Alaska Packrafting Adventure (Whale’s Tail)

For the past seven summers, I have gone backpacking with a group of undergrad friends (who I met in 1999). We’ve gone to Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and Peru. 25 years after meeting each other, we decided to backpack Alaska. Ironically, it was a Bogleheads post that inspired that decision.

We eventually converged on this packrafting itinerary. Blog reader Ken from Alaska even provided some great beta on our proposed route. Thanks Ken!

First off, the trip can be summarized pretty well in this instagram post from my buddy.

 

Here’s the more detailed trip report:

***** High-Level Route Description *****

The hike started at Backside Lake on the Whale’s tail (the giant whale’s tail feature above). Over the next 4 days, we made our way South to the Tokositna River.

We initially planned on rafting all of the way to Talkeetna, but ended up falling a little behind schedule so we bailed at the bridge and hitched a ride to Talkeetna.

 

Elevation profile of our hike. There were some hellish passes on day 2. I’ve done 22 miles of backpacking in a single day, but the 0.5 mile/hr pace of bushwhacking through alders is something that I had never experienced in my life (and perhaps hope to never repeat).

 

 

***** Day -2. Monday *****

Fly to Anchorage. Layover in Seattle. Arrive at 8:30pm local. Uber to AirBnB. Go to sleep.

Alaska Airlines + 737-MAX = an ominous omen?

 

***** Day -1. Tuesday *****

Buy supplies at Costco (food/bear spray). Rent gear (dry-suits, packrafts, PFDs, satellite phone).

Glorious breakfast.

Dry-suit rental fitting.

Packing.

 

 

***** Day 0. Wednesday *****

We took an 8-hour packrafting course from our awesome river guide Kurt. We started off on a placid lake, where we practiced self-rescuing (getting back into the boat after falling out) in a controlled environment. During this portion of the training, water got into my dry-suit because I hadn’t secured the zipper properly. An important lesson learned in a safe environment. After an hour or two on the lake, we drove to a nearby river. The very first section of the river was a class 3-, which I took a swim in. I self-rescued fairly easily which was confidence building.

I’m in the blue boat seconds away from flipping.

 

***** Day 1. Thursday *****

Our float plane departed an hour or so later because we were waiting for a weather window to clear at Backside Lake. The flight was spectacular and one of the highlights of the trip. Unfortunately, it was the only time we saw Denali during our trip. Upon landing on the lake, I had to relieve myself. Not more than 20 yards from our landing spot, adjacent to my urination target, I was reminded that we weren’t in Kansas any more. The first sign of bear activity — a pretty massive bear print in the hardened mud.

Rust’s Flying Service in Anchorage. Such a cool vibe. I loved the dogs chilling on the dock.

Ruth Glacier.

Landing at Backside Lake.

Unloading our gear.

Goodbye float plane. Talk about a reality check.

Ascending from the Ruth glacier without a clue that this was the last we’d see the sun/sky for the next 4 days.

Enjoying the nice views above the Ruth glacier.

Our first lunch stop, where I realized that the 4-year old Snickers bars I found in my basement were inedible — even for someone as indifferent towards food as me. I managed to stuff one down but couldn’t do any more.

Lots of stream crossings on that first day. During several of them we had to wade across.

During Day 1, we encountered a half dozen of these ravines which required some pretty big detours to navigate.

Chugging uphill to eventually come back down. In hindsight, we should have been much less eager to get on the mountain and instead hiked alongside the Ruth glacier for as long as we could.

Campsite 1. Not a bad view. Miraculously we found a couple square feet of vegetation that wasn’t completely saturated in standing water to pitch our tents. We collapsed in our sleeping bags after a long and wet day. My feet were frozen and they were pretty painful when they came back to life in my sleeping bag.

 

***** Day 2. Friday *****
Day 2 was really challenging. It involved yet another day of miserable weather. Lots of steep elevation gain/loss. Some tricky navigation around ridges.

There is nothing more demoralizing than getting out of a tent to put on wet clothing and shoes and spend the entire day hiking in the rain.

These mini-moguls were everywhere! Such cool terrain that I hadn’t seen before.

This section of the hike was unbelievably steep. The photos don’t do it justice. One of my buddies slipped and slid a good 15 feet down before coming to a stop. Thank goodness for the incredible friction provided by this vegetation. If not for that friction, we would have been completely thwarted.

After a bit of sketchy and meandering route finding, we finally reached the Tokosha Mountains. After this long and challenging day of hiking, we still had to get up and over one more pass (past the snow fields pictured above) hidden in the clouds.

If you squint hard you can see two of us crossing that big valley.

This pass in the Tokosha Mountains was a bit gnarly. Almost impassable.

Our campsite. Salvation.

The would-be gorgeous views were obscured by clouds, of course.

 

***** Day 3. Saturday *****

Our plan from here was to bushwhack our path to freedom via the Tokositna river and camp along the river. However, the bushwhacking proved to be worse than we had expected (and we expected atrocious bushwhacking). We ended up setting up camp mid-bushwhack and finishing our bushwhack to the river the following day.

