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Published: September 11th 2009
Jodi
My adventurous Canoe buddy!For the Labor Day weekend I was invited to go on a 3-day backpacking/canoeing trip with one of my hiking buddies from last summer. The trip included a series of 10 lakes, a “difficult passage,” and a 22-mile river. My eagerness for outdoor adventure is at its max. Fall is beginning to show her colors in sheets of red draping down the mountainsides and through the puffs of fluttering feathers on the tips of fireweed. I am not ready for winter and have all intentions of spending as much free time exploring new corners of Alaska. Needless to say I jumped at this opportunity.
We left Saturday morning with two cars and two canoes an made the 3 1/2 hour drive down the Kenai Peninsula and up to the Swanson River Campground. On the way we saw stopped to admire a brown bear demolishing a salmon on the side of the Kenai River.Apparently there were whales on the way at Beluga Point but Jodi and I missed them somehow, despite my numerous photos out of the window (I have have yet to see a whale here). After dropping off the first car at our destination by the river, we drove
On the way
Near Girdwood another 40 minutes to the first lake. My canoe partner, Jodie and I grabbed our bags and balanced our upside-down canoe seats on the back of our packs for the short trek to Paddle Lake. Dan, my old hiking buddy, and his partner Diana, were shortly behind us. It was difficult to see where we were going but we blindly trusted the narrow, dirt trail at our feet.
Once we got on the lake, the tip of our canoe broke through the thin glass surface of the water. Our only company was pair of Trumpeter Swans and a few loons. The tree line of Cottonwood, Birch and Spruce blended into the water making it difficult to clearly define where the water began and the trees ended. It was in the mid seventies and not a cloud in the sky. We glided out onto the lake, soaking in the stillness.
Our next portage was rough, at a half a mile long. We loaded up and began the trek, which started with a welcoming steep incline. After a while the weight of both the gear and the canoe began to weigh on us. The pressure was overbearing that it was
Camp
Setting up camp the first night. difficult to take in deep breaths. We didn’t dare stop. The decline was even harder. Jodie was a bit taller than I, so the back seat of the canoe would ram into the top vertebrae of may back each time we were out of sync, which seemed continuous on any downhill stint.
We continued over Lure Lake, Pot Lake, Pond Lake, Lonely Lake, Kuviak and all of the portages in between. Linking Pot and Pond Lakes, there was a waterway carved between a marsh of tall grass and through lily pads. The channel was extremely narrow and made sharp turns that were fun to maneuver. Once off Kuviak Lake, we portaged to Junco Lake. Here we decided to call it a night and made camp at the portage head on Junco. We had only seen two groups of people all day: one at the parking lot (who careless waived a silver shot gun in our direction from three feet away), and another at a campsite on Lonely Lake, so we figured it was safe to take over. We set up out three tents and made dinner right on the lake overlooking the sunset. After dinner I volunteered my bag
to be the bear bag. Everyone put their food in and we tied it up in a tree away from camp.
Sunday morning I went to get the breakfast out of my bag and smelled gas. It turned out that the fuel can from one of the stoves also made it into my bag and had not been closed properly. As we broke out breakfast, all of the food in my bag was soiled with the rich flavor of white gas. Coincidently Dianna’s food was left at the dinner site and untouched by the fuel. She had over packed food, and luckily we had enough food to ration to get us through the trip. After breakfast we headed down the next 1/2 mile portage to Lost Lake. From Lost Lake we took a 1/3-mile portage to Red Squirrel Lake that was separated from Woods Lake by a beaver dam. We surveyed this long lake three times through in search of the portage. We reevaluated our not-to-scale, hand drawn map from the park ranger and decided to roam a marshy area that looked as though it could have swallowed a trail. After a few hours of fruitless marsh dwelling, we
decided to slowly skim the edge of the whole lake, again. We quickly found the portage sign hidden behind over grown brush 10 feet away from where Dan had ventured on foot. In all the excitement, Dianna pulled my canoe to shore for me at an angle and I was thrown overboard into the lake. Luckily it was really warm out and the water was quite refreshing. The next portage was an adventure, to say the least. We first hit a few steep inclines and later came across a series of down trees in the trail. We used our maneuvering skills to get over/around these hurdles without resting our canoe on the ground. This portage was a little over a 1/2 a mile and we were exhausted by the end. We began to look forward to the “difficult passage” where we were told we would be carrying the canoe over boulders. ANYTHING to not have it weighed on our shoulders, we thought. It turned out that we used the same muscles for carrying the canoe as we did for paddling and there was a lot of burning going on.
