Rivers: Tatshenshini and Alsek, in the Yukon Territory, British Columbia, and Alaska Participants:   Cararaft: Susan Klimas at the oars, Turner Sharp; Raft: Will Sharp at the oars, with Tim Lewis, David Lohr, and Mike McClanahan (paddle assist). Dates:   August 14 through August 24   (More photos can be found at the bottom of this report)

David Lohr, Tim Lewis, and Will Sharp on the beach at Alsek Lake, Alaska. The snow-capped mountain in the back is Mount Fairweather, one of the largest peaks in North America. The large iceberg was estimated at 150 feet tall. (photo by Susan Klimas)

How to begin? This trip is on a scale that I could not have imagined. It transcends any river trip I've ever done, even the grandeur of the desert rivers in Utah and the mellow beauty of the Idaho rivers. We had to contend with one of the largest concentration of black and grizzly bears in North America. (We saw 12 bears, both black and grizzly. Every campsite we used had bear sign.) We began on a relatively small river and ended up 11 days later on a river of 100,000 cfs, a mile wide in places, with multiple braided channels, many of which are larger than most rivers. We passed by so many glaciers we stopped counting. We saw so many eagles we stopped looking at them. We bathed in a clear cold stream with flecks of real gold gleaming in the sand at the bottom. We walked on a glacier and looked down into crevasses with waterfalls flowing into them so deep you couldn't imagine the bottom. We saw the aurora borealis like a green curtain across the sky. We made our way into a glacial lake where two out of three of the entrances into the lake were entirely blocked with masses of icebergs, some up to 150 feet tall. We spent two days camped on the lake beach listening to icebergs calve with sounds like cannons, sending waves and small bergs way up the beach.

We ran the Tatshenshini River to its confluence with the Alsek River, and continued on the Alsek to Dry Bay, Alaska, which is a part of Glacier Bay National Park. We did 140 (more or less) miles of wilderness, beginning in the Yukon Territory at Dalton Post, continuing through British Columbia, and ending in Alaska. The entire trip was through the largest area of wilderness in North America-the entire length of the Tat/Alsek is protected wilderness.

I had been on the waiting list for a permit for this trip for 3 years (I hear that it's now up to 5 years). After I got a trip date, we had been in the planning stages for 8 months. At first the logistics seemed impossible. We had to arrange for airline tickets on several airlines, Alaska Inland Marine Highway ferry tickets, bush pilots for the take-out, a shuttle to the put-in, and gear rental. We got to Haines, Alaska by truck , and airplane and ferry (the rest of us. We flew from Pittsburgh to Seattle, spent the might in Seattle, then the next day flew to Juneau, spent the night in Juneau, and the next day took the Alaska Inland Marine Highway Ferry to Haines). We picked up our rented raft and satellite phone, and shuttled to the put-in at Dalton Post, Yukon. We all rode in rafts, because it is prohibitively expensive and logistically difficult to fly the kayaks out at the end of the trip. After we experienced the cold and huge water, we were all happy to be in rafts and not in our kayaks.

The trip begins on a relatively small glacial river, already milky colored from glacial silt. The area is heavily forested with patches of Balsam Poplar, Quaking Aspen, and Black Cottonwood with extensive areas of White and Black Spruce. The Spruce stands have experienced heavy mortality (over 50%) from outbreaks of bark beetles over the last several years of warm dry weather and are ripe for intense forest fires. Many were burning to our north and the smoke noticeably impacted our river vistas. Within an hour of putting on the river in our cataraft and raft, we saw a mama grizzly bear and her two-year-old cub on the right shore of an island We immediately decided to take the channel to the left of the island. Those bears were really, really big, and were unmistakably grizzlies.

Soon after the grizzly sighting, we entered the whitewater canyon. The canyon was about six miles long with a 65 fpm gradient. We had been warned about the canyon-the outfitter from whom we had rented the raft told us he had experienced three major tube tears this summer from renters, with the last group flipping a raft up against a canyon wall and tearing a three foot gash in a tube, stranding them in the canyon for two days. Most of that time was spent on a satellite phone receiving instructions on how to repair the tubes. The canyon is continuous technical Class III at low water, with sharp rocks, few raft-sized eddies, little opportunity to rescue swimmers, ice-cold water, and one very tricky rapid at the end. We negotiated the canyon with only one incident-Will hit a rock at the same time that Mike was in the act of throwing a bucket of water overboard, and Mike went in the water headfirst. Mike was quickly recovered, however. At one point, Will was going down a wave train, and was about to wash into a huge ledge hole. His passengers learned a new paddle command at that point: "aw-sh**-all-back!" (one word.) We were through the canyon in less than an hour, as the water moves at anywhere from 6 to 8 miles per hour. Eagle Canyon soon followed. This was a short four mile scenic canyon with no whitewater but an even faster current. We did see a Golden Eagle here. It did not take long for a sighting of a Bald Eagle to not elicit a comment. They were more common then the Great Blue Herons we see along West Virginia waterways.

