So rafting in the far north is quite a bit different then the style of rafting I'm used to. Usually you show up at the put in with your boat and your river gear, run the shuttle, and get on the river pretty quickly. But up here things are a bit different. Some things I've learned you should never leave home without for rafting in Alaska are: Chainsaw, Bear spray, Knee High rubber boots, Tire Chains, Tow Straps, and possibly snow shoes... yes even in June...
A lot of the new guides I work with are really good boaters and we have all been having that itch to run something a bit harder then the stretch we run daily for our clients... Our first adventure was to attempt a 1st descent on the Upper Upper Klehini river which starts in B.C. down a gnarly 4x4 trail and ends at the border crossing into Alaska... After explaining to the border guards on both the American and Canadian sides multiple times why they would be seeing us more then once that day as we ran shuttles we made our way towards the river... Things started out pretty smooth until we ran into a patch of snow that was still more then 3 ft deep and our trucks couldn't make it through without bottoming out... We decided to hike it down towards the river and see if it would be possible to carry our boats the whole way down... after about a 2 mile hike through prime bear and moose territory and a bit of bushwhacking we made it to the river. It seemed to be running at a fairly high level and we decided that due to the extreme effort it would take to get the boats and all the gear down to the river and the high probability of there still being ice bridges over parts of the river we would have to wait until a later date to try and make that run... We hiked back to the trucks and enjoyed out celebratory take out beers on the account that we still had a good time and no one swam...
The second river we ran was the Blanchard and the Upper Tatshenini rivers in the Yukon... which were/are running at the highest levels anyone has ever seen them at. After about a week and a half of temperatures reaching over 80 degrees up here it was decided that the rivers should be good to go and we again made the drive across the border up into the Yukon and headed down the blanchard... The marker rock which we normally use as a gauge to tell how high the river is was completely under water and we were pretty sure we were going to be in for a big ride...
The first 10 miles or so was same fairly easy but continuous class III and by the time the Blanchard had dumped us onto the Tat we were feeling pretty relaxed and comfortable on the river... About 3 more miles down stream the river made a hard turn to the left and showed us a thing or two about becoming complacent on the river... the 3 rapids on this stretch had morphed all into one very very long continuous class IV rapid that left us chasing one kayaker who had swam and had left the rest of us with some pretty close calls...
We ran that stretch again the next day, but with all of us being a bit more on our game and it was a ton of fun... We are probably going to head up there and run it atleast one more time this weekend before the water starts to drop off to a more normal level.
All of the rivers here in Southeast Alaska are running near flood stage right now with all this warm weather we have been having... The town is even setting up plans to deal with the possible flooding of the highway out of Haines which is only about 2 ft from being taken over by the Chilkat river right now...
So aside from the fun trips we have been taking around the area I have been working a fair bit lately and my body is really feeling it... Since the rivers we run are glacial and braided they change almost hourly... the channel you can float down in the morning may be completely gone when you do you second trip after lunch... In addition to that we have the added bonus of dodging all the trees and other schwag that is being constantly brought down the river... Yesterday we were in a fairly deep section of the Chilkat river and out of no where a 20 ft tree went rocketing up into the air from underneath the surface of the river as it had struck the bottom and landed only 10 ft from my raft... It would have been pretty bad news if it had landed on top of us or had come up underneath us and punctured the raft...
I've been seeing tons of wildlife up here as well but I don't even seem to have a camera ready when I do... Bears, Moose, Humpback Whales, Lynx, Coyotes, Wolves, and more eagles then I even care to count anymore.... It's pretty intense...
Other then that I have been starting to figure out what I'm going to be doing this winter... So far I have a job offer to Teach English in China... but I'm still holding out for a guiding position in Chile that I may have some good connections for now...
I'll try to take some more photos soon and keep this thing updated more....
Hiking into the Upper Upper Klehini
The sweet taste of defeat...
Stopping at a spring to fill up water on the way to the Blanchard River.
Freshly caught Sockeye Salmon cooked over the campfire on the Blanchard River.
Emilies Bootie Beer for swiming on the Tatshenshini.
