder the water is! We then resumed our creek crawl for another short way, until the water got shallow enough that we could spend some serious time poking around for water bugs and critters. One of the campers found the biggest fishing spider I’ve ever seen, and loved the thing so much I had to explain to her that you can’t take anything from a national park home as a pet.

It was such an incredible time of exploration and discovery, and a lot of the kids in that group found new wonder in the water. In my opinion, and in the opinion of a bunch of the kiddos who come to camps here, the Little River is the most fun resource we have here at Tremont, and it is such a joy to be able to share in that with campers and friends alike!