The Book we've all been waiting for....The Packraft Handbook by Luc Mehl and Sarah Glaser

It’s difficult to imagine a better pair of people to put together a packrafting handbook than author Luc Mehl and illustrator Sarah Glaser. Both were raised in Alaska—prime packraft habitat—with wilderness literally out their backdoors. Each epitomizes the multisport, super-safe, modern adventurer who is self-propelled and self-reliant, good-natured, with broad smiles and welcoming, all-inclusive dispositions that come across clearly in this delightful and informative book.

While I have only a passing personal acquaintance with Sarah, I truly admire her work. My serious packrafting bias aside, this handbook looks like it presents her best, most extensive, and most important work so far, because much of it concerns safety and technique on moving water. MIT-educated Mehl writes brilliantly and thoroughly about the science of modern wilderness adventure. Of course, he’s also a terrific photographer, and so in the vein of a classic William Nealy cartoon text like Kayak, the book you wil certainly soon be reading brings life to packrafting “how-to” through its collaboration of word and image.

A mutual friend introduced Luc and me during the summer of 2009 when the three of us rode our mountain bikes loaded with skis, ropes, and ice-axes on an overnight science trip to a local glacier. Of course, Luc’s strength, speed, and endurance impressed me as did his revelation that he’d just that year won the obscure ski race I’d founded 20 years before. Charmed by his enthusiasm, and knowing that winning an Alaska Mountain Wilderness Ski Classic put him in a certain class of adventurer, I liked him instantly.

That summer, Luc and I collided again, this time as competitors in the summer Wilderness Classic across a 180-mile route through the Alaska Range. For those unfamiliar with the event, it’s a carry-all-your-gear-and-food-needed-to-cross-a-wild-landscape full of mountains, rivers, bogs, brush, boulders, and bears, with no roads, no motors, no pack animals, nor outside assistance allowed, while going as fast as you want or can. The only required gear is a satellite phone. But, truth is, without a packraft it’s pretty tough to finish.

While Luc and I only traveled a short distance together, he again demonstrated his positive attitude and persistence. It was clear that Luc’s endurance and skills would make him a valuable partner worth inviting along sometime. But skiing glaciers and racing the Classic, while important interests in my 20s, were no longer the priority that testing the limits of whitewater packrafting had become to me in my 40s.

Fall 2009 we bumped into one another as members of a big group on splashy Bird Creek, a local whitewater creek with lots of fun little falls. Ever since 2003 when Alpacka Raft first began putting effort into making boats whitewater-worthy, my paddling partners Thai Verzone, Brad Meiklejohn, Tim Johnson (author of our local whitewater guidebook), Paul Schauer (all of whom appear in the book's pages) and I had pushed packrafting into regular runs of low-water Class IV creeks in small stubby boats that most kayakers derided as “sh**ty little Iks that only pussies paddle.”

While Luc has become the familiar face of Alaskan packrafting, Brad Meiklejohn has been the true silent force behind the modern packrafting movement. He'd suggested that we run the epic Talkeetna River, a real river (not a low water creek) and a wilderness fly-in one at that. All of us on Bird Creek who’d be going to the Talkeetna the following weekend were impressed by Luc’s gung-ho attitude and perma-grin, especially after overheating in his brand-new red drysuit, when he cliff-jumped into a deep pool and swam to the other side to cool off. I asked Brad what he thought about Luc coming along. Given the go-ahead, I invited Luc to join us. In some ways, that trip brought Luc into the Alaskan whitewater packrafting fold.

It was a superlative weekend, with great weather (if frosty), great rapids, and great friends, like JT Lindholm Tony Perelli, and Becky King. At one point in the Talkeetna's Canyon, Brad commented, “We really need to roll these things like a kayak. That’ll take us to another level.”

Not a week later, I sold Tim Johnson my son’s old Alpacka. Tim promptly glued thigh-straps into the blue boat and as soon as the glue had dried, he took it out into an ice-encrusted stream and rolled it!

And that was it. We all glued thigh straps into our boats and went to the pool to learn our rolls. Thus began the Bronze Age of packrafting with Luc there from the beginning, taking what we’d been doing and following Tim Johnson to the next level of packrafting, just as Brad had predicted.

Over the following three years Tim and Paul Schauer, natural-born boaters, led Luc and the rest of us down southcentral Alaska’s classic runs pioneered by Andrew Embick as “Class V”, as well as the modern test-pieces of their generationand the one right before Tim and Paul (e.g., Montana Creek, Tin Can, Upper Willow, Upper Bird, Disappointment, East Fork Iron Creek, Ingram).

