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Published: July 20th 2009
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The Kenai River
It is a beautiful turquoise blue , glacier fed very cold
river. The Kenai River is a beautiful turquoise blue, glacier fed and very cold river. The Kenai River can be very treacherous. It is wide and it is very swift with dangerous rapids in some areas. There are many "sweepers" in this river that cannot always be seen from the surface. A sweeper is a very forceful rush of water that sucks you into it's center like being sucked into the large end of a funnel and spit out the small end.
We floated this river with a guide and made a map of the areas we thought could be dangerous. We studied it for several days and spoke with many guides about places we needed to avoid while floating the river.
The day of our first float, the sun was shining and the water was calling us for our float downriver. We had two hours of wonderful floating and we were ready to stop at a place called "the ferry landing" to fish with the others on the shore. Coming down river to the fishing spot had to be done on the opposite side of the river due to heavy rapids, rocks and currents. To do this we needed
Floating the River
What a peaceful float. You either float or fish, not both. to fight the current to the other side of the river and then beach our boats and get ready to fish. On this river you either fish or float, but not both.
As we entered our beaching point there was a sweeper that caught Patti and her boat. Rowing with all the strength she could muster, she was stilll not strong enough to avoid the sweeper . It caught her and her boat, slammed her into an overhanging tree, flipped her boat upside down and sucked her and the boat under the tree and downriver.
Someone yelled to Bill, "she's upside down in the water and needs help" ! Bill, who had already beached his boat, ran through the very densely forested area trying to get on the other side to help her. He is yelling, Patti, Patti, Patti ! Patti was face down in the current being carried rapidly downstream. The boat was upside down in the water and the oars were floating rapidly downstream. Talk about being up a creek without a paddle !!! About that time, Patti looked up, saw what was happening and it was as though someone picked her up, put her on
The Kenai River
It takes all of your concentration to maneuver the boats through the currents and rapids. If you wish to fish, you must stop, drop anchor and fish along the shore. her feet and she grabbed onto the growth on the bank and pulled herself out. She yelled to Bill that she was okay. He came over and after realizing she was okay, looked at her wet from head to toe and said, " Nice hairdo" ! We both laughed and now needed to find out how to get out of this mess. One boat with no oars and no place to get around the sweeper created a dilemma. This is not a rescue area. We found out afterwards that one year ago, they retrieved a woman from a tree in this same area. We were still miles from the take out point on the river. Just ahead and downstream from the sweeper that caught Patti was another larger sweeper with a dead tree with knife sharp branches sticking way out into the river. She was fortunate to capsize where she did as she could have been impaled on the other tree if she had hit it. We knew we could not make it that way. After walking the island several times, Bill decided we would have to take both boats completely apart, hand carry each part across the island and
The Ferry Landing
This is where the famous "Combat Fishing" takes place. People stand shoulder to shoulder hoping to catch a salmon. Personally, I'd rather fish from a boat to catch them. reassemble them on the other side.
This was not an easy task as it was a heavily forested area with lots of dense underbrush and bear trails everywhere. We carried the pieces of both boats through the forest, downhill trails , across a creek that we waded, uphill and through more forest to get to the other side of the island. It took about 2 hours and 12 trips to do all of this. We then tied both boats together since she had no oars and off we went to our destination. We were too exhausted to fish, we just wanted to go home and go to bed. Bill found one oar in a tree near the water, and a nice man retrieved the other oar and gave it to Bill at Jim's Landing after we were out of the water.
Patti is bruised pretty badly, injured her arm and shoulder when she hit the tree, but is alive and well. She has been very sore for days and received a tremendous whiplash when she hit the tree. Her new camera fell into the water. We dried it out and it seems to be working. We were even
able to retrieve the pictures from it. There are no pictures of the accident as the camera was in the water at that point. We realize we were very lucky and that the good Lord was holding us in the palm of his hand that day.
Will we do it again? ABSOLUTELY ! We researced this for days before leaving. We simply made a very serious mistake. We try always to prepare for the worst and hope for the best and we never put ourselves knowingly in harms way. We did not know the sweeper was there and we could not see it until Patti was sucked into it. We feel very fortunate with the outcome of this situation and the fact that Patti is not more seriously injured. We will be back on the river again in a week or so after she is strong enough to row the boat again.
Bill is her hero. He saved the day.
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