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Ohio River

Syracuse, Ohio (Mile 245.5) to Racine Lock and Dam (Mile 237.5)

Thursday, September 13, 2012

(Navigation Charts 159, 160 and 161)

The ramp I used for this trip is located in Syracuse, Ohio.  This is a really nice ramp with a very interesting little ecosystem off to the left of the bottom (shown in the photo below).  This location is also part of the Syracuse Community Park so there’s plenty of parking available and likely plenty going on.  NOTE:  For a shorter trip you can also put in from the ramp in Racine, Ohio which just a little further upriver.  I did this in 2024 and paddled up to the dam and back.  This is quite a pleasant stretch as it's one of the quietest stretches I think I've encountered on the Ohio.

Today I got on the water and first headed over to the West Virginia side in order to get a better all-encompassing view of Syracuse before heading upriver.  From the point of this ramp you’re at mile 245.5, and from an upriver perspective what the river will do here is make a right curve and then follow with a long 4 ½ mile straight stretch.  Following that, you'll have a second right curve, to finally arrive at the Racine Lock and Dam at mile 237.5. You’ll find, by the way, that the bulk of my pictures were taken from the vantage point of one looking downstream as this was the best way to take advantage of the sun today.  The first two shots below were taken looking at the ramp while the third is a general shot of Syracuse.

Syracuse is, as one might expect, a very small town with a population that’s purported to be a little less than 1,000.  It's got a nice looking little café called the River Way Cafe if you're looking for a bite to eat (unfortunately it was no longer here in 2024), and from down on the water what I found particularly intriguing was the area shown below.  Quite a bit of landscaping has been done here, you see, and I’m wondering if this might have been part of an older version of the town park.  As you can see, it's quite well done.  Meanwhile, on the other side of the river, there’s another little town called New Haven, West Virginia.  This community is supposed to be a little larger than Syracuse but I couldn’t see much of it at all from the water.  

Reaching the mouth of the Little Broad Creek at mile 244 I turned around to take the first picture below.  This little stream was navigable for roughly 200 yards back to the point of a bridge span for US highway 33 and  as I was paddling out my eyes were met with the scenes like those in the second picture…

Check out the river bank in here too!  I’m wondering what kinds of creatures might live in all those holes you see? 

Anyway, just upriver from the creek you’re going to start to see quite a bit of industry on the West Virginia side as you make your way around the first right curve.  Here lies a very large American Electric Power (AEP) operation which, at the time of this writing, consists of two power plants.  The Mountaineer Power Plant which is staying and the Philip Sporn Power Plant which is set to be demolished.  The whole thing runs for nearly 3 river miles and, needless to say, I paddled around this area very carefully as you’re apt to see several vessels.  I actually encountered two today, both of McGinnis, Inc.  One approached me heading downstream as I paddled (the Bruce D.) while the other had passed me previously heading upriver toward this point (the Mr. King).  They converged here...

Below are some more photos from different points amid all the industry, taken from the perspective of someone looking downriver...

In this last photo you'll see the towboat Andy Mullins (it's the one with the red crane) around the still-remaining Sporn Power Plant which is at the far left (in 2024 nothing was left standing here, save for the structures down along the river bank).

Meanwhile, across from all this in Ohio, your eyes will meet with some very pleasant rural scenes amid which you'll spot an old lock and dam location at mile 242.5.  This one has been turned into a campground - Lock 24 RV Park.  This is how to recycle!  I love it when they can re-use these instead of letting them go to waste!

What really floored me here, however, was a phenomenon that I didn’t notice until I was returning later in the day.  You see, it seemed as if there was a large, long, shimmering creature moving just underneath the surface of the water – one that had orange spots!  Well, it took me a while to make some sense of this.  What was really happening?   Well, the “creature” was the old lock wall, but why did it seem to be moving?  I looked closer and saw the reason...  It seems that a school of minnows had been swimming here and they’d apparently been separated by the wall which was lying only about an inch or so under the surface of the water.  Well, it turns out that the motion I was seeing was due to the “strays” trying to struggle over the wall to join their comrades!   

As for the orange spots on the wall (do you see them in the bottom of this next picture?) I can only speculate that they were made as boats bumped against the wall and produced chips.  The resulting orange hue might be due to some form of algae partial to such spots.  That, or perhaps it’s due to some type of mineral exposed under the surface of the rock.  I'm honestly not sure.

Anyway, once you pass the last of the AEP operation on the West Virginia side you’ll be in the midst of the community of Racine, Ohio.  I glanced up through the shoreline trees at one point and saw a particularly intriguing old building here.  It appeared to have the name of “Cross - Established 1860”, but there’s also a nice little beach here too.  Then, going just a little further up, you’ll spot the town boat ramp.  Star Mill Community Park is up there, but this ramp isn't actually within the park.  It's actually a little further down the road.

Continuing on, you’ll see some power lines up near mile 241.  Here lie some moorings on the Ohio side for a business that I can’t seem to find the name of, while at the same point in West Virginia you’ll find an AEP water intake and what looks to be a grain storage location.  When I got to one of the power line towers, however, I spotted something a little more interesting - a huge nest with the “owner” perched on it!  This looks like an osprey to me, but I’m not sure... 

The West Creek enters here in West Virginia too.  It wasn’t navigable to me, yet among the alga that thrives in this section you’re liable to see some gar out “fishing”.  Do you see the gar in the center of the photo below?  These fish are able to camouflage themselves incredibly well.  Look how they angle themselves so as to better blend in and disguise themselves from the minnows they’re hunting!

From here on out things will be pretty quiet with only a couple light and day markers and an occassional car on the road to interrupt your reverie.  You'll be rounding a right bend as you make your last 3 miles up to the dam and in this area you’re apt to find the beaches on the left in West Virginia to be pretty inviting.  Some of them even make for convenient spots to stop and rest as the heron below was doing.  In Ohio the shorelines are rocky until you get to the dam and there are some interesting formations in spots.  As for the vessel you see coming and going in the photos below, that's the S. W. Price of AM&O Towing.

The Racine lock and dam itself (Army Corps of Engineers site here) is a structure I found to be just as formidable as the others that I’d encountered - and I certainly tried to steer clear of AEP’s James E. Pinson here as the vessel had to make a wide curve toward me to enter the lock chamber...

A feature of this area that I found to be very pleasant was a grove of trees on the Ohio side.  The areas around the dams aren’t usually so inviting!  

From here I headed on back.  I’ll explore the area above the dam on the next trip, but what follows are some more of the pleasant scenes which are typical of this section (yes, those are all blue dragonflies in the second photo and a flower pot/boat in the third!).

DIRECTIONS:

Google Maps makes directions so easy.  Simply look up Syracuse, Ohio and drill down on the Syracuse Volunteer Fire Department.  You'll find the ramp in the midst of Syracuse Municipal Park at the end of a very short lane called Marina Street.  There's not a ton of parking, but a good enough amount in a paved lot.