While the excitement of whitewater seemed necessary for Luc, it was certainly not sufficient. In a string of unprecedented adventures over three consecutive years (2011, 2012, and 2013), he assembled teams of eager participants to combine skis, boats, and even bikes for grand traverses across North America’s three tallest mountains using modified Wilderness Classic rules. Leaving the road, Luc lead his groups into, up, over, and down Alaska's Denali, Canada's Logan, and Mexico's Orizaba, in each case exiting back to near sea level via packraft.

This book, with its emphasis on a culture of safety and vigilance informed by a decade of experience during the steepest growth of whitewater packrafting development, marks the sport's entry into its true Golden Age. We are lucky that Luc pushed pause on hsi data science career to guide the packrafters of the world to yet another level.

So, read this great book, stare at the fantastic illustrations, and enjoy the writing, the art, the stories, the advice, and feel secure in the knowledge that Luc and Sarah have engaged over a dozen of the best packrafters and kayakers in Alaska to contribute and vette content that captures a wealth of knowledge and experience in simple prose, awesome call-outs, beautiful photography, and clear illustrations.

It’s the book we’ve all been waiting for.

Golden Age Nostalgia

After reading Luc Mehl's guest blog at the Alpacka web site I indulged in some nostalgia from 2009-2010.

If you're reading this, then you really should go read Luc's post. I found it flattering and a bit of a vignette of what I, self-centeredly, consider the Golden Age of packrafting.

Golden in that it was a big leap forward. Golden in that Brad Meiklejohn urged us into Embick's  Class IV and V creeks. Golden in that real boaters Tim Johnson, Paul Schauer, and Thai Verzone led us down and plucked us out. Golden in that I started hitting whitewater centers beyond Alaska with the boat born in Alaska and now ready for the world: NZ, Grand Canyon, Australia's Franklin, Appalachians.

But the world was not ready. Haters were everywhere and even Alpacka wanted nothing to do with thigh straps.

"Why would a packrafter being going down a class 3/4 river like this, ever? Not only that, these guys are wearing drysuits because the water is cold - and I can't imagine a lightweight hiker wanting to bring one along on his trip. 

Seriously, I think you've missed the point of this video completely. It's about paddling in big groups that have sufficient resources to perform a rescue and using the skills that are taught in whitewater rescue classes properly. It's not about boat design.

I've kayaked big water for years and backpack/hike and the combination of packrafts and big water is a bozo no-no in my opinion. It seems like the packraft community is rediscovering everything the ww kayak community has known for years about the dangers of ww kayaking. Please stick to class 1 rivers and ponds for your own safety, and don't paddle in cold water without the proper thermal protection."

And a kayaker's response to thigh straps and packrafts in 2009. 

 ‘In a packraft, at least IMO, they seem like more than is necessary even at the upper end of whitewater. IMHO if you feel you need thigh straps you should probably think about improving your technique or further developing your skills. Weather it be reading the water better and seeing the clean lines and hitting them or simply spending more time in the raft, one needs to have skills. Given their design, there are just certain things that will be difficult no matter what you do. eg big holes on big water. These things are already about as idiot proof as it gets. Don't get me wrong, there are probably a hand full of people that could really push what is possible in a packraft with thigh straps, but for most it will simply be a substitute for skill and ultimately not help them in the long run. In fact I'd be willing to bet that most packrafters would not be able to roll a raft even if they were glued into the thing. It is certainly more difficult than a kayak by a long shot. Not to mention much harder on one's shoulders as well.’

But maybe like bad brush and cold water, some of us just felt that these nasty-grams were challenges to overcome and now that they are overcome, I find myself sitting back, older, and trying to just get out of the way.

1. My Packrafting! book is out of print.
2. Falcon Guidebooks sells a new book about packrafting.
3. Thor and Sarah Tingey have transformed Alpacka with a boat for every kind of water and even a mountain bike boat.
4. There are maybe even a dozen other packraft manufacturers.
5. My testosterone has drained away leaving me somewhat flacid when it comes to whitewater.
6. But it doesn't matter because there are plenty of bad-asses out there, 
• including former kayakers and
• hard-core packrafters-first who now use kayaks to improve their packrafting.

It's been great to watch and even greater to be part of it.

My own history with whitewater in packrafts can be covered in six videos. The first couple of videos are sort of accidental. But starting at the end of  2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011 I posted on You Tube the greatest hits I'd been involved with each year. 

2008 was the year of whitewater discovery. 
2009 was the year of whitewater exploration.
2010 was the year of thigh straps that made us feel like real boaters.
2011 was the year of extended sterns that felt like cheating.

(January 2000) Taking a Sherpa Packraft down a stream in Pumalin Park, Chile before I'd actually got my butt in an Alpacka.

(January 2008)  Hermit to Havasu with Gordy and Cody Roman in the Grand Canyon. Up to say 2008, Cody Roman and I going down Ship Creek's canyon repeatedly and sniffing out some other runs elsewhere, was about it for whitewater. Then I started paddling with Brad.

