Packraft Adventure - The Maidenish Voyage

Over Labor Day weekend, Beth and I went on our first major packrafting adventure. Along with Chris, Bryn and Louis we headed out of Anchorage on Friday around noon and drove about 6 hours northeast to the town of Paxson (with some stops along the way). From Paxson we shuttled one car north to the finish and then drove east most of the way to the start before camping for the night. On Saturday morning we broke camp, drove the last 10 miles to the trailhead and started our trip.

Here's a map of our route. You'll want to click on it to get the full-sized version. Basically, the plan was to hike in the near the headwaters of Eureka Creek, then raft out (with one 4-mile portage) and onto the Delta River before reaching the car. This roughly followed the route of another group that we had read about online.

We were in the foothills of the Eastern Alaska Range, where Labor Day weekend comes as fall colors are at their peak and where winter is beginning to set in at the higher elevations. The first couple miles featured the only trail of the trip - an ATV trail which made for very easy walking...

...in places. But in other places the trail was alternately a pond, a stream and a beaver pond.

However, because of the planned packrafting Beth and I were both wearing sneakers instead of boots with waterproof socks underneath. The idea being that our feet were bound to get wet at some point, so the best thing was to wear shoes that wouldn't weigh 19 pounds once wet.

This proved to be a good choice, since shortly after we left the ATV trail we found ourselves crossing a fair-sized creek. For some reason, I got a major kick out of this - I guess because I felt like this was a real sign of how far off the beaten path we were going.

After we crossed the creek, we bashed our way uphill through a thick tangle of willow, alder, dwarf birch and more before things thinned out to scattered bushes and abundant blueberries. When things thinned out and we turned around we saw a pair of moose, including a big bull, that must have been just off of our path.

Unfortunately I didn't take any good pictures as we hiked over the top of a high plateau. We must've seen two dozen caribou over the next several miles, several of which Bella got to chase (fortunately they're so much faster than she is, especially with her pack on, so she couldn't chase them too far or bother them too much). We also saw a fat old porcupine, and I am happy to report that Bella did not get to chase it.

We also hiked nearly high enough to reach the snowline. It was drizzling on-and-off throughout the day and snow probably fell as low as 4700 feet. We topped out at around 4100, so although it was quite chilly it seemed like a moral victory to not get snowed on.

Anyway, we eventually descended and went around a couple of lakes before setting up camp for the night. Dinner consisted of freeze-dried food mixed with a half stick of butter as a calorie-booster, which actually made things pretty delicious.

Although it rained much of the night, it stopped in the morning as we were getting up and breaking camp, which was a welcome relief. As we set off hiking I took this picture back in the direction we had come from. We camped next to the shore of the lake in the background (left center of the picture), after having hiked down from the ridge in the far background from left-to-right on a route that is pretty much framed in this picture by the ridge in the intermediate ground.

We were up higher on day 2, which was reflected in the lack of major vegetation. This made the hiking easier, but cut down on the foliage. As you can see, it was a pretty drab day.

More rain set in as we came into view of the foot of the Eureka Glacier. I though this was going to be a beautiful picture of (L to R) Chris, Beth and Bryn hiking with the glacier in the background, but instead I think it does a good job of reflecting just how foreboding the weather was.

The doggos didn't seem to mind, though. They just raced around chasing ground squirrels and occasionally bigger game. I'll bet they covered twice the mileage we did during the hike.

After about an hour's hike we reached Eureka Creek. It was a fairly small stream, but the packrafts really don't take that much water to float. Still, there was a bit of butt-scraping in places, especially early on...

But before long some other streams joined Eureka Creek and with the steady current we were making fast time. The dogs chased along the banks as we averaged about 5 miles an hour downstream. The paddling was mostly pretty easy, and picking routes was largely about finding the deepest water as opposed to avoiding danger. Still, we did have one instance of swimming - unfortunately by the lone member of the group who doesn't own a drysuit. I will take Chris' word for it that the water was cold.

After a few hours of paddling, we reached our portage and hiked straight up from the river to higher ground as if the 25 degree slopes, thick brush and slippery mud were no big deal.

See. Is that the face of someone who minds a little bushwhacking? No way. Also, looking in the background by Chris' elbow you can see part of the reason for the portage. That rapid consisted of a drop that stretched from one bank to the other and would have easily flipped every one of our rafts.

In the end, though, the brush got really thick and the ground got really boggy and the sun started to set. Instead of making it back to the creek before camping we set up on a ridge for the night in the one piece of flat, clear, dry ground we could find. We were all pretty exhausted and within just a bit over an hour we were all in bed. It rained again overnight and then cleared. The temperature dropped enough that there was frost on the ground when we got up, but we were also rewarded with brilliant sunshine.

After breakfast (oatmeal with butter!) we set off towards the creek again, this time under much less ominous conditions than we'd had the previous day.

The bushwhacking was still pretty bad, though. I actually took the picture here because there was a bit less brush than other places, so you could see better.

We ended up following a pretty well established game trail out a ridge that looked as if it was going to plunge off of a cliff. But we kept following it under the assumption that caribou hadn't made this trail by repeatedly plunging to their deaths and were eventually rewarded with a steep but straightforward slope down to the water.

We put back in, and although the creek was no more treacherous to paddlers (still class 1 and 2 rapids) than the day before, it had become much more treacherous for the dogs to follow along the banks. Whereas the upper reaches had been fairly wide open, we were now in a canyon, with cliffs that frequently came right down to the waters' edge. This meant the dogs had to either run way uphill and go over the tops of the outcrops or swim around them. Bella hates swimming and will normally do her best to avoid it, but there were places on this route where she had no choice, which she clearly hated.

When we reached the Delta River, things opened up again and we took a bit of a lunch break. Bella was cold from the glacial waters and miserable from being afraid we would leave her and being forced to swim. And from falling off of a cliff. But at least she wasn't injured. She gladly took a huge chunk of swiss cheese and half a stick of butter (pretty standard fare for this trip, as you can see) as we held her in the sun and helped her to warm up.

The last part of the paddle - about 7 miles on the Delta River - was much more open and forgiving for the dog to run along the banks. It was quite pleasant for the paddlers, as well, with abundant sunshine and beautiful scenery.

There were no more rapids of note in this part of the paddle. Just a swift and steady of current carrying us back to our car. Amazingly, we didn't see another person the entire trip (with the exception of a couple of helicopters). With the sun out the shivers of the first two days seemed irrelevant. I was eager to get home at that point, but I also felt lucky to get out into such a beautiful place on a trip like this.