Our first few camps were on the Tatshenshini just below the outwash deltas from inflowing creeks. The first was at Silver Creek. The second camp, below Sediments Creek, was a layover camp since there was a long hike available to the top of a large knob that provides a panoramic view of the river basin. On our layover day, we hiked to the top of the knob through a forest, after crossing Sediments Creek with the help of ropes. We saw bear claw marks on the trees, and found bits of bear fur snagged on the trail, since the trail we followed was clearly not only a human but a bear trail as well. The highbush cranberry bushes along the trail with ripe cranberries explained why the bears follow the trail. We could see at least six trumpeter swans on the river sloughs below but in general the vista was not good because of the smoke of forest fires drifting down from the north. After the hike, the guys decided to take a bath in the clear stream across the outwash delta. (Sediments Creek itself was milky with glacial silt.) While bathing, they noticed bits of gold flecks in the sand-real gold, but so small that they weren't able to grasp any. David was muttering about panning for gold, rigging a placer set-up, but we were able to talk him into continuing the trip with us. It was at Sediments Creek we first noticed the diurnal effects of glacial melt on the side creeks and the main river. A check of the gauge below Alsek lake showed that it was not unusual to have a 10-15,000 cfs variance during a 24 hour period.

I believe it was at this camp that we got introduced to a biting fly called a "White Sox". They had a nasty habit of alighting and crawling to a hidden spot and doing their duty under watch bands, behind ear lobes, at top of socks, etc. The bite was not too noticeable at first but it soon would produce intense itching. In Tim's case it turned into an allergic reaction, and we had to dip into the med kit for some cortisone cream.

We missed our intended fourth day's camp at O'Connor River. We were in an area of braided channels, and when we drifted by the camp, we were in a center channel about ¼ mile out from the camp and had no way of getting over to the far river left channel, which appeared to be very low anyway. The braided channels were unlike anything I had imagined. One channel will have other channels draining into it and gain more water, while another channel will have channels draining out of it and lose water. The choice is not obvious, either, as you can't see what the channel is going to do ahead. If you choose wrong, you'll likely get hung up on shallow areas and have to push the boat for awhile until you get to another channel. If you choose correctly, that's ok for about a few hundred yards, until you have to choose again with the same consequences. Another problem is that it is not always obvious where the current splits for the various channels, and you may quickly be sucked into a channel you didn't intend with no way of jumping channels due to the speed of the current. Also, the raft behind you could be sucked into another channel, to disappear for up to 20 minutes or so, until you are reunited when the channels converge a couple of miles downstream. It is unnerving to lose all sight of your companions on the river and yet still be side-by-side. The Tatshenshini, by our third and fourth days, was gaining a lot of cfs. Two creeks doubled the flow of the river, and another creek doubled it again. In places, with the braided channels, the river is ½ mile wide. Although it is not considered whitewater, it requires constant rowing and vigilance to navigate the channels, avoid the wood in the water and the occasional hydraulics, and negotiate the wave trains and big water.

At one point, we got hung up in a shallow spot in a channel, and Turner got off the boat to push us off. After the cataraft caught the current, I started floating away at 6 mph or more, and Turner turned around to pee in the river! I had visions of Turner being stranded in the middle of the river, while I floated away, unable to retrieve him. I back-rowed, trying not to get swept away, but it didn't do any good with the power of the current. Luckily, I was able to ground out again, further down the channel. When Turner finished and caught up with me, we had to push the cataraft off the sandbar again. He was lucky not to be stranded, and I let him know this with many forceful words, some of which can't be repeated politely, a number of arm gestures, and a few facial expressions.

We finally found a camp for the fourth night a couple of miles below our intended camp, just above the delta outwash plain of the Tkope River. We camped in the open, with the groover (the potty) in a thicket of alders next to the hill nearby. It was unnerving to see an animal trail just in front of the groover with huge grizzly prints, as well as moose and wolf. We didn't see any wildlife there, but going to the bathroom was a little scary. I approached the groover calling, as recommended, "Hey Bear! Hey Bear!" to warn any bears that I was in the vicinity so they could hightail it away.

