1999 13 River Alaska Trip

This was the first major trip I organized since 1987.  I have organized five prior of similar magnitude.  3 Grand Canyon trips for 16 people (1980, 84 & 87), Costa Rica – 17 people for  21 days in 1984 and New Zealand – 11 people for 42 days in 1986.  I enjoy doing this and it felt good to be back…more trips to come.  All in all, the trip went well, logistically almost perfect. I hated that we had some injuries – Christine (back), River Roy (hand) and almost lost a raft – Charlie’s shredder.

There were 18 participants from 8 states total and the trip was for 18 days.  The participants were: Steve and Jane Davis, Terry Fahy, Jeff Kling, Shari Coressel and Jon Kling all from Ohio; Jo-anne Potter and Bruce and Kelly Carter from West Virginia; River Roy and Charlie Cottingham (Maryland); Myself and Bob Lee (North Carolina); Christine and Baron (Massachusetts); Clif Bobinski (Arizona); Jennifer (California) and Tina from Alaska.  Tina was an add-on but definitely a part of the trip.

Day 1 (Friday, June 11) – I flew to Anchorage .  I spent the day going back and forth to the airport, car rentals and hotel as 15 folks arrived.  The group actually spent a lot of time in between at the bars (airport and Brewhouse).  The best halibut of the trip was at the Brewhouse.  Tina, sister of an old friend of mine (Ernie Melin), whom I have not seen since Ernie’s wedding over a decade ago, finally left me a message a few days prior to the trip.  Upon arrival there was a message insisting that we come to her place for dinner.  We did.  Tina fed us salmon and chicken in two shifts, the last one at 2:00 a.m. (late arrivals), yet it was still light out.  Tina was hooked and became a part of the trip until she had to work next Friday.

Day 2 – I’ve never seen a bunch of Class V raft guides get so excited to be going on a scenic float trip!!  The Eagle River is 12 miles of flat water, but no one cared; it was extremely scenic in the Chugach Mountains .  Tina, Kelly and Jo-anne ran shuttle and picked up Kling at the airport.  The last mile of the Eagle River was Class II, with a Class III at the end, called Campground Rapid.   We headed to the Kenai Peninsula that night, camped with dinner at 1 a.m. (we’re getting better), still in the daylight.

Day 3 – We went to the Kenai River Festival and had the best salmon of the trip here.  Also talked with Robert, a kayaker I had been in contact with, who told us of Six Mile Creek (tomorrow’s run) being at flood stage and no outfitters were running it.  We decided to go run the Kasiloff, a Class I which was interesting to put-in on a lake and then paddle straight onto a river.  This concept doesn’t happen in the east.  It was the easiest run of the trip but the best wildlife, many moose and bald eagles, one calf moose we chased (unintentionally) down the left bank of the river.  Jane and I saw a wolf (we swear!).

Day 4 – Today we run Six Mile Creek.  We had to climb down a 200 foot bank by rope to scout the Crux, the biggest rapid of the intense lower stretch.  It looked runnable but the consequence of a 2 mile swim was the key factor in deciding not to run it.  We then went looking for the Predator, the biggest rapid on the Upper.  We never found the bridge that was supposed to be where the Predator is.  The river was running at 4,000 cfs and commercial cut-off is 2500 cfs.  This was extremely high water.  Shari and I in the shredder rounded the bend in the fast water to a log jam, all the way across the river and we eddied out in time, as did Kling and Terry in another shredder.  Clif was in a four-person raft that couldn’t eddy out, but they were able to wallow over a place where the water was going over the log.  Next Charlie and River Roy came through and were not so lucky.  Their shredder pinned on the log with both River Roy and Charlie swimming under the log.  It was a scary sight watching from above, helpless.  Bruce and Jon also went into the log, but spun through.  Shari and I portaged.  Charlie’s swim was deep and scary through the branches of the log and River Roy ended up with a major swollen hand and walked out from there.  It took us two hours to pry Charlie’s shredder off the log and it was ripped up, totally destroyed (though he did get it fixed, eventually).  Back on the river we were still looking for the swinging foot bridge where the biggest rapid was supposed to be.  When we rounded another turn, we came to a screaming Class V rapid in a narrow (25 feet wide) vertical-walled gorge.  Shari and I in the probe boat had a real clean run, then Bruce and Charlie and Jon, now riding together followed nicely.  At the end there was no sign of Clif’s or Kling’s rafts.  It turned out that they eddied out part way through the rapid to bail (Clif’s Pathmaker raft was a bucket boat) and scout, actually under the foot bridge which we never saw as we were too busy focused on the rapid (meanwhile Shari and I are a little panicked thinking this was not the biggest rapid).  Steve and Jennifer (from Clif’s boat) decided to walk out at the scout, so they rolled up the shredder and Kling and Terry got in Clif’s raft.  Charlie also had had enough.  The rest of the run was not as wild, yet still Class IV+.  It was an epic run.  We drove a long way to Denali that night and had great views of Mount McKinley on the drive.

