The super cub bounced down gently on the gravel bar. The oversized tundra tires looked like they would fit on a Boeing 737. They were under- inflated purposefully to absorb the uneven terrain and did a beautiful job of setting me down in God’s country.
“Brent and Brian are right up around the corner.” Tom pointed upriver to their approximate whereabouts as I helped him pivot the plane around.
The breezy afternoon had made for a bouncy flight and he couldn’t land in the same spot that he had when he dropped them off the day before. I grabbed as much of my stuff as possible and headed up river to find my buddies as the black and yellow plane took to the sky and disappeared in the distance.
The mile-wide river bottom was a myriad of braided channels. Only a few of them contained the silty waters of the Yentna. It was easy to see that during times of high water the whole floodplain could be underwater but for now it was easy hiking on beautiful gravel bars. Twisted white driftwood of all sizes was littered on every bar like it was sprinkled from a big shaker high in the sky. The mountains of the Alaska range hemmed in both shores and overlooked the river valley from all sides.
I had agreed to this trip with enthusiasm. In the name of filling-in-the blanks of my geographical sense of place, this one was huge. Approximately 100 river miles up the Yentna river via the West fork, we were tucked up into the Alaska range with rafts and time and beer. Oh yeah, we had guns and fishing poles too.
All three of us have cabins on the lower Yentna (some 80 river miles downstream) and seeing its source and all the new country appealed to all of us. The plan was to make our way down the river all the while looking for black bears and good clear tributaries to fish.
Sure enough, around the corner sitting among the giant pile of gear was Brent Mason and Brian Gornick. They were both lounging in their camp chairs and had situated themselves in the middle of a big pile of gear. With the wind at their back and the sun in their face, it looked like they’d been there a while. Each was clutching a beer. “Hey guys, I couldn’t wait for the plane, I decided to walk-in.” I was betting that they hadn’t heard the plane land around the corner in the 20 knot winds. I knew that I looked ridiculous wearing my orange float-coat and my bright orange helmet. I had a giant green water-proof bag on my back and I was carrying two cases of beer.
“Welcome.” said Brian as they both got up to help shuttle my gear.
At least part of my interest in the upper Yentna region stems from its early exploration by those who were in search of high places.
In 1906 Dr. Frederick Cook, Belmore Browne, and the good Professor Herschel Parker were among seven hardy souls to set out to be the first to the top of the continent. Like me, they had a desire to tromp their way to North America’s highest point: Mt. Mckinley.
Unlike me, they weren’t fortunate enough to have K2 aviation buzz them out to the East fork of the Kahiltna glacier landing them at a comparatively comfortable striking distance from the mountain. Their story was a little different. They had to route find their way from tidewater. The West fork of the Yentna was their first guess as to how to penetrated the Alaska range.
After sailing to Seldovia from Seattle and steaming over to Tyonek, they split their party in two. One group had twenty burly pack horses, the other had a wooden skiff with a shoal-draft motor boat The plan was to meet at the headwaters of the Yentna which was precisely where Brent, Brian, and I were staged.
“The conquest of Mount McKinley”, by Belmore Browne is an interesting and detailed account of their efforts. If ever I thought that my wilderness forays were remotely burly, tough, or impressive in the slightest, all I need to do is pick up this book and refresh my memory of what the true definition of hardship and adventure really is.
After a month of bushwhacking their way up stream, their West fork aspirations ended when it narrowed into a harrowing canyon with steep walls and crushing glacial rapids. Their efforts at this point were riddled with near-drownings with horse and man. Their food supply was dangerously low, so Belmore shot a giant Brown bear that he’d spotted on a hillside. When he discovered that the bear had a series of infected slash wounds from an obvious bear-fight and couldn’t stomach eating it, he left it for dead. It was at this point that Belmore Browne declared something like, “This sucks.”
Eventually after being slapped-down again and again they retreated back downstream, crossed all the braids of the West fork and endeavoured to try the East fork. At this point one passage sticks out: “The quicksands were our principal difficulty and some of the pack horses sank so deep that only their heads were visible above the water...” When we floated by their possible crossing point near the confluence of the East and West fork we pulled over for a sandwich.