(2008)  was the year I finally found someone other than Cody Roman who wanted to do Ship Creek more than once. The music was Radiohead's National Anthem, a song and band Roman introduced to me and the song captured the hectic feel of the early days of whitewater in packrafts. But YouTube stripped the song....so now it's the canned version of what they offer.

(2009) By the Fall of  2009 the packrafting revolution was getting started with Brad, Thai, Luc, Gordy, Tony, Becky, JT and others hitting it hard in Southcentral AK. It was when Tim Johnson and Paul Schauer and Thai Verzone, Class V kayakers all, joined us.

These guys, as Mike Curiak recently wrote, made me feel as though they were "participating in an entirely different sport -- one filled with grace and control and poise, where by comparison I feel like I just bludgeon and hack my way through while trying to survive."

This one doesn't play on phones, I guess because nobody's made enough money yet off the half-century old Beatles classic, Revolution (although it plays on computers in the US). It's worth watching on a 'puter, by the way, with the sound track.

(2010) Ah yes, the struggle with Alpacka over thigh straps. We were the Devil:  dangerous, reckless, a real pain in the butt-boats of Alpacka, but in the end we were right. Maybe, just maybe, our devilish ways got the "Witchcraft" started, a black boat you might catch a glimpse of in this next video somewhere, and that is the ancestral boat of Alpacka's Lips and Gnarwall boats. Or maybe it was really the handful of "Media Feliz" paddlers down in CO that motivated the development. Still, I like to think it was us, the 20 or 30 people in Alaska packraft-paddling Six Mile and Little Su and Ship Creek and Bird that pushed whitewater boat development at Alpacka. But again, probably just my narcissism playing tricks on my ego!

(2011) With the new long stern boats of 2011 it was almost a new sport. It was like in the 1980s when sticky rubber (particularly the Fires) hit rock or when foot fangs and plastic boots hit ice, or when leashless tools hit both rock and ice, whenever that happened. We had the new longer stern boats that erased bandersnatching as a concept and instead launched us out of sticky holes, leaning forward into the modern boats we've known for years. It also ended my year-end video making recaps, as then Luc Mehl and Mike Curiak were there to pick up my stringy end of the tapestry and weave it with finer artistry.

And there we have it. Six footnotes to "Show up and Blow up: Alaska"!

Best Packrafting Video of the Year: Luc's edit of Paul on Bird

Luc Mehl's latest and best creation highlights his skills as cameraman/editor, Paul Schauer's as superb boatman, and the Alpacka packraft as a forgiving, fun craft:



Paul's season highlights is also so well crafted that I'd like to take up hardshelling, too:

Great Videos in no particular order

This is my favorite -- Devin Littlefield, an Alaska Pacific University (APU) student made it about the APU class "Swiftwater boating" taught by Paul Twardock with help from Timmy J, Jason Geck and me one day on Granite Creek.

I love the music and the editing.



Next up is Paul Schauer's run down the Tsaina, near Valdez. Paul's been cranking out the videos, but this one's my favorite of the last few he's done. Plus, it features Matt Peters and Jeff Shelton (among others), two super Alaska homegrown boaters who are also super people.



And then there is Luc's latest, and it's so good I am going to have to work extra hard and steal some of his musical ideas for my next one. It's a great trip report that would have been a contender in Dave Chenault's contest over at Bedrock and Paradox.

First Run of the Season Video

Paul Schauer's video of early season 6 Mile run. There are a couple clips of my New Boat in action amongst all the hardshells.

2011 Alpacka Llama -- Getting it wet and icy

My new Llama showed up on Thursday, just in time, as the AK Boating season is open – at least partially.

A bunch of us went down 6 Mile’s 2nd and 3rd Canyons yesterday (Paul Schauer, Timmy J, John Combs, Travis Spalding, Jeff Shelton). Running at 250 cfs or so, it felt like an exploratory creeking first descent a week earlier than we went last year.

As usual, the high competence, calm demeanor, yet humor and positive enthusiasm of Timmy J and Paul Schauer made the trip outstanding. Young Travis Spaulding and Jeff Shelton, second generation Alaskan adventurers, added to the spirit of exploration, especially with Jeff playboating in the icy stream, doing flips and tricks while wearing no shoes and only fleece socks. And of course, helicopter pilot Johnny "Carnage" added to the pile of smiles. It was one of the best days I have had paddling with a band of hardshells, mostly because of who filled those plastic boats. Paul posted photos, words and video on his blog.