Day 5 – We took a shuttle bus into the park and saw much wildlife.  Six of us hiked to the top of a hill for great views of the Alaskan Range .  Five of us went on to the river floor for a total of 3500 vertical feet.  On the ride back we saw even more wildlife, including a grizzly and her cub walking right past the bus (literally 4 feet from us).  We are now getting even better; we had dinner at 10:00 p.m. tonight.

Day 6 – Nenenenenenana – All 16 of us went on the river (all but Tina who didn’t raft).  We were singing at the put-in (actual name is Nenana).  We first floated an easy upper stretch; I rafted and Baron got his first shred experience with Shari .  Then we did the Lower after lunch which was much more intense (Class III-IV).  I switched to a shredder with Christine, her first shredder experience.  We scouted the biggest rapid, Cable Car.  It was fun; two shredders (Kling and Terry and Christine and I) ran the center hole and the rafts did not?  We kept looking for the intense dangerous Knife Rapid.  River Roy had panic in his voice as he was not making an eddy, thinking the Knife was coming up, but it was actually in another mile.  The Knife was easy to stay away from.  After the trip the hard-cores, Shari and I, and Jon and Terry, took the two shredders and did a second Lower Nenana run.  This time we hit the big hole in Twin Rocks…what fun!!  It was fun times that night at a party at the McKinley Chalet, with many Alaskan river guides.  We introduced them to spoons and there was a lot of dancing.

Day 7 – We now headed southbound, with a stop at the Willow River .  This was to be one of two (possibly three) first raft descents on the trip.  This 5-mile run begins with 3 ½ miles of continuous Class III whitewater.  The reason for it being a possible first raft descent was the Class V put-in.  It was ¾ miles downhill through brush to get to the river.  We put-in in the middle of a Class III-IV rapid.  I was shredding with Charlie.  The first rapid went fine, and then the second rapid seemed to go fine, but as we were pulling over to shore the shredder was deflating fast.  We must have hit some debris.  We rolled up the shredder and as we were rearranging rafts we noticed that the self-bailing floor in my Scout was flat, also.  They must have hit metal, too.  River Roy was in the Scout, so we determined that River Roy and Charlie were jinxes.  We had no choice but to run the Scout, however, a self-bailer with a dead floor keeps about 8-12 inches of water in it at all times making it very difficult to maneuver.  I ran it with Terry, Shari and Jon.  We did fairly well, though we almost had to high-side at one wall and at another spot my words were “we’re running left of this hole”…..pause…..”no were not.”  The boat full of water helped us through that one.  Clif drove the other R-4.  Kling and Jo-anne paddled the remaining shredder.  That morning we had packed up camp in the rain.  When we arrived at the Hotel Gold Miner in Palmer, we were extremely pleased to have this huge balcony off the third floor (3 of our 4 rooms accessed this).  We put up tents and strung out gear over the whole balcony.  We even did raft repair, it looked like a yard sale from town.

Day 8 – We had a leisurely morning and then headed to the Matanuska River .  We put in on the Caribou River .  A braided river is one that spreads out in different channels, through gravel bars.  I’ve shredded, surfed, boofed and railed rivers before but never braided.  It was interesting finding the correct channel.  Out on the Matanuska we had high volume Class III with silty water which was very difficult to read.  At least that’s my excuse for shredding River Roy right into a huge hole that surfed us big. River Roy did a good high-side and we got out unscathed.  Bob Lee (the final participant) arrived that night.  We had a big dinner, the only time we had the full 17 (Tina had to leave us after the Nenana).