When we got to Gene Lake we decided it was
The Route
Breaking down the route time to relax. Dan got out his fishing gear and Jodie and I laid out on the canoe to take in some sun and our first view of mountains. We ran into two guys fishing who were having luck with Rainbow Trout, they were the last people we would see until the near end of our journey. After a while we composed ourselves and headed to the next portage, which was found by canoeing through tall reed-like grass that on first glance did not seem permissible. We crossed though the northern part of Gene and then went over a beaver damn and into the “difficult passage.”
Jodi and I were pretty excited to find the passage floatable. We were surrounded by tall grass on both sides and maneuvering quickly again. When the water became shallow and the rocks increased, I pulled Jodi along while the cool water flowed over my Chaco bound feet. Our spirits were high. Even when we both had to walk the canoe through the shallow water for a while, we gleefully yelled out “Hello Bear!” into the tall grass to let any by standers know we were in the area. You never want to catch
The Map
We Started at Mile 15 them off guard. After a short while, things changed slightly. The water deepened to chest level. We jumped in the canoe happily for a few stokes until we came upon a beaver damn. We happily got out, lifted over and got back in to meet a large rock barge a few feet away. The water was too deep to walk, so we were in and then out of our canoe every few minutes. Every now and then we would come upon a large fallen tree, which we would have to lift our gear and canoe over. We were happy though because there were no signs of boulders.
The boulders, however, quickly came. We found ourselves navigating our gear and canoe through a dry mile and half creek bed. It was too wet and slippery to carry our gear and too dangerous to try and balance the canoe on our backs. If a slippery rock didn’t get us, then an unexpected 4 feet deep spot would. Thus we resorted to pushing and pulling our canoe over rocks, trees, and, yes, boulders. This was a very slow process and the most painful aspect was seeing the paint-stained rocks that bore witness
Drive down
Our Canoes on Dans Truck to previous journeys. I wouldn’t have felt so bad if I hadn’t borrowed my neighbor’s canoe. I could feel the scraping like nails on a chalkboard, each grinding into my conscience and screaming hateful words at the abuser (me).
This went on for three hours. We could feel the unnatural bends in our backs becoming crooked spines and lopsided shoulders. Our spirits had fallen from their high into a comatose hangover. We were almost out of water and under-caloried due to our food rationing. There seemed to be no end in sight and just when we would think we couldn’t take anymore there would be another down tree around the bend or a sprit of absolutely no water at all. We trudged along knowing there was nowhere to go but forward. We could hear Diane and Dan ahead and waited to hear shouts of joy. None came.
Finally the water deepened. We were back in the canoe and mildly excited to be playing musical beaver damns and rock barges again through the swamp like grass. We came to a fork in the marshy stream where we met back up with Dan and Diane. Standing on our canoes all
SMASH!
Taking out Anger (back when it was fun). This was actually our earliest encounter with the pads... we could miles of what appeared to be an endless grassy field with tree lines on either side. All I could think was, “What?…where is the river?”
We wheeled through the loops of tall grass until we came close enough to a marshy shore to walk to solid ground to set up camp for the night. It was late and the sun was already on its way to Japan. We set up camp and ate a mixture of couscous on tortillas with smoked salmon and cheese. It was quite amazing after the day we had. After a few swigs of whisky for the warmth under the almost full moon, it was time for bed. We had 12 hours to canoe the next day and my greatest fear had been revealed to me: we were on the river.
That night, I had a pounding headache from inhaling the white gas that drenched everything I owned. It turned out that the rain cover for my backpack wasn’t very effective and my jacket along with the bottom half of my sleeping bag were soaked. I slept in a trash bag, which lined my sleeping bag that night. In my dry bag,
Tree Blockage
Rested the canoe on the fallen tree while Iodi ran around to grab it from the other end. I had undergarments and other light clothes, though nothing heavy. We woke up at 8:00 and packed up camp after breakfast.
The day before I was blissfully awaiting the glorious Swanson River. I expected her to sweep us away with her current and carry us 22 miles downstream. I couldn’t have been more painfully wrong. We looped through the tall grass until the stream widened into a thick bath of lily pads. These thick monsters grabbed the sides of our canoe and pulled us back; they tried to bring us under but we bashed them with our paddles to keep them at bay and to somehow relieve our heightened anger towards their massive thickness.