Each day of this trip was physically, mentally, and emotionally brutal. For each day we survived, we were rewarded with an even harder day the next day.

Wild blueberries for miles. I gorged myself and my body thanked me for the calories.

We sang praises to the gods above for any bit of reprieve from the alder tree hell.

In the thick ferns like this, we’d seek out paths that the bears had established. Those paths were glorious.

Camp 3. Well short of our desired destination. Given our lack of slack in our schedule, this is where we called ahead of time to arrange a ride at the bridge egress 4 hours short of Talkeetna. Oddly, we had cell phone reception for most of our hike on Verizon’s network.

 

***** Day 4. Sunday *****

This is the day we bushwhacked our way through miles of alder hell to get to the freedom of the Tokositna river. I felt a lot like Andy Fufresne crawling his way to freedom through a sewage line. There are few instances in my life where I’ve been happier in my life than when we saw and eventually reached that river.

That river was a sight for sore eyes! The problem was that there was still several miles of bushwhacking through alder hell to get there!

Alder hell, where the cold and gangly limbs of the trees reached out and actively tried to drag us backwards. Having the paddles sticking out of our packs certainly added to the challenge. When we weren’t getting dragged to hell by the alders, we were getting stabbed to death by the spikes of Devil’s club.

Oftentimes, we found that the alders were slightly less dense in the actual creeks, so we opted to hike down slippery creeks. The problem with the creeks is this is where the spiky Devil’s club was densest. It was truly lose-lose for the 13-hour slog.

We finally arrived. A true Andy Dufresne Shawshank Redemption moment!!!

We were so cold when we got into our dry-suits in the pounding rain. Only to sit and get blasted by the wind and rain for the subsequent 8 hour float.

Periodically we’d have to find a sand bar to do jumping jacks on to try to get blood flowing to the extremities again. Seeing my buddy attempt to warm up his body by clumsily running with his frozen feet was one of the funniest things I’ve witnessed in my life. I hope to never forget that moment. While shivering on these mini-breaks, we tried to consume as many calories as we could to keep our bodies going.

Existing the Chulitna River at the bridge to bum a ride to Talkeetna.

Salvation!!!!

One of the happiest car rides of my life!!! Glenn bailed us out big time with his Suburban at the bridge, which was our first sign of civilization in the 4 days! I was so grateful to get out of that river and start drying off for the first time in 4 days!!! Glenn even gave us a jar of salmon which we devoured at the airport. And a big thanks to Richard Harren, who operates the Tokosha Camp cabins, for putting us in contact with Glenn!!! The kindness of strangers makes me much less jaded about the world!!!

Gorging on pizza in Talkeetna.

 

***** Day 5. Monday *****

We hopped on a shuttle from Talkeetna to Anchorage, returned our gear, then flew home. Our shuttle from Talkeetna to Anchorage was filled primarily with retired folks who had spent the entirety of their vacation to Alaska being shuttled from resort to resort. The chirpy nature of the bus driver pointing out a moose on the side of the road reminded me of a DisneyWorld tour guide. Such a contrast to the wild experience we had just survived!

We retrieved some stashed gear at Rust’s before heading back to the Anchorage airport. What a beautiful place! If there is an afterlife, I wish to be reincarnated as a dog on Rust’s dock (at least during summers).

I failed the IQ test to operate the water fountains at the Anchorage airport. I literally had to ask my friend to help me figure it out.

It turns out that the button was tiny and located underneath the water fountain. How could I have missed it given how well lit it is?

After a sleepless night on the plane, my layover in Seattle was from 6am-9am. I stayed at a lounge from 6am-8:15am, after which I walked to my gate. While waiting a few minutes for my zone to start boarding, I fell asleep and almost missed my flight. During my short snooze, the act of drooling on myself snapped me awake and helped me to not miss my flight. I’ve never been more grateful for drool — otherwise I might still be stuck there!

 

***** Post-trip thoughts *****

• I don’t know that I’ve ever been more sleep deprived in my life. I don’t think I slept more than 4 hours per night for a 10-day stretch.
• For days upon returning home, my appetite was bigger than I ever remember it being in my life. I could not get enough calories into me.
• The transition back to suburbia has been a bit jarring to the system. The sanitized existence. The coddling. The screens. The monotony. A few weeks after returning home, I am already beginning to feel the call of the wilderness. It seems to be such an innate part of us that is totally suppressed in today’s world.
• We did our best with route finding, but certainly made some mistakes. Mainly, we should have more actively tried to avoid the alders by staying high on the last descent or even taking a different route entirely after our second campsite. The first day we should have avoided the many gulleys by walking alongside the glacier for as long as we could rather than hopping up the mountain at the first opportunity.
• I would actively dissuade anyone I know from taking this trip unless they love intense suffering and are extremely comfortable managing risk.