Day 9 – We switched rental vehicles and got Bob’s borrowed canoe (he never even met the guy before).  We said our goodbyes to River Roy, Charlie, Bruce and Kelly, and Terry.  We spent the day on the road with a stop to walk the Matanuska Glacier and for G’s burgers in paradise (we did the song).  We drove to our new home for 6 days, camping at Kenny Lake Mercantile.  We had full use of a big pavilion for all our cooking.

Day 10 – We decide to try the Kuskulana River , before jumping into the more intense Tsaina River .  We put in at the Kuskulana Trestle.  It was either 238 or 400 feet high depending on which book, but I would guess about 300 feet.  Anyway, it was a Class VI put-in.  We lined rafts and canoe down a very steep bank to a gravel bar by the river.  It was a really cool, narrow gorge, braided at first and then a real narrow continuous Class II.  The remoteness and continuous would give it a Class III rating.  Clif was leading in a raft with Steve and Jane when I heard screams ahead and Jane making funny gestures to other boats behind them.  It turned out that a big grizzly bear was charging the rafts.  The bear would go up the hill, growl, then charge down the embankment.  “He was a Kodiak looking fellow about 19 feet tall with a 27 acre body.”  We later learned from locals that bears do these false charges to scare you away (it worked).  He was mad and we weren’t taking any chances; “paddle hard, let’s get out of here.”  We got to the Chitina River , a big volume of moving water for ten miles, then 1 ½ miles on the even bigger Copper River (50,000) cfs).  It wasn’t bad at first, but then as we neared the Copper the winds came….Brutal!  Clif did OK, I tried to be conservative and also miss the winds and went right, but there was no current and bigger wind.  Shari and Jon were really struggling; we watched Jon try to carry the shredder across a gravel bar and get blown all around.  Jo-anne said, as Shari and Jon arrived at the take out, “are you OK?”  Shari answered “NO, I’M NOT!”  There was total silence from the group.  Bob didn’t even make it to the Copper.  It was so brutal that he pulled his canoe upstream to the Copper Bridge and got out there.  It was still a great day with the bear and neat gorge, but the paddle out basically sucked.

Day 11 – We decided on a leisurely day (in Goodrich trip standards).  We slept in and did an afternoon trip on the Tonsina.  It was a 25 mile trip, but had fast water so it only took about four hours.  All of the remaining 12 of us paddled the Tonsina.    I took Christine, Baron, Shari (I was trying to make up for yesterday’s wind fiasco) and Jon in the Scout.  Clif had an R-4, Kling and Jo-anne shredded and Bob canoed.  The first 9 miles was of continuous Class II and III with a Class IV at the end of this stretch.  The trip was going well and Kling was leading and then eddied out apparently above the Class IV.  I looked downstream and saw BIG waves on the right and saw water flowing through so there was no hole/obstruction.  Also the local outfitter said the rapids were basically danger free, so I decided to run the waves on the right.  The huge wave almost flipped the raft.  Baron was the first swim of the trip (not counting the tree incident).  I was all but swimming, hanging on by a toe, when I reached a paddle out to Shari who helped me back in.   Baron, without a dry suit, swam a little ways, but he was OK.  Bob was following me and hit everything that we hit except the big hole; he did great.   “Just doing my favorite way of reading water, follow G”, said Bob.  He also said “those were the biggest waves I have ever taken a canoe through”.  We pulled over on the left around the bend.  Christine, who has had previous back trouble, aggravated it again.  We waited about 45 minutes while the other two boats scouted the rapid we just ran, then the shredder portaged and Clif in the R-4 snuck left.  The running of that rapid may not have been one of my wisest decisions, simply because I was lead boat without safety; a flip cold have been ugly.  We went on down the Tonsina, with only THE logjam to worry about.  Locals sort of told us about a channel on the right to avoid the river-wide logjam.  We were cautious around every bend, watching for the logjam, and then suddenly we were at the take-out bridge.  “What logjam?  We must have found the right chute.