Every corner was spooky as the creek flowed through a sub-canyon of sheer ice walls 3-10 feet high. We eddy-hopped much of the way down, often climbing 5-7 foot ice ledges to scout, then seal launching off those same ledges if clear ahead, or portaging and crossing ice bridges to seal launch below the ice dam. This doubled the time of the run -- a big group, many scouts and portages -- and worried the rest of our crew. They'd opted out of the Third Canyon due to winter play injuries and, fretting at our late arrival time, drove up and down the Hope Road looking for our bodies below.

Yea, the Third Canyon was pretty choked-up with potentially lethal ice bridges at every major rapid (top of Staircase, Suck Hole, Merry Go Round, Jaws, Junkyard Dog, and several more). In another couple weeks it should be clear, says Tim, who notes this was one of the earliest runs he's made. At one point, Johnny was scouting on river left when a dam partially collapsed, leaving a tunnel under the ice bridge on river right that we all then ducked under. It was magic.

But the big news is that the new boat is simply amazing. Best of last year's Witchcraft (i.e. long stern, pointy bow) w/best of old style boats (i.e. big tubes, bright colors, high volume, room for gear with attachment points). The Llama is super long, like 7 feet almost, but nearly as nimble as the old stubbies, and so much faster, straighter and more stable.

Old habits die slowly, and I had to take a blow to the ribs from an overhanging ice ledge to learn that I can’t do last second pirouettes to avoid things. But the speed, tracking, and especially wave ferrying and surfing are worth every micro-second loss of quick handling.

I’d like an even pointier bow, and have moved myself more central in the boat with old seats (old being pre-sewn-in, when they were just loose in the boat maybe vintage 2002-2004). I like the bow and stern to be level, and I like the high volume Llama (but am 5’ 11” and 170, so official Yak-size), so I attached my seat as far forward as I could. That means I took the back tabs on the seat and lashed them to the front tabs on the boat. I am eager to hear what the posse of new-style boat owners do with their seats.

Running Class III in the new design almost feels like cheating, it’s so stable. Luc once emailed me that a kayak was easier than a packraft, and I think the new bow and stern make it more kayak-like – it punches waves far better than a stubby and has more for-aft stability. Like a classic packraft (mine's a Llama) it retains its awesome lateral stability, something the Witchcraft of 2010 lacked.

I had Sheri put on a custom skirt which is super dry. It's a heavier fabric, almost like a tube fabric. I also had her make me a very short center opening, which is not something many would feel comfortable in, but I had no problem doing a wet exit followed by a self rescue and wet re-entry after a surfing flip. My boat's custom opening is about as big as a kayak cockpit. It’s a very short center opening with 4 inches of Velcro. But with the heavy fabric, short opening, and mando Velcro, even without thigh straps I could brace my knees on the deck. It worked so well I am considering glueing knee cups in as well as thigh straps.

The opening is so narrow that I can no longer swing my legs out to the side to get out. I also have to step right between the two lobes of the seat to get in. Like a kayak, I can not just hop in this boat. But the new cone-head butt is so stable that I just slide backwards and out onto it, then pull my legs out. To get in, I need a calm eddy, or a good platform to seal launch.

We did like ten seal entries yesterday, at least one that was about as tall as my paddle is long, and poised just 10 yards above an undercut ice wall. The new design pierced the water well, especially compared to an old stubby’s blunt entry, and its length and pointy stern gives it superb ferry ability. The long stern makes backwards boating much more consistent.

Like thigh straps and spray decks before it, the new design eases me in to another whitewater class (calling + and - classes) by technology alone. I think this year I'll be a solid Class IV boater, moving out of my solid Class III+ standing currently.

What’s even more exciting is the number of people here in ANC (maybe the center of the world for whitewater packrafting) who will have new boats and solid skills. Many of these new owners are kayakers looking at an upcoming low water season. They now have a new tool to match the conditions, a way to turn butt-scraping runs into something fun, and a way to ferret out some FD steep runs, as well.

Post Script: My second bike purchased in a year (and the second since my Mountain Klein purchase in 1986) is a 2x10, aluminum 9-Zero-7, and 80 mm Fat bike. This new bike and new boat are meant to match one another for some new "wild rides", the kind pioneered by Eric Parsons and Dylan Kentch. The fat bike is awesome and helping my rehab from ankle surgery. Wish that I'd bought one years ago although it would likely have interfered with my whitewater development.

November 2009 to October 2010

Not since Alpacka came out with fat tubes, a big bow, and a sporty cut has there been such a big advance in packrafting as thigh straps. And Tim Johnson should get the credit for leading the way on that modification to a stock Alpacka Raft.

Thigh strap are not one of "40 add-ons" to a packraft that just make the boat heavier. They are a single addition that we in AK have seen on dozens of boats that give people control and confidence in whitewater from Class III to Class V, as well as leverage for paddling the flat and windy.

