RIDING THE WATERS OF DENALI.

Coffee Creek, Cripple Creek, Snowslide Creek, Lake Creek, and Sunflower Creek appear to most people as little blue lines surrounded by green on a map. Few people even know their name. They are just one more location in the immenseness that is Alaska. That’s what made the adventure so appealing; there was minimal information about them. Few if any persons had ever recorded navigating them.

Deposited deep in the wilderness by a tiny red helicopter, the team would load up their gear in inflatable pack rafts and head out on the icy cold waters. Fed by glacial runoff and the spiderweb of streams flowing down the surrounding mountainsides, each ferrying fresh rainfall towards the sea, the rivers could be perfectly clear or thick with glacial silt almost blue-grey in color. The banks of the rivers often were thick with dense stands of Alder and willows, forming a virtually impenetrable mesh of branches that added to the sense of isolation. They were in territory that few humans had ever visited. It was the turf of bears, moose, elk, and other animals.