Day 12 – We were finally headed to the insana Tsaina (pronounced like sane-a).  The Lower Gorge was rated Class III, Upper Gorge Class IV and the Middle Gorge Class V+ (VI).  We first scouted take-outs as well as the middle gorge.  If you miss the take-out on the Lower Gorge you go into the Teikel, a gorge of “lethal waterfalls.  If you miss the Upper take-out then you run the Class VI Middle.  We scouted the Middle from the road, but couldn’t really see the biggest rapid, Jacob’s Ladder.  We could see the Slot and Devil’s Elbow which was also big but looked doable.  However, because of the steep canyon walls, once you entered the middle you were committed to do the whole run without being able to scout a couple of big ones, so we decided to skip the middle section.  For some reason, maybe due to the Tsaina being unknown, having looked at some of the intense middle and the importance of making the take-outs, the group seemed very nervous.  That made me nervous, more than I like to be, especially since we’re just running Class III& IV.  The first rapid, Lodge, supposed to be the biggest (and was) on the Upper, was a good Class IV.  This turned out to be one of my favorite gorges, with narrow, steep walls (we only had one picture taken) and you could look back upstream at the Worthington Glacier.  Jon and Jeff Kling shredded (the Kling cousins, but not really cousins).  And went up against the wall above the narrow slot at the end of Lodge, but they high-sided and went through fine.  Shari and I in a shredder went through clean.  Next Clif and Jane (Jane, who at the beginning of the trip said she wasn’t going to raft much, but still hanging in there, running every river so far) were in the scout.  They unintentionally eddied out above the slot.  Next was Bob in the canoe, he flipped almost all the way over above the slot, but is able to reach out to Clif’s boat and rights himself.  Clif and Jane weren’t supposed to be in that eddy, so it was a stroke of luck that they were there for Bob.  As I was sitting in the eddy below the Lodge, here comes Clif and Jane paddling fast past us with Jane yelling “we’re leaking; we need to get to the take-out fast”.  The leak was actually slow and with the short run they did not want to do more on-river raft repair with duct tape or some quick fix.  Shari and I were last at this point, but as we continued on, each boat was eddied out at some point, sort-of panicking thinking they might have missed the take-out and might actually be on the Middle.  No worries, as the take out was on down and we ended up leading the trip to it.  Clif and Jane switched rafts and the rest of us remained the same as we moved to the Lower.  It was a very nice run, fun and a gorgeous Class III canyon.  The take-out above the Teikel was no problem.  The group really seemed to be in a great mood at the take-out as we were dancing and playing spoons to Bluegrass while sipping beers and wine coolers.  It was great fun!  We went into Valdez for dinner that night.  We weren’t real impressed with Valdez ; it was not real tourist friendly.  Guess it is the hospitality training in me, what’s up with a tourist town, not very friendly to their guests?

Day 13 – Supposedly a day off from the river and a day to hike in the Wrangell’s, but you know me, if I can fit in a river.  There was 60 miles of dirt to McCarthy on “ Alaska ’s Worst Road ”.  It was supposed to take four hours, but it took less than three in the rental car.  The first wave, Shari , Jon, Steve, Jane, Jo-anne and I were in time for the shuttle to Kennicott.  The second wave of the rest, Clif, Jennifer, Bob and Kling, missed the shuttle and rented mountain bikes to get to Kennicott.  Kennicott was a cool little town which once had the largest copper mine in the world.  There still is a fifteen story mine building remaining.  We did some great hikes on the Kennicott and Root Glaciers.  After lunch at the Kennicott Inn, four of us did another hike and attempted to get above the tree line.  The mission was not accomplished.  The entire group met in McCarthy for dinner, had a great whole-wheat pizza and the best ice cream cones (next door to pizza) that I have ever had.  The fruit was fresh and they made the cones on a waffle iron as you watched. Nearby McCarthy was an outfitter that ran 4 ½ mile trips on the Class II Kennicott.  They had a 9 p.m. commercial trip (remember, no darkness) scheduled and I was able to hook up and get access to their take out when they ran their shuttle (the whitewater book says to run the Kennicott you have to paddle 81 miles down to the Chitina).  The trip puts in at the bridge, but it looked like a good Class III rapid above the bridge so of course we had to try it.  It turned out to be one of the most intense peel outs I have ever done.  Clif and Jennifer were in the shredder (both first time trying a shredder, Jennifer was pretty nervous) as they got slammed and almost flipped.  I’m in a shredder with Steve (also nervous and trying the shredder for the first time) and we got slammed and almost flipped.  Bob was in his canoe and swam, but luckily he was able to get the canoe to shore and he walked the rest of the rapid.  This was supposed to be the easiest river of all the days that Bob was paddling with us and it turned out to be his only swim of the trip.  Shari , Jon and Jane in the Pathmaker (the Scout was not fixed yet) did fine in the peel out.  The rest of the run was pretty mellow, and then we had a late drive back with some of the best moose sightings of the trip.  A male bathing in a lake close to the road and a female across the street in front of the Chitina Café were a couple of those.

