Headed North

We left Seward to head inland and north, through Anchorage to the small cruise ship town of Talkeetna.

I call it a “cruise ship town” because the major cruise lines to Alaska (NCL, Princess) use it as a day excursion destination so on some days it is packed with tourists. The Alaska Railroad has a station here where the train to Denali from Seward and Anchorage comes through. There is also a “flagstop” train route, which runs for about 60 miles north of Talkeetna. On this route people can literally flag the train down and hop on and off. Hikers, campers, and folks homesteading along the route are the main users, and others ride it for the scenery. It runs year round.

It’s a funky but appealing town. It is also the home base for the over 1,000 climbers seeking to summit Denali in a given year.

On the Susitna River in town there is a beautiful view of Denali – when the clouds aren’t covering it which is a lot of the time. The mountain makes it’s own weather. Trust me, the mountain is out there somewhere 🙂 (hint – see the last photo in this post).

We got lucky with the weather the day we took a jet boat 60 miles up the Susitna River to a place called Devils Canyon. The boat only draws 14 inches of water which allows them to run the river without worrying about all the obstacles floating along or the always shifting gravel bars.

The day we went the flow was over 30,000 cfs (cubic feet per second) making it one of the largest rivers in the US. It has never been dammed despite numerous attempts which were fortunately shut down. The river drains from the Susitna Glacier which fills it with gray, silty “rock flour” which occurs as the glacial ice grinds the underlying stone. Here is an idea of the difference in the water clarity with Portage Creek flowing into the river.

Portage Creek lies just below Hells Canyon. The canyon has never been rafted successfully as the Class 6 rapid proved to be unrunable. However on two occasions a jet boat has successfully traversed the canyon, once was by the father of our boat captain. Capt. Israel ran the boat through the Class 4/5 rapids right up to the Class 6 and we hung out there in awe of the sheer power of the water.

https://youtu.be/jUjyT7IWvik

On the way down the river the boat stopped at a location that, under the direction of the University of Alaska, they have constructed a replica of a traditional trapping camp that would have been in the area historically.

After dinner that day we noticed that the clouds had thinned so we made another trip to the river to see if Denali was visible. Most of it was (it’s the big gray shape in the back) with the top still in the clouds.