So I just had a blast with some excellent White Water rafting last week and thought I'd post the highlight for any other potential Head-Fi White Water fans!
Location: 6 Mile Creek, Just outside of Hope, Alaska on the Seward Peninsula (about 1.5 hours out from Anchorage Alaska).
6 Mile Creek is a glacier-fed river and it is COLD!! I've fallen into the rivers in Fairbanks, Alaska in the Interior with regular clothes on, and it was so cold it knocks the breath out of you in a second and puts you on the fast course to hypothermia. This water is constantly fed by melting glacier water all spring/summer long, so it's much much worse. It's fast moving, and shallow (4-5 ft deep in most spots), and runs through three canyons which have some of the best Class III - Class V rapid action in the State of Alaska. For those who don't know, Class V is the highest level of traversable rapid. Class VI is the highest designation for rapids, but is reserved for rapids that are likely to cause death if attempted and are usually not attempted. Once someone successfully attempts a Class VI and is able to map a safe passage, it is downgraded to a Class V for commercial activity.
Anyhow, a couple of the guys I worked with on on the rigs were planning this trip early this year and tried to get everyone who would be on their off-hitch to tag along. I didn't have anything planned and had been white water rafting a couple of times in the past (Class III and IV) so I figured now would be a great time to get into it again, especially considering it is one of the harshest and best known commercial white water treks in the state. Left Fairbanks at 4:00 AM that day to drive down to Anchorage, catch a bite to eat and then drive down to Hope to make the 2:00 PM starting time:
Our little sub-group of guys from the rig and family/friends. See the guy second from the left, in the back? That's me! We were a group of 11, but were joined by about 10 other people as well and managed to make 4 boats of 5 people each and 1 boat with 6 people. Each boat also had a river guide with it. Every person on the boat was responsible for steering the boat, but the guide was there to gauge trajectory and approach and call out orders so we could make it from start to finish safely.
The full group getting the safety lecture and prepped up with helmets and Dry-suits, The dry suit really does do the job of keeping you dry in the water, but does nothing to keep you warm. The helmet? Absolutely useless against a direct impact against a rock and more for protecting you from grazes than anything else. We had a wide spread of women and men and ages - youngest was a kid with her dad (must have been about 10-11) and a couple of 60+ seniors with us. All people seen above passed the initial Class 0 swim from one side of the river to the other in full stream current so everyone was able to go on forward!
My boat making its way through the first of the Class III rapids on the run. The guy bringing up the front of the boat on the left (getting the brunt of the splash in this picture) ? That's me again. Yup, I got to lead the boat! The guy in the back with the brown helmet was our river guide, Mike. A fantastic guide, as it will be seen in a few pictures...This was a picture of the last of the Class III rapids in Canyon 1.
Here's Scott on the rescue pontoon. Also a fantastic guide as will be seen in a few pictures. This is Scott making quick work of one of the last of the Class IV rapids at the end of Canyon 2.
I'm not in this boat, but this is the rest of the group I was with in the second boat. This is a shot of them with their guide, Bernie taking on the first of the Class V rapids in Canyon 3 - The Anvil. I don't have pictures of it, but the three guys up in the front took a hit on the next Class V rapid after this one and the three guys up front all ended up in the water with Scott catching up to them very quickly on the pontoon.
Back to my boat as we are halfway through Canyon 3. See that innocuous looking bit of water in the bottom left? That's THE SUCKHOLE (Class V)! And we're heading straight toward it!
Hit The Suckhole hard! I should be at the front of the picture, but I'm not anymore because I'm already under water!
The Suckhole emptied everyone out of the boat except for Mike, the guide. You can see him just looking at us all leaving him behind in the boat. I just started bobbing back up to the surface but
since I came up under the boat, the boat pushed me right back down again so you still can't see me in the pictures.
The second time I bobbed back upward, I was coming up as everyone behind me fell into the water and were thrashing away trying to move forward. Someone (I'm pretty sure the guy who was behind me in the boat) winged my helmet pretty hard with his foot and pushed me down again! at this point, I'm still under water along with one other guy.
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Well, we all finally bobbed back up to surface and started rolling into the safety position (on your back with your legs facing forward). The current is too strong to try to back-paddle back to the raft and by now, it's already a good 15-20 feet behind us. The safety position also gives us a very good look at the rapids ahead :D
Poor Mike! Without us in the boat providing additional weight and paddles, the raft is too light and too underpowered for him to get it out of The Suckhole himself. The current is too strong and he's literally doing everything he can to just stay in place and not because a potential accident himself like us!
Not to worry though! Bernie's been watching from behind us as we took on The Suckhole and planned his new approach to hit Mike head-on! The force was enough to push him free of The
Suckhole and retain enough forward momentum to keep the same from happening to them.
Free of The Suckhole, Mike begins paddling hard to catch up with us so he can get us all back in the boat again! Meanwhile, Scott has already pulled ahead of our little procession and picked up the first floater (Elsa, I think her name was). The rest of us are still floating and trying to subtly change our trajectory to either slow down enough to grab onto Mike as he tries to catch up, or float towards Scott. That mass of red between the two is me. I was the last one to get back up from under water so I was at the back of the group as we floated on down.
By this point, Mike is just making his way into the series of rollers that we are in the middle of and most of the rest of our group (everyone except for me) has floated to and made it to the pontoon boat. I'm still floating along. You can see me right at the top of the second roller (I've already gone through the first one that Mike is approaching, and you can see I still have two more to take on on my back before I make it to the pontoon. Those things are knarly on your back! You can see yourself approaching the roller since you are looking straight at them, and when you find yourself on top of one, you can see the rest of them straight ahead, and just when it hits you that you're at the top of the roller, you slide right to the bottom, hoping that your back doesn't meet the giant rock at the bottom of the roller as well, and then, the wave crashed over you and pulls you under. By the time your are back up above water and catching your breath and spitting water out of your mouth and nose, the next roller is picking you up to toss you on the next rapid. And all the time, you're freezing, trying to hold onto your paddle and keep your feet from towing under the water and grabbing rocks and roots that could catch and pull you under. Amazing rush which hits you hard when you finally reach the pontoon boat and realize what just happened. It felt like minutes passed between us falling in and us catching the pontoon boat, but in reality, it was more like a single minute from falling out, to Mike catching up with the pontoon boat.
Successful run down the river!!
Edited by appophylite - 6/27/11 at 3:30pm
