By: Rebecca Weltmann
ALLENTOWN When Tim Hare and his son, Justin, told an elderly guide that they were canoeing the Delaware River from Skinners Falls, N.Y., to Lambertville, the elderly New York man told them that the half-mile rapid rift known as Foul Rift would be no problem.
Later, a woman told him with wide eyes to be careful.
Later still, another man told the story of how his son lost his rudder on that rift.
Still, nothing prepared them for Foul Rapids.
"It’s about a half mile long, and drops like 22 feet in a half mile, so it’s a pretty good elevation drop," Mr. Hare said. "It’s the roughest rapid of them all. Just the speed and rocks and everything else in Foul Rift was just too much for us right now."
"We were really ping-ponging through the rocks," said Justin, 24. "It was just chaotic, but we got through it. It showed we were progressing, and we kept a level head to get out of the really bad situation."
They capsized. They bailed water. Mr. Hare even almost lost his wallet. And though their canoe took too much of a beating to be used for this type of trip again, Mr. Hare said he definitely has plans to brave the rift again. In fact, he said, he and Justin are already talking about the next trip one on which they take on the whole river, rapids and all.
One thing he said he would do differently is to take the trip slower instead of "booking it."
"It was a little much for a first trip," Mr. Hare said. "When we do it again, we’ll do it a lot slower. We’ve never done it before, so we thought we could handle that many miles a day with no problem. But by the time we got to camp, we had just enough energy to pitch the tent, get a little food and fall asleep. Next time we’d probably try and keep it to around 19 to 20 miles max."
Though the rapids were a force to be reckoned with, this father-and-son duo from Lakeview Drive proved to be yet a greater force.
The Hares returned home on July 7 after paddling a canoe for about 150 miles. They averaged about 25 to 30 miles a day on a trip taken to help raise money for the Scleroderma Foundation chapter in Cherry Hill.
"It was kind of like running a marathon," the elder Mr. Hare said. "We’re pretty sore and took quite a beating, but at the end of the day it was just an awesome experience."
Scleroderma Foundation is a non-profit organization that helps raise money to research and combat the chronic connective tissue disorder classified as one of the autoimmune rheumatic diseases. It is not contagious nor infectious, but at the same time, the cause of and cure for the disease are still unknown.
In 1982, Mr. Hare’s mother died from the disease. The disease also claimed his sister in 1988. He himself has the disease, though he said the localized version from which he suffers is not nearly as dangerous as the internal systemic-sclerosis version that plagued his mother and sister.
As of July 30, Mr. Hare had raised $1,515 for the foundation not quite the $15,000 he was hoping for.
"It’s not about the money," he said. "Our main thing was to raise awareness, and we’ve done that. We’ve found people we know now who have relatives who have the disease, so maybe next time we could get a group to do this with us, which would be pretty cool."
Now that he’s back on land, Justin said it didn’t take long to get used to being back in a bed and enjoying running water. The weirdest part, he added, was being able to drive again.
"Getting in the car and being able to drive 30 miles in 10 minutes was just ridiculous," he said. "This is definitely a trip that I’m going to try and do with my children. You don’t even realize what you’re doing half the time. Raising the money for the foundation was just an added bonus. When we landed in Lambertville, I didn’t feel how I expected to feel. I was so much more overjoyed and tired. It was almost surreal."
This fall, the father-son duo have plans to pick up the remainder of the river that they didn’t do in this trip. They’ll spend one weekend doing the northern part of the Delaware near Hancock, N.Y., to Skinners Falls, and then will drive a different weekend to the southern-most points of the river. This time, won’t be part of the fundraiser, but Mr. Hare said he’s looking forward to being able to say that he has canoed the whole Delaware River.
There are a few things the duo said they might do differently next year like packing less but both Mr. Hare and Justin agreed that overall, the trip was an experience that would stay with them for the rest of their lives.
"It’s just such a beautiful trip," Mr. Hare said. "We saw all kinds of creatures, like Bald Eagles. My son and I got a little closer as a team. We had some difficult times, but we overcame that. We yelled at each other, but we got over it. It was good for our relationship."

