The Mat-Su Regulars (Little Su, Upper Willow, Kings Magic Mile)
The Talkeetna Fly-in Creeks (Disappointment, E Fork Iron Ck, Damnation):
The mid-Alatna Valley Creeks:
The Arrigetch Creeks:
I have been using Spruceboy's USGS maps over Google Earth to estimate gradient, then R to make some contour plots of local steep runs and some creeks in the Arrigetch-Alatna Area. Too satisying.
I should have gone paddling, but no, I made these graphs instead.
They are pretty informative and suggest that the Arrigetch offers up the closest to California style granite creeks we have in Alaska. What makes the Arrigetch unique is the paucity of glaciers combined with steep glacial carved terrain, much of it above tree line and so wood free.
It looks like the two local boofy-creeks, Lower Ingram and Upper Willow, aren't as overall steep as they feel, while the granite boulder garden creeks, Little Su and Kings, are steep. This holds for Disappointment and E Fork Iron, too, as Disappointment is not as overall steep as East Fork Iron Creek, surprisingly, but is bigger volume and more pool drop. So pool drop, ledgy creeks hide their steepness on these gradient plots, while boulder garden creeks tend to be steepest.
All the kayakers already know this, of course, and this is just like a little homework assignment to see that clearly.
The Aiyagomahala Creek (aka Hot Springs Creek or South Arrigetch Creek) is super steep at top where it's full of slabs and slides and waterfalls. Just above its hot springs it's a boulder garden, like Magic Mile. Upper Awlinyak, I have not yet seen, but I expect that it is a gorge full of granite blocks, like the the Deceptive Pass branch of Awlinyak. Arrigetch Creek is least known to me. It's hidden in the bushes and glimpses I get of it are broken gneiss, rather than boulders.
All the little Alatna Valley creeks offer up a bunch of variety. None seem too hard for beginners, except the inner gorge of Nahtuk, which I have seen and expect to be Class III+ if not IV. Unakserak and Kutuk look like class II, maybe some wood, and Pingaluk is Class III (walked that a couple years ago). Awesome game trails in the Pingaluk. So a basecamp in the Alatna valley offers everything from Class I on the Alatna to Class VI in the Arrigetch, all in a ten mile radius.
I joined JT, Luc, Brad, and Ben on Little Susitna at about 450 cfs.
I had my new 2011 Alpacka Llama with custom skirt and thigh straps, a new Werner Powerhouse one-piece carbon paddle (197 cm -- a bit longer than my 194 and mo betta).
And my two new cameras.
One's a Go-Pro and after seeing a CarpeyBiggs and a Ben Brown kayak video, each with Go Pro on the bow, I had to try it.
Feels a bit narcissistic, but if I put it on Timmy J's or P. Schauer's boat it'lll look super cool.
One of my goals was to run bigger water this year. This sort of amounts to doing the popular kayak runs at "normal" flows. So I ran Six Mile's three canyons (minute 2 onwards) just under 10 feet. We looked at a juicy Magic Mile and walked 3/4 of it. I did the Campground Rapids loop when it was running high, too.
Part of this is probably a reaction to kayak sneering, and part of it is wanting to push my limits. But what I have discovered is that low water is where packrafts really excel and where kayaks are overkill and canoes and IKs unwieldy. Nothing puts a grin on my face as long and strong as low water Ship (back when it was legal and below 5 feet), Bird (when Ship's running below 5 feet), Montana (5.5 feet or lower), Honolulu (white rock in 4 inches water, gray rock dry), and Little Su below 3.4 feet. Same goes for Six Mile below 9 ft.
By low water I mean steep creeks that are substantially below their normal flows and the style is unloaded, sport boating for whitewater as substance abuse -- hormone dosing "naturally".
People often ask me "Why not just get a hardshell?" And after yesterday's double "flip" on Little Su, I know why: It's because I am too old and testosterone-dry to run "the brown" and "the gnar-gnar". I am not a "bad-ass". I am a packrafter and this is my favorite style of packrafting:
Yea, the Little Su is super fun right now. So fun I ran it three times in the last week. Once with Erik Tomsen, who boated a bunch with me in NZ. Then again yesterday with Luc Mehl in the sunshine and crowds. What a beautiful day! And we ran into other packrafters, some with mountain bikes and others with open boats(!).
The best place to put in when it's this low (3.3 feet) is at 11 Mile Fishhook Road. Leave a bike at the Fishhook Bridge (about 8.5 mile), then drive up and park at the Government Peak Picnic Area. Walk up the road 50 yards and put in. Upstream of 11 Mile is too bony and flat for my tastes at these super low flows. Brad M. would likely give different advice. He likes longer runs and somewhat higher flows (I think his adrenaline habit is a bit chunkier than mine, these days). I prefer to pick out the steep sections of creeks and run them multiple times -- what kayakers call "running laps" but what I called "flipping" in an earlier post.
Luc Mehl and I flipped Little Su twice yesterday and it was great.
Not much of a warm-up but super fun when you put in at 11 Mile. Anywhere upstream of the Fishhook Bridge a swim can be bruising and whatever you do, if you fall out of your boat, don't try to stand up as the rounded granite boulders could grab your foot like a lock.
There are about eight or ten wild drops and lots of boulder gardens between 11 Mile and the Bridge. Even after running it three times in a week I'd be hard pressed to list or describe them in series. It's never dull, always exciting and a bit like a miniature golf version of New Zealand's boulder garden runs like the Hokitika and Arahura, but instead of a thousand cfs past boulders that are big as a bus, it's a couple hundred cfs past boulders maybe as big as a VW bug.
As you drive up the road you can see the creek here and there. Early on (upstream of the bridge at the third time the river comes in view, starting with the bridge view) there is currently a log under water, jammed between the river left bank and a midstream boulder. Also visible from the road at about nine point something (maybe the fourth view?) is a long stretch alongside the road. You'll see a big triangular boulder midstream and it's undercut. We met a couple other butt-boaters and they got a boat stuck under it. I like to run far right of it as trying to go left seems to bring you brushing by the undercut. Upstream and still in view (there's a dirt pull-out) is a flat-topped rock with an undercut also. Again, I go way right of this. Worth looking at these two rocky drops as you drive up to the put-in by getting out and scouting from the road.
Between 10 Mile and these roadside views are several steep rocky drops that can be boat scouted, but might better be bank scouted the first time through. "Death Ferry" is pretty radical as are two other super-steep drops, one maybe 5-10 minutes above and another 5-10 minutes below.
In general, follow the main flows and biggest tongues everywhere. If you don't/can't then you run the risk of running up on a boulder and falling out of your boat. Staying in the best water demands a lot of maneuvering and quick turning and the "snicker-snack" technique, where you are pivoting and alternating back-stabbing back-paddles with forward power stroking to slalom through the rocks.
Anyway this is a classic packrafting creek, worth multiple runs in a day.
By the way, best to use the USGS gauge rather than the NOAA one. USGS seems to have a more accurate stage to discharge relationship.
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