People are not getting entrapped -- yet. If a single chambered boat with extra velcro (added to keep a boat dry) were to go flat in the wrong place at the wrong time, then it does seem like being trapped in thigh straps will be bad. Indeed, besides practicing your Eskimo roll in a thigh strap equipped boat, think about letting all the air out while you are in the boat in the pool to see how you'll get out! Simply having a single chambered boat go flat under you, even without thigh straps, is a dangerous entrapment situation and one reason I find the Feathercraft Baylee so attractive. Unfortunately the Baylee is not as maneuverable or boofable as an Alpacka.

It would be nice if Alpacka made two chambered boats as durable and long and lean as the Witchcraft, and if Feathercraft made nimble boats with spraydecks that stayed up. Until then, we'll all be modifying our own boats and paddling them like this:

Kings Magic Mile: Learning to Walk

The Kings River “Magic Mile” is one of Alaska’s mythical whitewater runs. For about half a mile it drops at the rate of 400 feet per mile through a maze of granite boulders, tight constrictions, and tall ledges, a steep creek by any definition. The second half of the Magic Mile drops over 200 feet per mile with two gnarly drops. The Mile has been described as "a Little Su on steroids".

First run by Embick and crew in the mid-1980s at a level (175-200 cfs) shown in Tim Johnson’s Alaska Whitewater (page 120, “Pick your faith”), Embick’s descent was pretty far ahead of its time. Fed by glaciers, the Kings’ flow peaks when the snow melt overlaps with the glacier thaw in June. Recently Tim Johnson, Josh Smith and John Cox ran it at super high water. Last fall Brad M., JT, Tony Pirelli, Luc Mehl, Mark Outhout and I packrafted the so-called “Lower Kings” (including “Gotta Give ‘Er Gorge") at a level I wished we had this past week when Nate Shoutis, Thai Verzone, Paul Schauer and I hiked up to the East Fork of the Kings to packraft the Magic Mile.


Brad Meiklejohn has been pushing the Magic Mile for a while, so when Nate Shoutis was in town his suggestion of the Kings fit in with my envy of Brad in the Brooks Range running Alatna River tribs. So I contacted the usual suspects needed as back-up for the steep stuff -- Thai Verzone and Paul Schauer -- and off we drove in my son’s ’87 Four-Runner up the Permanente Road, parking where the ATV network spiders around mudholes and the two branches of the road split. This offers an ideal loop trip taking out at the “Gotta Give ‘Er” gorge.

We walked to the put-in in about two and a half hours, inflated and launched into water that certainly didn’t look as low as it seemed at the Glenn Hwy Bridge where no rocks projected in the channels.

“There’s water in the bushes.”

“Yea, and it sure seems pushy. I’ve never packrafted in water with this much flow,” said Paul, whose packrafting experiences so far have been low water runs of Montana, Bird, and Disappointment Creeks.

This was opaque, milky Kings River, and by the time we got to the first rapid, “Bubblegum”, at the top of the 400’/mile section, we all felt the push. The push to sneak, portage, and walk. Which we did for the next few hours in open woods and alders, rarely on boulders alongside as the water lapped at the alders and submerged the shoreline rocks’ moss and lichen.

“What do you think?”

“I want to run it, but the consequences look bad.”

"If you look good going down it, I'll go for it."

“I don’t mind a bruised ego over a bruised body.”

“My ego won’t be bruised. It’s cool just to be in here and see this.”

There were only little sections that looked runnable and they were stacked between sections that didn’t look swimmable.

“Let’s deflate and walk.”

Every now and then we’d hear big water and we’d poke our heads out of the brush to see what the river was doing.

“Wow. The flat water looks like Little Su. And the drops just look too big for us.”

We did a couple ferries between the big drops. We ferried and snuck between “Bubblegum” and “Pick Your Faith”, then again upstream of the bend leading into “Underground Railroad”. There were a couple other huge drops that have no names, too.

The walking was pretty good in open woods of mossy boulders or game trails, but it felt good to run the last bit below “Chunder” to the miles and miles of boogy water leading to the first, opening ledge drop of the lower Kings.

There was a log across the stream below the big tongue in a canyon that pours river left past a wide dry ledge, and plenty of juice in all the folding ledges below. We pulled out just upstream of the Gotta Give Er Gorge and walked the mile back to the truck from there.

The Kings has three sections: the super stout granite Mile, which is like a king Susitna; the middle miles of splashy Class II-III that would be every intermediate kayaker's dream roadside run, like a scenic Willow; and the final sharp schist canyons, like an easier version of Six Mile's third canyon. It's a classic run overall, worth all the hiking.

And it’d been a good day, if not a great one. A day to remind us that we can’t yet run everything in a packraft.