Up to this point we had beautiful weather, better than we had any right to expect. Most groups doing the river experience rain and mist and clouds. The Alaskan summer had been unusually sunny and warm this year, and our first few days were hot and suitable for t-shirts. The Tkope River camp was very windy and cold, though, and we saw the wind blowing huge clouds of glacial silt up the Tatshenshini River and also up the Tkope River. The sandstorms were really impressive looking, but luckily we weren't in range.

The fifth night's camp at Towagh Creek featured a bear sighting by Tim, David, and Will, of a mama black bear trying to get her small cub to cross the creek, with the cub refusing to cross. Our sixth camp was downstream of the outwash delta for Melt Creek, and it was here that we experienced our first rain, albeit light rain. The fog lowered, and played around the mountains next to us and across the river, first lowering and obscuring the mountain, then lifting, then lowering again. This was a very scenic and wild looking camp with mountains and glaciers in view from all directions with the varying rain and fog enhancing the effect. There was a small glacier across the delta from us. We saw a bear crossing the Melt Creek drainage, a grizzly, and later saw a black bear ferrying across the Tatshenshini toward us. I worried about the bear in the very cold, very fast water, but the bear was an extremely strong swimmer. Once he saw us, he quickly turned downstream to avoid a confrontation. We had our bear spray ready, though. (Firearms are not permitted in the Canadian parks through which we were traveling, and we followed the rules, relying instead on our air horns and bear spray. Yes, we had all heard the jokes-over and over again.) From Melt Creek we could see the confluence with the Alsek. It looked close, but was actually several miles downstream. At this point, the Tatshenshini was a huge and powerful river, with a velocity of 8 miles per hour.

The next day we entered the Alsek River. We had waited until the fog lifted, but as we passed Reynolds glacier the fog lowered again, and we were rowing blindly, losing sight of each other. This was unnerving, and we decided to ground out together on a sandbar in the middle of the river and have lunch while waiting for the fog to lift, with the water running over our boots. After the fog lifted, we were faced with a huge bowl-shaped area, where the river appeared to end in a circle of mountains. We figured out that the river actually went left when we saw an airplane fly in that direction, and also remnants of fog drifted that way. After turning the bend, we saw a panorama of glaciers, river, mountains of a scale much larger than we had seen before. We saw Walker Glacier, our goal for the day, on river left, but still several miles away. The approach to the camps here is tricky, but we stuck to the river left and made camp on the plain near the glacier.

We made camp out in the open, so that the wind could blow away the bugs. However, the wind picked up that night, and blew down our kitchen fly, so we relocated the next day in the shelter of some alders. Out of the wind it was warm, but in the wind it was very cold. That night, our tents thrummed with the wind. During the night, Turner got up for a call of nature, and saw the aurora borealis in the sky. It began as a yellow-green shimmering curtain, which turned red and then green. After returning to the tent, Turner woke me up, and I sat up in my sleeping bag, unzipped the tent, and stuck just my head out (it was really cold). The northern lights were a green curtain across the sky, but it was so cold that I only watched for a few minutes.

The next day was a layover day. After a little bit of rain and a beautiful rainbow that went from one side of the river to the other, we hiked to and on the glacier, which was an eerie and beautiful experience. The hike took about an hour to get to the glacier, even though it looked much closer. We had to traverse a scree slope to get there. On the glacier, we saw huge crevasses that went into the depths of the glacier, some with waterfalls running into them, some full of water, some empty. The blues of the crevasses ranged from light baby blue to sapphire blue to a deep blue. Some of the crevasses had waterfalls dropping into the interior of the glacier. The seracs above us were blue as well. Even though they looked small from a distance, they were huge. I was very aware that if one of us fell into a crevasse, we wouldn't survive.

We had several bear sightings at this camp, several on a sandbar and several on a snow slope across the glacier. We also saw several bear wallows near our camp. The only other group we saw on the river was camped at another campsite near us. They left after our first night there, and we were alone again.

On the morning of Day 9, the wind was blowing very hard from up and across the river. We waited awhile for the wind to abate, but it never did, so we put on the river anyway. I had to really crank at the oars to not be blown into the riverbank until the river rounded a bend a couple of miles down. We passed Sapphire and Novatak Glaciers, and many other unnamed glaciers. We later found out that Novatak Glacier extends all the way to the ocean near Yakutat. There was a rapid with large, irregular waves in front of the Novatak Glacier. After we rounded another bend, we saw the rarely-seen Mount Fairweather (at 15,320 feet, one of the highest peaks in North America) 35 miles in the distance. It was a clear, beautiful day, and the mountain was clearly visible. Many if not most groups never see it due to mist and clouds. The river is a mile wide here, and has many channels, each of which alone is the size of a large river (although it also has some shallow channels among the main ones). The cfs was around 100,000 at this point. The silt-laden, milky water made a sizzling sound like bacon frying as it flowed beneath the hypalon tubes of the cataraft. The sound was disconcerting because it sounded something like air hissing out of the tubes.