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| Belmore Browne's horses don't have shit on Brent |
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| Puffing up the rafts |
“Michael rowed the boat ashore Halla-loooooo- yah!” I pushed off down stream in lackluster form. Someone had tied my left oar into the gear pile and after a brief panic I managed to pull it out and collected my self....It must have been Brian. Off we went commencing downriver progress winding our way out of the Alaska range slowly joining with other braids of the river, splitting away from others. “Michael rowed the boat ashore....” The age old childhood jingle repeated itself as I negotiated my way downriver. Occasionally a bad decision was made and we would have to hop out and drag our inflatable canoes over the shallows. These times were few and far between. Mostly our travels were long stretches of easy going.
Both boats were equipped with mini stereos and I suggested that Brian should be in charge of the music selection for the trip. He phoned me before we left to inform me that his computer wasn't talking to his I-pod and that we would be relying on Brent for music. "I hope you like Willy and Johnny."
Both boats were equipped with mini stereos and I suggested that Brian should be in charge of the music selection for the trip. He phoned me before we left to inform me that his computer wasn't talking to his I-pod and that we would be relying on Brent for music. "I hope you like Willy and Johnny."
Slowly we made our way downstream. Lacking the ability to speed-up, we were resigned to taking it all in and catching up with each other. It had been a long time since I’d been able to catch up with these two friends.
I had dropped a few pins on my GPS on the flight in. I hoped to mark some of the clear water tributaries that we could fish. On the second night we set our sights on one of them and were rewarded when we found a nice back-eddie chock full of Dolly Varden and Grayling. We set up our tent on a nearby gravel bar and quickly discovered that the fishing was pretty good right outside the tent door too. For dinner that night we had pasta primavera with chunks of Dolly Varden- Dolly Primavera!
That night around the campfire we watched a pair of beavers slide in and out of the water in front of us eating mouthfuls of green leafy twigs on the bank. A pair of swans honked and as we turned to look also noticed a cow moose and her calf crossing the river on the upstream side of the sandbar.
In the morning after coffee and a little more fishing, we pushed off back into the Yentna and continued our journey towards our cabins.
Although we had enjoyed a wonderful float trip thus far, our adventure was far from over. We made our way down past Youngstown bend where we encountered our first power boat. From this point down, there were lots of interesting cabins. We shared our opinions on what we thought each cabin owner did right and wrong in the creation of their own Yentna river palace. Some of them looked like shacks that had been abandoned, while others were nicer than our homes.
I was excited to check out an old paddle-wheel steam boat that was anchored in a clearwater back-slough above Fish Lake Creek. I had seen it when I flew over it on the way in. I was hoping it was the S.S. Alice Susitna, an old sternwheel steamer that serviced Talkeetna in the early nineteen hundreds. The Alice was reknown in Talkeetna history for ferrying loads upriver from Susitna Station. Brian Okonek who spoke last winter at the Belmore Browne slide show said that it was rumored to be rotting in some slough around Lake Creek. This little nugget of history had me pretty excited when I spotted a floating sternwheel steamer from the air. “Hey, I think I found the Alice!” I told them one night after recalling my discovery. My enthusiasm was met with blank stares as I went on to explain my limited knowledge of legendary sternwheeler the Alice Susitna.
It turned out to be a different boat; the Susitna Belle. I climbed around on it and took pictures. Preliminary research hasn’t turned up any information on it yet but it looks cool. I am amazed with the idea of these big paddle wheel boat being able to push up through the swift waters of these glacial rivers. Some stretches of both the Yentna and Susitna are extremely braided, shallow and swift moving. I can’t imagine these giant boats making headway upstream but they did and they routinely pushed big loads of supplies.
Finally we made our way down past cabins and lodges until we arrived at the mouth of Fish Lake Creek. The kings were in as we cast shiny lures from our inflatable canoes. Brian had two fish on. One got off and the other broke his line. Bummer.
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Once again we pushed off the bank and resumed our progress. We would be back at Brent’s cabin soon grilling up a delicious King salmon dinner. Little did I realize that, to cap off the trip I would get to shoot a nice six foot black bear the following morning which was not nursing infected wounds and was delicious.