Day 14 – We had a relaxed morning, and then went on to the Keystone Canyon of the Lowe River .  It was a beautiful 5-mile gorge (had this on-going joke about 5-mile runs ever since the 5-mile Six Mile Creek pounded us) with waterfalls coming in everywhere.  The river was a nice continuous Class III run.  I shredded with Jo-anne today.  Everyone went on this run except Jennifer.  We stopped for lunch below (with an awesome view of) Bridal Veil Falls , a 900 foot waterfall coming into the river.  On the way back we stopped at some ice tunnels we had seen on a part of the most upper stretches of the Tsaina.  This tributary periodically flowed under packed snow and would come out a few hundred feet later.  We thought about running one of these when we had passed them on Tuesday, but since then most had caved in, so we decided to just stage a photo shoot at the exit of one of the remaining tunnels.  Shari and Kling staged for the photo in the shredder to send to Airtight Inflatables (makers of shredders).  They paddled about 20 feet on what we called the Tippy Top Tsaina run.  An older couple, curious of what we were doing, came down and we got them into the shredder for a photo.  It was probably the highlight of their trip, they were so excited.  We did get to scout Jacob’s Ladder on the Tsaina on the way back.  It was an intense looking rapid and I’m glad we didn’t try it.

Day 15 – We packed up camp to leave Kenny Lake .  We headed north on the Richardson Highway with the possibility of running both the Gulkana and the Delta Rivers .  We reached the Gulkana first, a very small, very low volume (about 150 cfs), too small for rafts, and marginal in shredders.  Duckies would be good.  We decided to go on and maybe come back later.  We traveled over a beautiful pass along the Alaska Pipeline.  It was pouring rain when we got to the Black Rapids of the Delta River .  The Black Rapids was a mile of pretty good rapids, but that’s all there was on the run and the put-in and take-out were very difficult.  Plus we only had time now to do one run, so we decide to head back to the Gulkana (Kling wanted to stay for the bigger water Delta).  Shari and I, and Jo-anne and Jane took the two shredders, the Kling cousins took the two duckies and old faithful Bob was in his canoe.  The run started in a lake, and then there was a short rapid and then another short pond.  After the pond we were on the main river.  It was continuous Class II and shallow.  Jo-anne did not like it much at first, but the second half got less bony and all went well after that.  The best part was the huge salmon jumping around all the boats, so cool!  We stopped at Kings Mountain for steak and veggies cooked out on the grill, and then headed back to the Gold Miner for two nights, taking over the balcony again.