This was the day we had to enter Alsek Lake at Gateway Knob. There are three possible routes into the lake, known to river guides as doors. Door #1, the main route of the river, is also known as the "Channel of Death". It is often blocked by huge (and very dangerous) icebergs. The prevailing wind pushes the bergs against this entry point. Door #2, along the left shore of Gateway Knob, is also often blocked by bergs. Door #3, along the right shore of Gateway Knob, is usually open but is often too shallow. The scouting spot is upstream and up a scree slope. We climbed up, and were greeted by the sight of an unbroken expanse of icebergs completely blocking any possible entrance into the lake from Doors 1 and 2. Door 3 looked like it had enough water to navigate, but it didn't matter-if it didn't, we would have portaged. Fortunately, Door 3 had enough water, and we were able to enter the lake. Later several of us climbed to the top of Gateway knob and could plainly see we had made the correct choice. This hike was through extensive alder thickets and was only slightly more enjoyable then hiking through a West Virginia Rhododendron slick.

We spent two nights camped on the shore of Gateway Knob, watching the icebergs, with Mt. Fairweather looming over it all. Sometimes one would calve, or a glacier would calve, and there would be sounds like sustained cannon fire. Waves would wash up the beach, and small bergs would wash up to 12 feet up the beach. Our boats got washed several feet up the beach during the night. The bergs ranged from sapphire blue to chocolate-vanilla ice cream colors, and in size from a foot across to more than 150 feet tall. They jammed the lake several miles from shore to shore. This was a buggy camp for about 6 hours every day, and we wore our bug hats during this period of time. The only problem with wearing the bug hats was during dinner-we had to raise the netting to eat, and consequently spent dinner hour walking around to keep the bugs from settling on us. At one point, I put Turner to work whipping instant pudding while he was wearing his bug hat. The evidence of pudding on the netting in front of his mouth gave him away, since he tried to sneak a preview of the pudding without removing the netting.

Day 11, our final day, arrived, and we rowed out of the lake, accompanied by a number of smaller icebergs. The current in the river was about 12 mph. After two rapids, we finally found the slough that led to the Dry Bay airfield. The airfield was a gravel area between the trees.( It also served as a shipping point for salmon (sockeye and Silver) brought in by the gill netters allowed to operate on the area rivers.) We unloaded, packed up our gear, and awaited our bush pilots the following morning. Four of us flew to Yakutat with our personal gear in one tiny plane, then flew from Yakutat to Juneau, then to Seattle, then to Pittsburgh. Turner and Mike and all the rest of the gear flew back to Haines in two tiny planes, to begin the 7-day road trip home. This flight flew northeast over the extensive ice fields and glaciers with nary of patch of greenery for 45 minutes. It also made the Walker glacier on which we had hiked look pretty insignificant. Often groups flying to Haines are delayed for several days by weather, as the small planes fly by line of sight, and I had packed extra food in case this happened. However, they were able to fly out with no problems.

We had almost a day to kill in Yakutat, pop. 600, and after exploring the town, spent several hours in a smoky bar next to the airport playing Texas hold-'em (I was the big winner.) Then the flight to Juneau, an overnight there, and the next day the long flight to Seattle and Pittsburgh.

What can I say? It was a grand adventure, and we were lucky to have wonderful weather and no mishaps. As the guidebook says, there is an occasional rare group that has a mellow float on these rivers, and we were it. The beauty and scale of the river and surroundings were off the charts, and I realize how lucky we all were to have experienced it at all, much less with great weather and no mishaps.

Photos

Mama and cub grizzly tracks. (photos by Susan Klimas)

Susan's boot next to a grizzly track. (photos by Susan Klimas)

While hiking, Tim, David, and Will saw Mama Black bear trying to get her new cub to cross a stream toward where they were standing. They had the bear spray ready! (photo by Tim Lewis)

Looking downstream from camp at Walker Glacier. (photo by Susan Klimas)

Waiting on a sandbar in the middle of the mile-wide river for the fog to lift so we could see where we were rowing. (photo by Susan Klimas)

Looking at Walker Glacier from near camp. (photo by Susan Klimas)

David standing beside a crevasse on the glacier. (photo by Tim Lewis)

Iceberg (150 feet tall) on Alsek Lake, with Mt. Fairweather in the background. (photo by Susan Klimas)