Intro


Day 1


Day 2


Day 3


Day 4


Day 5


Day 6


Day 7


Day 8


Day 9


Day 10


Day 11


Day 12


Epilogue

Alsek River 2014

Day 5, Saturday, June 28

The sky looked tolerable when we got up, but one could sense this would not be a bright and sunny day. After breakfast, (did not write down what we had, nor photograph it), we packed up and were paddling into Lowell Lake by 9 am. Our first task was to grab some ice for the coolers off the floating icebergs. Of course, given the fact that icebergs can roll at any time (remember: 10% of the mass above water and 90% below water), this may not be as easy as it looks. Joe patiently rowed us up closely to one that had nice clear blocks of ice resting on top. Roger B got first shot, and was successful at snagging one large chunk. I got a chance, and managed a slightly larger chunk, and never came close to falling out of the raft. Like I said, sounds easier than it is. Amalia and Susie, in the rear, merely laughed and photographed.

As we left the lake, carefully avoiding all the icebergs, one could feel the river starting to drop. And the current subsequently pick up. A retrospective analysis of the route indicted that over the 10 miles or so from the outlet of the lake to the end of the Lava North Rapids, the river would lose about 150 feet of elevation. That is a lot. It is also the reason why, within a few hundred meters of leaving the lake, we started a long stretch of continual rapids. Not “hold on for your life” kind of rapids, but continual bounce and some splashing. We stopped for lunch (chicken salad) and then went on for a bit longer. The next really big rapids was Sam’s, or Sam and Bill’s (or some variant of those names). The river splits going into the rapids. On the right side of the island is a nice interesting, probably Class III+ rapids. When we floated past, where the two braids of the river rejoin, we could look back and see what the left side of the river looked like. Whew, quite nasty. Joe told us that there have been groups that come down the river and don’t realize that this is Sam’s Rapids. They run the left side, survive, and think that they have run the big one coming up, Lava North. So they don’t scout Lava North, and just head into it. If you don’t do Lava North the correct way, it can be a disaster. For some of those groups, it was.

We pulled off the river at about 2:30 pm, and hiked downriver a ways to scout Lava North. It is so named, because many of the professional guides on the Alsek have spent a lot of time on the Colorado river in the Grand Canyon, and have run Lava Falls. I guess this set of rapids reminded them of Lava Falls, so they gave it a similar name. The guides give this rapid a Class IV+ rating, partly because of the extreme remoteness of the setting and partly because the water is so damn cold. (The guidebooks claim 34 degrees F, but I think it is closer to 38 or 39 degrees. Whatever, it is very cold, which is one reason why the air above the water is so cold.) Susie, who has never run the Colorado river, and did not exactly have a fun experience on the Green River, what with standing waves and white caps on what is touted to be a tranquil float, had been concerned about this rapid for some time. She had talked with Joe earlier in the day, and seemed to be a bit less concerned. But maybe I was reading her wrong.

I did not hike all the way down to the rapids in my rubber boots, because the rocks were awful on my feet. But I think I got a pretty good movie of the whole area, including the really nasty wave on the right side of Lava North. Eventually, we all got back to the rafts, received our lecture on how to put on the dry suits we were being issued, and got busy with the uncomfortable task of donning these torture devices. Note that these are not dry suits typically used for underwater work. Rather, they are suits for when you are not supposed to be IN the water, but may go in. Put another way, albeit more bluntly, if you were wearing a wet suit, and were ejected from the raft in the rapids, you would likely die of hyperthermia before you got rescued. In contrast, the dry suits we were putting on would give you a few more minutes of survival time.

I certainly appreciated more time to live, but I must say, getting the suits on is a real challenge. Obviously, for them to work, the seals around your neck, wrists, and legs have to be water tight. And, if the sun comes out when you are putting these things on, as it did for us, you may perish from HYPERTHERMIA first. Most of us needed some assistance getting these things on, but on we all got them, and we were back in the rafts by 4 pm or so. Joe made sure our PFDs were on very snuggly. A lot of us were wearing them way too loosely for this serious of a rapids.

As soon as we were in the raft, I donned my Sony Action Cam (think Sony version of a GoPro) and it is fun to go back and relive the rapids. The current pulls the rafts quickly through the water, and it seemed best to stay in the middle of the flow. I was splashed a lot, and I could hear these yelps in the rear of the boat. It sounded more like Susie was having a great time (she was) rather than being terrified. She would tell me later that she felt really comfortable in the care of any of our guides, because they seemed so competent. Anyway, the whole experience was more of a fun ride than a terror-filled run. But I could see why the guides continually reminded us that if we were ejected, to swim to river left. Because once you get thru the first set of big rapids, there is no place to land or get out on river right. Just rock walls directly down into the water. As we got thru most of the rapids, I turned around and Amalia and Susie gave me a way big Two Thumbs Up. Hard to beat that.

Downstream, we pulled into river right, and made a wood pick up stop, that seemed to last way too long. Our boat was a bit downstream from the others, around a bend, and we could not see that they had stopped to take off their dry suits. Those of us in Joe’s did not remove them, and as a result, since it was clouding up, I was pretty cold by the time we pulled into camp (8V, 338396 E, 6666904 N) around 6 pm. (This is likely the first campable site downstream from the mouth of the Bates River on river left.) I recall wanting to get out of the boat ASAP and doff the suit and put more fleece on. We got our tent set up pretty quickly, and Susie immediately noted the plethora of grizzly tracks all over the beach and our campsite. Good observation. The tent sites were not super, but they were flat enough. About the only thing I did for clean up was to wash my hair. But I think MJ was the shampooing champion of the trip. I think he washed his hair every night, like I USUALLY do.

Dinner was sausage and veggies in red sauce over pasta, served at 9 pm. As my daddy would have said: “By that time, I could have eaten the north end of a southbound skunk.” It had been a good, albeit long, day.

Additional Photos and videos can be found here: The Alsek Days 5 - 8 album on our SmugMug Photo Album Site

You might enjoy reading a different perspective on this same trip: Sarah Boomer's Report on the Thermophile.org website

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© Roger A. Jenkins & Suzanne A. McDonald, 2014, 2016