Tuesday, June 30, 2015

The mountains were socked in with rain clouds when we woke, but the sun was trying to poke through. We packed up and continued our way down the bench towards the river. As we came to the face of the bench, we started down a shallow creek bed. Mat stopped and we saw, about 40 yards away, a canine critter run from the creek into nearby willow thickets. It was only a brief glance of the animal so we weren't sure if it was coyote or wolf. We continued down the creek, visually searching for any signs of the critter but never saw it again. However, when we reached the river bed, we saw many wolf tracks in the sand. We decided it must have been a small wolf we saw!

Launching the packrafts

We got to the river, the Refuge valley branch of the Sanctuary River, and settled in for a lunch break and to transition from hiking to rafting. As we inflated & prepared our rafts, we watched three caribou, two males and a female, walk up the river towards us. One of the males had a huge velvet rack. They gave us a wide berth and climbed up the opposite hill to get around us. Eventually, we were ready to start rafting. We pushed off and made good time on the Refuge branch of the Sanctuary river. There were a couple of braid outs where the water became too shallow, requiring us to get out of our boats, haul them to a deeper channel, and relaunch. We finally made it to the Sanctuary River, which was swift and deep! It took us 4 hours to raft the 20 miles of river, mostly Class II+. All the rain clouds were clinging to the mountains so the sun was out for us as we floated through the flatlands.

Kalyn rafting down the Sanctuary River

Around 3:00PM we reached the Denali road bridge across the Sanctuary River. We pulled out, repacked our gear, and walk through the Sanctuary campground to the road to catch a bus back to the visitor center. We were on a bus within 15 mins, dripping a small puddle of water on the seat & floor beneath us. Back at the visitor center, we checked in with the backcountry office and set off for a hotel to shower & sleep. Unfortunately, it being summer, there were no cheap rooms available nearby so we ended up having to drive all the way to Tanana for a cheap room.

Pull out at the Denali Park road

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