The Upper Kuskulana Canyon proved to be a pack raft worthy trip. Jule & I left Anchorage at 5:30a.m. Saturday morning, met Tony Perelli & Luc Mehl at Fred Myers in Eagle River @ 6:00a.m., then drove the 5-ish hour drive to the Kuskulana Trestle bridge out towards McCarthy. After making a quick observation, we decided the water was pretty low, but runnable, so we ditched the 50cc kids dirtbike (our shuttle rig) and drove towards the Strelna Creek trailhead. We hiked 15 miles on the Nugget Creek trail to the Nugget Creek cabin (got there at 6:15p.m. in the dark), and got a nights sleep. Woke up to thick fog/cloud cover and sub-freezing temperatures. I put on and floated the first couple miles, the other guys met me lower when the water was deeper. We floated for about 5 hours until we reached the entrance to Upper Kuskulana Gorge, started a fire to warm up, then went in.

The first rapid "Juicy Juice" clamied 1 swimmer. The rapids that followed were fun and very doable, lots of narrow slots in the 2-4 ft. range w/ small holes at the base. Then came the 2nd true river-wide ledge "Double Suck." Tony gave it a go and cleaned the ledge, then just as the name implies was sucked left towards the 2 sieves... all was well though. Onward we went until we reached "House of God." Luc gave it a go and unfortunately I don't have that part on film (recording issue), but he caught the 1st eddy in the move then the rest was history, but he was ok at the bottom:^)

THEN the crazy part happened... the water went slack & we were suddenly paddling a lake. I knew something was wrong and a dam had formed somewhere almost instantly. A few hundred yards downstream and sure enough a HUGE landslide came in from river-left (right where the narrowest part of the canyon used to be). It formed one of the most impressive & runnable class V+/VI- rapids "Hydro-bomb Falls" I've seen in Alaska to this day. We were able to walk on the super sketchy land slide to the base of the falls to portage (thank god... I would have been stoked to have my hard shell to fire up this sweet drop, but I don't think a pack raft was suited for it:^) Putting in at the base a fun class III juicy wavetrain led us to the river mellowing out quickly. A 45 minute float to the take-out (paddling in the dark) saw us at the road at 6:55p.m. We arrived back in Anchorage at 1:00a.m. this morning. AMAZING weekend and good times!

ps: be EXTREMELY careful and do not go into this river next spring until this new rapid has had high water attempting to break the dam in June/July... it could go at any second w/ the amount of water (I assume around 60 ft. deep resevior was created) that's in that retaining lake!

So, Roman & I decided to give The Throne Room of Tincan Creek a go for it's 1st packraft descent. The water was absolutely, ridiculously low, but we still had a good time anyway. The day prior Jon Combs & I headed in to run Upper Bird Creek's Upper Sanctum, doing a bit of cliff jumping to run some of the last unrun drops of Upper Bird. Enjoy.

I came across this old video of the 1st descent of Devils Canyon. I believe flow was right around 26,000 cfs. Walt Blackadar (the original God of pioneering big water kayaking) is tackling this river with incredible helicopter footage. You've GOT to see this...

6 pack rafters and 2 kayakers gave Bird Creek a go. The water was ridiculously low, but the creek was fun none the less. Here's some footage of the day...

JD Batove, Brandon Gonski, and I went in to run my favorite run in AK... Upper Willow Creek. It's guaranteed to get your nerves going every time no matter what caliber boater you are. Water was flowing about 650cfs (near perfect) and the day was a good one. Footage below...

Liz Embick, Xavier Engle, and I took a float down the Kuskulana canyon (Upper section) over Labor Day weekend. The flow was much higher than the previous recommended levels, but it proved to be a good trip none the less. The video will do no justice for how truly amazing this gorge is when you're sitting down in your boat within it's depths. Enjoy!