We’ll go back in September at 200 cfs when we can run the Magic Mile. But this June trip was a good scout.

After all, as everyone knows, you gotta walk before you can run, and that's especially true for packrafts on the Magic Mile.

Paul Schauer: Butt-boating hero

Like so many runs I thought maybe a bit too stiff for me and my packraft, Disappointment Ck was Bradford’s idea. That would be Bradford Washburn’s namesake, Brad Meiklejohn.

Canyon, Little Su at 800 cfs, Honolulu at spring run-off, Happy under 800 pounds for four, and Wolverine at peak flow had all been his ideas – ideas that left me swimming, all too often, with him chasing my boat.

Plus, Disappointment is one of those "Mountain Tooth Empire" runs (think Mooses and Bear Tooth), test-pieces with only sketchy info in Timmy J’s guidebook based on sand-bagger beta from Brad Gessner and Rod Hancock.

It’s no wonder I was a bit apprehensive.

We’d talked about walking in from the Railroad, which seemed great in concept and groovy in practice for girlfriend/wifey runs, like Clear Creek, but not so good for a IV+ 10 mile creek with several hours at 200 ft/mile that Tim Johnson had not run and whose description was based on a five year old first descent.

I’d run Honolulu with overnight gear and it was not-so-good.

I need an empty boat for Class IV….So, fly-in?

Why not. I’ve paid off my house, her car, our truck; got one kid through college and another ¾ of the way through. There’s some money invested and retirement. Besides, Brad and Tim got me hooked on fly-in my packraft trips with three rivers in the last nine months –- I could splurge on $117 for what looked like a good substitute for the 2010 Wilderness Classic (but really there is no substitute for that).

We just needed to fill the Alaska Bush Floatplane Service plane with somebody who could fish us out: a class V kayaker who also packrafts. Thai was busy with his sailboat in Homer; Tim didn’t want to fly without more water and his hardshell; fortunately, Paul Schauer had been trying to get into Disappointment for weeks.

I offered him my loaner Llama, the one with thigh straps and a seat sewn forward six inches. He accepted and picked me up at 7:30 AM.

By eight AM I was shopping at Fred Meyers in Eagle River for breakfast (maple bar and glazed donut), brunch (ham and cheese), lunch and dinner (three Cadbury bars and a small bag of barbeque chips) and Paul was loading gear into Brad’s Rav.

We reached Fish Lake in Talkeetna by 10 AM and discussed lake options with the pilot.

“Oh yea, I know that lake,” said Elbert, referring to the one in Tim Johnson’s book, “it’s got too many rocks. But we’ll have a look.”

I’ve been around long enough to know that when a middle-aged pilot says that "we'll have a look", we’re going to get a fly-by of where we want to land and end up somewhere we hope we have a map for.

He flew us up the Talkeetna River and soon we were flying over Disappointment’s non-stop whitewater, set deep in a remote, steep-walled canyon.

“How many groups you fly-in to Disappointment?”

“Two others. Both to Frenchy Lake, up the main fork of the creek.”

He jabbed a finger at a long lake on the map. Now I knew why it took the first descent party five hours to bushwhack to the put-in.

“The other lake up there is eight miles from the river.”

“What’s that one called?” I asked.

“No name lake.”

As we flew toward Frenchy, the voice of conservative reason came across my headphones. “No, let’s go to the other one. That looks bad.”

Cottonwoods stretched across a little stream surrounded by alders and deciduous forest. “It looks like great hiking back there. That down there looks bad.”

Elbert circled back, headed up over the tundra to No Name and put down the bird.

He pulled up to the shore, tossed us our stuff, and left, an unconcerned taxi driver.

“What time is it?”

“Eleven,” said Paul as he strapped his boat and dry bag onto his PFD and grabbed his paddle and helmet in his hands. He wore wet suit booties and a dry-suit. We’d all come equipped for a mile walk not an eight mile hike.

“We’ll be there in three hours,” said Brad.

I had my doubts. But if we hadn’t stopped to suit up when the all-day rain arrived, we may well have made it in two and a half. The hiking was great. Open, smooth, dry and flat tundra. We had to step through a couple patches of willow, a few short patches of alders and cross a creek, but the going was great and we even found an animal trail that led us to the river bar.

We blew up and loaded our boats with our meager gear. Good thing we were light because the it was scrapey. In the first hour it seemed we were doing L-sits with paddle and hand in water to get over boulder bars every 15 minutes. But soon enough we were careening down a shallow granite gorge with super fun drops and bedrock rapids. A little more water would be fine here. A lot more would be scary.

Before two hours were up we’d paddled upper Ship Creek-like shallows, the little Honolulu-style granite gorge, and mini-Little Su like steep boulder drops. And Paul had a hole in his bottom. We stopped in the rain and he patched it with duct tape.

