Besides the new boat there're the new cameras: Go Pro and Panasonic GH1. Wanted the GH2, but couldn't wait, so spent about half as much for the GH1.
Tim Johnson had to get started on his thesis work about the "iso-scape" of oxygen and hydrogen isotopes in SC AK waters. He's collecting samples from Talkeetna to Homer and his northernmost creek is Montana. As his advisor I rode along.
The gauge was reading 450 cfs, and everything else has been locked up ('cept 6 Mile), so Montana seemed like a good choice. Just the bottom canyon, one you could easily flip multiple times if it weren't for the Devils Club on the approach. Next time I'll be taking a ridge down rather than canyon flanks. Should be drier with less Club. Still picking it out of my flesh today.
Montana's lower canyon sits squarely with lower Ship and lower Bird Canyons as great packraft creeking. How nice it would be to have those three jewels linked like beads on a watery string. Doing all three in a day would be sweet, but Ship is still outlaw, so far as I know.
Montana Creek is a long drive but a great run. It was Paul Schauer's first packraft run two seasons ago, and he styled it. Wish I had the better cameras for that trip with Paul and Thai:
Yesterday, Tim ran in in his old blue stubby and I ran it in the 2011 Alpacka Llama. My new boat has no thigh straps, but does have a sturdy deck for bracing my knees. The video shows how pointy bow does a great job punching little waves. The boat holds a line well, but can still turn and pivot quickly, seen while threading some ice shelves.
Last year Paul Schauer, Thai Verzone, and I ran Montana Creek near Talkeetna at 350 cfs on the NOAA Guage. It was super fun but a bit bumpy:
Yesterday Gordy Vernon and I drove up to Talkeetna after eating lunch at Senior Taco in Wasilla (super good, authentic Mex) just to do the lower canyon on Montana Cr. The NOAA Guage was reading about 465 cfs at UTC midnight (=4 PM AK time) and the USGS read 451 cfs; both gave about 5.4 feet. This was a juicier, cushier flow but not pushy. I'd say it was pretty close to ideal.
Gordy drops "Big Sky Country":
The crux for me, besides making the far left side of "Big Sky Country" is the mini boulder garden about three drops later, below both "Big Sky" and "Chockstone" and signaled by a big central boulder that you go left around then hard right then left again. There was a wee bit of wood, but nothing to get hung up about.
Montana's lower canyon a bit like a backwards Ship Creek lower canyon in that the hardest drop is the "Big Sky" falls right off the bat. There were a total of five drops in the short run and for me it's worth the drive. If we'd got an earlier start we would've walked up the extra mile or so for the upper canyon that has another five or so good drops. Unlike Ship Creek a swim here might have consequences with all the big boulders (foot entrapment, stuffed under an undercut). The run I like to do is shorter than Ship but longer than the lower canyon on Bird Creek -- harder to flip than Bird but more satisfying in a way and doesn't need the flip, I guess.
"Chockstone" often has wood but this time it was in a safe place:
Anyway, this info might be useful to some....Mark Oathout ran the creek in his IK, too, at a juicy flow last month.
Yesterday Paul Schauer took Thai and me to what’s likely the most “fun” (type 1 – fun to do and fun to think back about) packrafting creek run I did all year: South Fork of Montana Creek up off of the Talkeetna Turnoff (take a right on Yoder, cross the bridge, go straight until road turns right and walk the ATV trail for maybe an hour and a half or so to N 62.18410 W 149.81017 using NAD 27. The ATV trail just stays sort of on the south rim. Alternatively just walk to the first big muddy bog hole and drop in there for the punchy second canyon.)
The water was very low, under 350 cfs on the gauge and all the kayakers waiting for the 7AM-water-level-call bailed except for Paul – who I’d promised a packraft loan if he would lead me to the river. Paul had accompanied me and Jeff Conaway to Ingram Creek last year and had seen first hand that packrafts are real boats.
Thai and I had planned for Bird, but this looked much cooler, based on a video Paul’s dad John Schauer had made last year on a father son mission of this Class IV+ gem of a whitewater run. Paul has been kayaking whitewater since he was a teenager growing up in Fairbanks and it shows. His fluency reading water and paddling are impressive.
We put in too high and would have had less butt bouncing and bow spinning if we’d used the top of the first canyon as the put in (N 62.17998 W 149.83550). Much above the first canyon, the water was just too spread out and thin and didn’t drop enough for floating. But from this waypoint on down there were great bouldery drops and ledges.
Our run of Montana Creek offered a “Waikiki” character with low-flow Ship Creek or Ingram water-push: ideal for high-end packrafting, although 50 cfs more would’ve been even better (not so bumpy in between the canyons). A broken granite corner toward the end of the first canyon cut a pinky-sized hole in my raft. Good old duct tape from prior repairs providedpatch material after drying the boat’s fabric with my cotton underwear. The tape held for all the following bigger drops, too, as it has been holding on my spray deck for the last month.
I’d say there are maybe seven great packrafting drops (“Cody’s Hole”, “Fall-out”, “Big Sky”, “Paddle Chock”, “Tumbled Dice”, “Prow Boof”, “Surf Ramp”) in a mile and a half in two shallow canyons, with the best located near the entrance to the second canyon. Watch for a coal seam on river left and a creek wide ledge and diagonal hole on the next right turn. Downstream “Big Sky” drops six or seven feet after a neat series of pre-drop moves. After the “Big Sky” plunge pool is a slot-like canyon with several steep boulder drops needing some scouting for people like me (“Paddle Chock”). After about 4 hours from the upper put-in, take out at the log that goes all the way across the creek and head up the hill about 0.1 miles to the ATV road (N 62.17871 W 149.87404)
Besides the fantastic water -- its features, level, and clarity as well as the fall colors – boating with Thai and Paul was a dream come true. Both are class V boaters in kayaks, and besides bringing a level of experience, competence and confidence that I have not yet encountered on a packraft-only descent, they both bring easy-going attitudes. Both see packrafts as wonderful tools for backcountry -- and especially wilderness -- creeking, a new frontier of boating really, that doesn’t require uncomfortable loads or huge drops for adventuresome satisfaction.
Paul said he was more nervous dropping “Big Sky” in the packraft than he was in his kayak, but that’s just because this was his first time paddling a packraft! How awesome is that?
Twenty-somethings like him probably represent the future of packrafting, so seeing Paul in a loaner boat that was too long for him wearing his creeking helmet, pads, and paddle was exciting. He already has plans…..
Looking at “Paddle Chock” drop (right around 4:40-4:50 in the video) Thai commented, “Wow, that’s something we would never have considered last year. I mean it just doesn’t look runnable in a packraft.”
“You’re right,” I replied, “kind of worries me to think about what we'll be running next year.”
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