Well, we hopped on what we thought was a little run creek out in the bush of Alaska. Taking the Alaska Railroads "Hurricane Whistle-stop" train for $23.20 we had a sweet, plush shuttle towards the put-in after parking and loading boats on the train in Talkeetna. 1 hour later we were sitting at the top of a little known run with a supposed canyon. I'd call the run class II+/III- in the "canyon", which was really just occasional cliff walls, usually on just one side of the river. It had maybe 150ish cfs, so was more of a creek. I'd suggest this river to beginners/intermediates looking to go an a truly Alaskan-style adventure mixing train rides, boats, creeks, and the big water of the Big Susitna River (we floated all the way back to Talkeetna). Here's the video

Hey Folks,

Just spreading the word about the Nenana Wildwater Festival (the 33rd annual gathering). The main events are August 15th (Saturday) including the traditional downriver race from Jonesville Bridge to Two Rocks Rapid and the whitewater rodeo, which includes a downriver prequalifier topped off with the finals held at Razorback/aka Roosertail Rapid just off the highway. It would be great to see the whole community up there supporting the festival and all proceeds benefit charity. I'm not sure if they are charging entry fees to the events or just making a volunteered donation box like Six-Mile-Fest, but everyone should show up either way to partake in the activities. I believe there are a few things going on Friday (August 14th) as well, but Saturday is the day to NOT miss:^) Click on the link below to see the schedule of events...

http://lifemorenatural.com/?p=1613,

and a big thanks to Allan for coordinating this event. He's flying up to Alaska just to make it happen, so thank him if you see him wondering around at the festival. As a side note, I'll try to have some Alaska Whitewater Guidebooks and New Horizon videos for sale while I'm up that way. See you folks up there!

It all began at 6a.m. Speculation was little, determination was high... so we all met at the Talkeetna Tesoro and off we went, Jule, Jason, James, & I, to Honolulu Creek (which I hadn't done at the time, but several reports confirmed it a "worthy go." We loaded boats on the moose meat trailer, and with a bit of pushing and shoving we managed to get the ATV to the top of Little Honolulu Pass via the Hurricane Gulch bear hunting trail. We unloaded boats (which were weighed down w/ camping gear, extra clothes, cameras, and food. Up we went, dragging our heavy boats and busting through late-season snow until we reached the summit of the pass. Down we went, hiking a bit over a mile in wrong direction. Studying the topo map, we turned back and hiked till 9:30p.m., then set up camp just before the rain began falling.
Rain woke us up at 5a.m. the next morning, but shortly ended as we finished breakfast. Breaking down camp, we began the arduous dragging process of our heavy kayaks through the big valley (stopping to rest and watch Jason's silouette chasing 4 Caribou far off in the distance). Then the work really began, dropping into Honolulu Valley via a steep creek w/ several 10-30 ft waterfalls. We continued our "canyoneering" trip, rapelling boats and humans through the steep, slick gorge... which was much more enjoyable than the alder-beatdown we previously received. FINALLY, at 12:30p.m. we reached the creeks edge. I was exhausted, Jason was probably wishing he had brought more food than just 3 lbs of raw meat... no literally, he brought nothing except raw meat, James was beat down hard, and Jule might be the toughest woman in the world to carry a kayak that far in that difficult of terrain.
Shoving off into the water (pretty low) we floated about 15 minutes and eddied out on river-right just above California Ledge(IV). The creek is split in 2 by a large boulder. The right side (runnable at higher water) had a rock in the landing zone. We opted to run the river-left line off a 4 ft. waterall, barely missing a cave rock sticking out from river left. You definitely want your bow pointed right on this drop! Downstream we ran into several more great drops, one powerful one in particular (Slideways - class IV move) where the creek wraps in a nearly 90 degree elbow to the right and drops off a 4 ft. slide sideways. Below this there were several more great drops, and many funs slides & boulder garden combinations, all in the class III range. About 4ish miles of gravel bar shallow floating ended the river (occasionally interwoven w/ a small rapid) until we reached the take-out at the Honolulu Creek bridge.
It would have been fun to put in at Goat Lake, but hiking a kayak & camping gear that far is more than an adventure in itself! Everything was ran though and we'll be back to go higher (the ATV trail goes closer to Goat Lake, but the snow stopped us from continuing.
I'll get pictures posted soon!!

Thanks to everyone that came out and competed, spectated, and volunteered at the festival this year. Everything turned out great. The wedding of James & Debra went smooth, the mass start race provided some carnage, the weather was perfect, the hotdogs/drinks/raffle were free, and the beer was still fairly cold (and free as well:^) We'll see you all next year on the 1st Saturday of June for the 3rd annual Six Mile Fest. Until then, the Nenana River Festival is set for Saturday, August 15th, so make sure to be out there to support the northern paddling community and we can thank Allan Warren for putting it together. I'll get more info on the Nenana River Festival posted soon. Thanks sponsors for your generous donations. As always, everything was free at the Six Mile Fest, including beer, hot dogs, drinks, competition entry, and even the raffle. This wouldn't be possible without our sponsors, so make sure to support them in the future! Thanks everyone.