Around each bend they seemed to multiply. Their thick stalks mocked us. There were not blossoming water lilies. There were no butterflies. The closest thing we came to seeing a cute frog hoping from pad to pad was a small dead fish trapped in a bowl like lily pad full of water.
After a while, a seaweed-like grass began to mingle in with the pads. These thick, pine tree-like water beasts were like paddling through mud. They made the water so thick that
the lily pads began to look friendly. Every once and a while, low and behold, the pads would clear! The sun would shine! We saw clear water ahead…and a 4-foot beaver damn. After we crossed, the lily pads came back to play and….and… low and behold, the pads would clear, again! Clear water and no beaver damn, rather blind boulders just below the surface and out we were again balancing on mossy rocks covered in green paint from previous victims.
This continued for hours. After about 6 hours I didn’t think I could go on another 30 minutes, much less another 6 hours. There was no change of scenery. It began to rain. Stabbing the lily pads had lost its glory. Jodi and I were wet from an attempt to hurdle an 8-foot beaver damn at the encouragement of the two a head of us. “Gun it!,” they yelled. “If you hit it just right and miss the big rock at the bottom you’ll make it!”
Glad to not have to get out of the canoe for the 27th time in 15 minutes we went for it. We paddled with what little might we had at the time.
We approached and flew over, down the damn, SLAM, right into the rock at the bottom. Our canoe was wedged in between the rock and the beaver damn with Jodie and I chest deep at the bottom. Without a word we climbed back in defeated and paddled on ahead. None of us had any dry clothes left. We had a light breakfast and were thinly rationed, food wise for the rest of the day. Thus we had little energy to react.
The scenery and obstacles did not change for the rest of the 22 miles. Times began to get desperate. We found ways to entertain ourselves and keep our minds off the jabbing nails pelting the muscles in our shoulders. We sang songs. The most popular of course was Row Row Row Your Boat. Each boat took turns singing it. We sang it as a group, we sang it in boat rounds and even got up to a three person round. When the rain came, we sang The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow, and in dire moments we broke out with 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall. There was even yodeling.
Through our trip Jodi and I
got to know each other pretty well. We both have a love for adventure and travel. She is also a musician and has a very creative side to her. Over a game of 2 truths and a lie, we learned some really interesting facts about each other. We calculated how many strokes we would do by the end of the trip and played several games of 20 questions, which turned into games of more like 50 questions.
Just when we though there was no end in sight, a canoe rounded the corner. Desperate and without greeting we asked where they came in at. We were 15 minutes away from the campground, several hours earlier than expected. Never had we such determination. Off we were (after covering more rocks of course) and the campground greeted us!
We got all of our gear out of the water. Jodi and Dianna went to get the other car while Dan and I washed out the canoes, sorted gear, and stretched for 30 minutes. When they returned, we loaded up and headed to the nearest burger joint. We arrived back in Anchorage at about 11:30pm on Monday night.
So, let’s recap: I
miss my first opportunity to see numerous pods of whales diving out of the water (literally); an open fuel tank destroys food and soils all of the gear in my bag the first night; long hilly portages crush shoulders; crushed shoulders paddle over 21,000 paddles on the river alone; getting lost in search of hidden portages; no luck fishing; the borrowed canoe is hurdled over fallen trees, damns, rocks, boulders and dry creek beds leaving green paint and adding scratches and gouges; lily pads attack in full force on a river that is really a stagnant breading ground for noseeums; we were under fed and dehydrated and, on top of everything, this was the week Mother Nature decided to grace me with her presence. Thank god for plastic bags.
I am not sure what I was expecting on this trip. None the less, these three days challenged and tested my endurance beyond anything I have ever encountered this far in my life. Physically I was pushed to the limits, and uncontrollable (and some avoidable) circumstances created additional unforeseen obstacles that made this adventure one for the books. I wish I could say that these challenges forced me to be
Chillaxin'
Diana hangin' out, Dan fishing, Jodi relaxing, and me leaning back. introspective and made me push myself past all comfortable limits, but really what got me through was pure survival mode. When all is said and done, I am so glad that I went on this trip. It pushed me as an outdoor adventurer and taught me some very important lessons.
When we all regrouped on the shore at the end, it was established that none of us would ever do the Swanson Lake/ River loop again.
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Miros
non-member comment
Wow
And you say your not hard core! I would been crying by the end of the first day! I can't say it sounds fun but it certainly sounds like and adventure your not going to forget. I'm a little envious of your adventurous spirit but still I will stick a little closer to home...must be my old age ;) hehe