drove up to the East fork of the Chulitna on Friday evening after everyone had finished up with work. We stopped were we were going to end our trip, transferred everything to one vehicle, squished all of us in and drove the last hour to the put-in, leaving one vehicle at the end. There were six of us from Anchorage who drove up together in two trucks and then we were joined at the put-in by two more people who drove down from Fairbanks, so a pretty sizable group. We ended up with only seven of us on the river because one member of our party woke up ill and feeling miserable on Saturday morning so they took the truck and went home.We were surprised when we got to the East for put-in at how high the water was! It wasn't flooding, it wasn't even up into the trees or anything but it was definitely full. We were also disappointed to see that the high water level had made the water a thick muddy brown color. Usually the East fork is clear water for quite a ways before merging with glacial creeks and the Chulitna's north fork to become the gray water we all know so well.
There were two tandem canoes and two rafts on the trip and the difference in speed was noticeable. Canoes float much faster than rafts do! It doesn't help that canoes (at least our canoe) forward powers through maneuvers and rafts generally back ferry. We all managed just fine, the scenery was beautiful, which matched perfectly with the weather so it was no problem to stop and wait. I am glad I remembered sun screen because even with 45 SPF on I still got a little sunburned, especially my ears which I missed with the sunscreen on the first day, and my hands which I kept dunking in the water to cool down and so washed all of the sunscreen off! On the last day I realized that we had brought gloves so I wore a pair that I kept filling with river water to keep cool. This worked great, it also helped keep the sunburn
swelling down! Gotta love that ice cold glacier water.
The first day of the trip is the splashiest. Some rock dodging, some holes to avoid, some very manageable drops. Though we did hear about a raft that flipped shortly after putting in. The raft was swept downstream stranding the boatists without gear for a night and I guess they also couldn't find their dog! Luckily someone else found their raft and tied it up for them. Also, another group saw the dog but it wouldn't come to them. Hopefully the dog's owners found it. I don't know how much of this true and how much has become tall tale through the
re-telling but it serves as a good example of taking caution!
After the East fork merged with the North fork the noise of the silt on bottom of the boats was unbelievable. We now had the constant gentle background noise of the susuration of silt on plastic interspersed with the pops, and bangs of small rocks hitting the boat. Underlying all of that are the deep bass of large rocks rolling on the bottom of the river. Our own private symphony from the river. Do you remember Pop Rocks? You poured them in your mouth and they would hiss and pop until they melted away? The river sounded a lot like that but outside of your head.
The end of the trip is through a braided section of the river. There typically isn't anything life threatening in here except picking the wrong braid and running out of water! As always though you can never be absolutely sure that there isn't a log stretched across your braid as you come around a corner so you still have to pay attention! Paying attention is harder than it seems when Mt. McKinley is in view, snow-capped and towering above the mountains in the foreground. Absolutely spectacular, bummer my camera ran out of batteries before McKinley came into view.
Another thing that made this trip awesome was that we weren't bothered by bugs! Even in the mornings there would only be a couple of mosquitos hanging out on the mesh of the tent. Every evening as we ate dinner and hung around in lawn chairs to chat and enjoy the view no even thought of getting out a bug jacket or a head net.
We had a couple of wildlife sightings, all in the same morning. A golden eagle was sitting on a pinnacle of rock across the river from camp. It hung out there for a really long time; long enough for everyone to get a really nice view of it through a set of binoculars. There also seemed to be bats flying all around the eagle. They were still in the canyon shade as the sun was coming up behind them so it was kind of hard to see them with the sun shining in our eyes. They had very erratic flight patterns darting up and down and left and right; but at the same time, it was very smooth. Once the sun had risen further into the sky the bats were gone. A little later that morning a black bear came out of the brush on the far side of the river. However as soon as we all noticed it, it fled back into the brush. We could see it moving through the trees for a few seconds and then it was gone!
We had a great trip!
No comments:
Post a Comment