Day 16 - It was a leisurely morning for everyone but me.  I had to run to Anchorage to take care of the shipping of the boats two days from now.  Evidently Bruce and Kelly got back too late last week before their flight and the raft they were supposed to take back was still locked in storage at the car rental place.  They went home with no bags! Terry, Charlie and River Roy took some and shipped others, but had to leave the raft.  When I got back we headed on to the Little Susitna, our most challenging river saved for last.  The river runs along the road we drove along to the put-in at the Motherlode Saloon.  We spent over an hour scouting the many Class V rapids; one rapid “Graffiti Rock” had a bad undercut rock in the middle, so it was a probable portage.  We had lunch at the Motherlode, and then put-in across the street.  When we talked to a number of boaters throughout the trip, all said they did not know of any rafts to have ever run this.  The book also says it is for kayaks only.  Shari and I in the shredder is likely to be the first descent (to this day I have not heard of anyone else ever running it in a raft).  Many people commented that duckies were the way for us to go, but the shredder would be questionable.  Along with our shredder, Clif and Kling took duckies and yes, of course, Bob in his canoe.  The shredder rocked!  What a fun day we had.  Shari and I did better than the duckies, though the duckies did great.  The rapids were so continuous, the duckies would fill up with water and not have time to drain and it was sometimes a while before they could eddy out and give it time to drain.  Clif made 2/3rds of the run and got out.  The first half was supposed to be easier and it was except for a rapid that I thought was the most dangerous of the ones we ran.  It was a narrow triple drop, with pinning rocks on the right.  It was so narrow that the shredder would not fit if it were not perfectly straight.  Sideways could have been ugly (perhaps deadly).  I YELLED at Shari as we were going through, “gotta keep this straight”!  We did fine as did the duckies and Bob.  It picked up in the second half, but we felt really good, made some good moves and had some great runs in big drops.  There were lots of pictures and video taken by the rest of the group who watched from the road.  Bob almost lost it at the top of a huge drop, which would not have been a fun swim, but he saved it.  Bob was simply awesome to run this!  At Graffiti, I would have wanted to run (felt that Shari and I could have made the move to the right, well away from the undercut), but it was quicker to do the easy portage than scout and run.  We were now on a time factor as Bob had to meet his family at the airport.  Clif was now on shore and Kling was the only duckie remaining.  After the portage Kling commented, “I don’t recall much big stuff after this”.  Ha! There were still some really big ones left.  I also semi-swam on one of these remaining big drops, but Shari grabbed my leg to keep me from going all of the way out as one toe remained in the foot cup.  Our worst run in the shredder was a semi-pin on a boulder and we had to get out and swing the shredder away from another pinning rock.  The last rapid, Bridge Drop, was bigger than it looked from the scout earlier in the day.  Shari and I made the big move across the top from extreme right to extreme left, and then went over several big drops.  We were a little sloppy at the end but it was fine considering the difficulty.  At the last rapid, Kling, being a little cocky now, throws his paddle in the air but misses and barely hand paddled back to his paddle in time for the rapid.  Then in the big drop, he swims and dislocates his shoulder.  Shari and I had to chase his duckie on downstream through Class III rapids.  Meanwhile Kling, with his dislocated shoulder, was stranded on a rock in the middle of the river.  Bob is now entering the rapid and sees Kling in the middle of the river and wisely pulls over and gets out above the rapid.  Shari and I finally get the duckie ½ mile below the take-out and had to walk up an old creek bed to get to the road.  Kling is able to get his shoulder back in and then got to shore with the help of a throw bag.  What a day!!  I hated what happened with Kling’s shoulder, but what a great feeling to end the trip with this challenge.  I rushed Bob to take back his canoe (there were a few scratches, but the guy didn’t even mind) and meet his wife, Ann, and their families at the airport.  I gave quick hellos and goodbyes to the Lee family, saw Christine and Baron on their way out and went back to Palmer for a final dinner at the Gold Miner.

Day 17 – We got up early to head to Seward for a 4 hour whale watching/glacier cruise.  One of the tour company’s boats was broke down so they only had the 6 hour tour and offered us a free upgrade.  We calculated that we could get Kling back in time for his flight (the reason we booked the 4 hour) and took the offer.  We did not see any whales on the cruise, except for seeing some spouting near the surface.  It was an awesome trip to the Holgate Glacier and really cool to watch it “calve?” huge chunks breaking off into the water.  They were real loud as they would crash into the bay.  The ride back was wild.  The captain wanted to take us across the bay, but there were big seas and he wasn’t sure.  He decided to go for it anyway.  Jo-anne, Kling, Shari , Jon and I were riding on the bow through the huge swells.  The other 40+ people, including Clif, Jennifer, Steve and Jane were in the back.  What a riot we had up front.  The captain said over the loudspeaker, “you guys are having too much fun up front, but sorry for the roughness in the back”.  People were getting sick in the back everywhere, and then the trash can spilled.  In front we’re having a blast and the back was hating it,; what a contrast!  We headed on back to Anchorage and Kling barely had enough time for one last order of halibut at Humpies before going to the airport.  After taking Kling to the airport we had another final dinner at Humpies.  Clif and Jennifer had a late flight that night.

Day 18 – The last day went smooth.  Jo-anne, Steve, Jane and I had an early flight.   Shari and Jon took care of the shipping and had an early evening flight.  I even managed a moonlight run (in a kayak, which I hadn’t been in one for years) with Kelly from Xenia .  We did the moonlight run on the Little Miami when I got to Cincinnati that night.