The river dropped steeper but its low volume made the rapids not just doable but fun. But by 5 PM we came to the first waterfall, a 15 foot long, steep slide with a nice pool that looked doable but possibly a butt-boat ripper, something we didn’t want to do with thirty miles of paddling still to go. So we portaged, two of us river right, one river left.

“Look how steep it drops.”

After the waterfall several other drops were stacked back to back, but fun and doable. We paddled onward with lots of drops in the 2-4 foot range, some culminating little boulder gardens, others over bedrock.

Half an hour later we came to a six foot ledge with a circulating, undercut wall that grabbed Paul. Below that under a high overhang Brad patched his boat's bottom in the rain. Fifty yards downstream was a five foot drop that looked too nasty with a little pocket hole in its back to run so far from home. We all portaged on its left.

Generally, there were steep but open small-boulder gardens that culminated in either a corner drop through bigger boulders or a ledge drop where the entire creek folded into a narrow, violent plunge. There were plenty of eddies to boat scout down all of this and following the steep plunge-drops we enjoyed often 30 foot tall twisting gorges with moving but smooth water.

Of all the creeks I have run in Alaska and elsewhere, Disappointment satisfied most with its diversity. It offered up Ship Creek ledges, Little Su boulder piles, Montana Creek slip mazes, Honolulu granite bedrock. Many steep sections reminded me of Six Mile’s “Jaws”, with chaotic power shoved through sharp rocks. Blessedly it was low volume and technical, not high volume and bossy. It took skill and technique but not balls and bluster.

Well mostly.

The two named drops, “Sprained Ankle” and “Three Blind Mice”, both rated IV+, and both double drops with steep waterfalls into deep pools on their second drop, were juicy. We portaged the “Sprained Ankle” on the left, climbing up one gully past devils club, traversing a heath meadow, and dropping a second gully of d’club back to the creek.

Below the lower plunge pool of “Sprained Ankle” and on to “Three Blind Mice” was the best reach of the creek. I kept thinking, “Too bad there’s all that scrapey stuff to get here, but I don’t really want any more water than this.” We wondered if it was coming up from the all day rain.

This stretch was packed with slalom action and plenty of fresh, New Zealand-style slip rapids of broken, sharp-edged granite where we boulder hopped down, boat scouting to the final bedrock drops at the bottom of the dozens of drops. At one drop I got bandersnatched in a basal hole and did my first Class IV combat role between drops. For the next 30 minutes I was the studly hero. But at “Brad’s Log” I handed that title over to him.

This was a blind corner between two of the biggest boulders in the creek. We did a bank scout from both sides, but could only get so far. Brad decided to give it a go, even though the creek disappeared around a corner between the rocks. I filmed him (2:32-2:46) as he too disappeared with his left hand pressing against the big rock.

We couldn't see, but Brad was swept into and beneath a log jammed between the boulders.

“Brad says don’t go!”

I was working my way back to get my boat.

“He’s holding up his hands crossed.”

Brad had lost his paddle swimming under the log but found it.

Now I could see him holding up his paddle, running his clenched hand along it like a more familiar shaft, using the signal Paul had shown us at the put-in for “wood”. A bit like stroking a woody, in a vulgar way, but it gets the message across clearly.

Paul and I portaged on the left, scrambling down to a visibly shaken Brad who was clambering over boulders in the rain. I hopped in my boat and quickly got upturned on a corner, too freaked to roll between choked drops, I busted free of my skirt and banged my head.

I stood on a rock with my boat and paddle, throwing one and then the other toward Paul, then swam aggressively into the water, missed my eddy and asked Paul , “Give me the paddle!”

He pulled me onto a rock and said, "Oh man, look at your knuckles." My whole hand was dripping wet blood, but painless.

"That's going to hurt tomorrow."

Downstream more recent slides choked the creek into jagged falls that we portaged.

By 9 PM, almost seven hours into the paddle and ten hours since flying-in we’d reached the crux, “Three Blind Mice”. The first drop is a separate rapid, a six foot chunder followed by a curve and then the 15 foot falls.

We scouted and I charged off. It looked like a simple drop into a big pool.

“I’m gonna drive right and aim for the eddy at the base,” volunteered Paul as I slipped my knees into my straps and cinched down the velcro deck.

I heard him but wasn’t listening. It looked straight forward: ride the smooth tongue into the biggest pool on the creek. If I swam, so what. It looked totally clean.

I had forgotten what Tim Johnson had written in his book about the first decent party's experience: “the largest recirculating hydraulic that they had ever seen for a rapid of its size.” It extracted three of the four kayakers on that trip and it not only extracted me but it sent me deep into the darkness, where I thought I was going to run out of air. It sent me deep and flushed me out but kept my boat.

This was the first time ever I’d been sucked downward so deep. Usually I have hold of my boat, but this time as I was being sucked back toward the maw, I recalled "Breach Baby" on Ingram and the cave at the back and feared somehow my boat was dragging me somewhere I didn’t want to go, or would keep me where I didn’t want to be. So I let it go and was slammed deep by the plunging tongue.

It was the first time I thought, “I have to swim to the bottom or off to the side to get out.” And this thinking on just half a breath.

But I got flushed out and swam to the talus spilling into the plunge pool, signaling a concerned Paul that I was OK, took a breather to find some oxygen and shoot some vid, then worked my way back to the far side to see how to get my boat, bouncing in the hole.

Brad, perched on the lip, asked with his hands if there was a route down on my side of the bowl. It looked like there was but it would be sketchy. I nodded, “yes”.

As I waded the outlet of the pool, something yellow, driving hard across the smooth tongue caught my eye.

It was Paul dropping the falls!

He landed just behind my boat, knocking it free and coasted into the eddy, nailing the 15 foot drop cleanly! Not only was he a studly boater, but he was a hero, too.

I sure didn’t want to have to swim after my boat into that plunge pool of doom.

His move and save was the neatest thing I’d ever seen in a packraft, right up there with Tim Johnson’s first Eskimo roll and Roman’s run on the Grand Canyon from Hermit to Havasu with a mere two swims.

Yea, Paul’s drop and save was great, typifying his quiet skill and helpfulness.

Paul had been a great companion on the creek. He had level headed judgment, beautiful paddling style, and never hogged the lead. He found eddies and evaluated holes and drops and now he was rescuing my boat, towing it in behind him with his tether.

“Wow! That was awesome! Thanks sooo much, Paul, thank you man!” (John Schauer, if you are reading this, good job on a fine son.)

Then another plop of yellow came dropping off. This one like mine, folded up and flipped, but at least landed in the eddy and not the hole. Brad swam to shore with his paddle but his boat was stuck like mine had been.

This time Paul tied into my throw rope and my rope into his as I belayed him out to the hole to fetch Brad’s boat. Brad’s dry bag of gear (velcroed inside his bow as a foot platform) came free, drifted out of the hole but was recirculated back in.

Paul paddled as close as he dared and poked and prodded the upside down boat with his paddle, eventually pushing it free and paddling after it, throwing it on his bow as I pulled him in.

Paul Schauer, double hero.

“Wow, I’m getting to practice all of my swiftwater rescue skills!” he smiled.

“Yea, that’s why we brought you along, Paul! To pull us and our yard sales out of the creek!”

From here it was 45 minutes of Class II and III to the Talkeetna, running highish in rain and melt at 6000 cfs. We paddled that from 10:15 PM to 2 AM, stroking hard to keep warm in the rain and dark of solstice.

“Well Brad, that gave you what Honolulu didn’t,” referring to the all-day dose of adrenaline that we’d got. I had scraped what looked like a couple square inches of skin form my knuckles but hadn’t felt a thing and wouldn’t until a day later.

“Yea, but I can’t really think of anyone I can recommend it to.”

I can.



Synopsis:

June 19, 2010
Brad Meiklejohn, Paul Schauer
Alaska Bush Floatplane Service (907) 733-1693, Fish Lake 4 miles from Talkeetna $350 for 750 pounds (5 seats?)

Clear creek with sharp rock from active slides (two cut boats) and polished boulders.

Everything! Slides, Six Mile Third Canyon drops, WIllow Creek Guard Rail style races, Ingram style drops, Little Su style boulder drops (rounded granite), 10-15’ waterfalls, wall rapids, NZ “slip” style boulder gardens (BIG broken angular rocks).

Long day of steep water sandwiched between 3-4 hrs of walking and 3-4 hrs Talkeetna River boating.

Very committing, very technical, LONG walk out, hard climb up. Go light….

Six Mile Last Weekend

We Alaskans are blessed in so many ways. As packrafters we enjoy the company of a handful of really good kayakers who are willing to join us for silliness, like running Six Mile last weekend. Boy, was it fun. Most impressive was David, in a yellow boat with thigh straps. It was his first time in whitewater of any kind and he ran both the second and third canyons in style.

Luc Mehl was along and did a cold water roll on his first try after flipping while surfing. Paul Schauer and Tim Johnson and another kayaker, Steve, who was cruising the Hope Cut-off looking for boaters (like us) to join, offer so much cool confidence and security that it was great to have them along.

The water looks to be up this weekend, so maybe we'll be heading elsewhere....to continue testing out the new Witchcraft, which I am happy to report is about 50% easier to roll than a standard Alpacka due to its smaller diameter tubes and apparent narrower width.