Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting 100+ mile tour of the Talkeetna Mountain via backpack and packraft (pic heavy)

We started our hike in Cantwell and hiked up Jack River to Caribou Lakes where we spent our first night. All of the land around Jack River and Caribou Lakes is AHTNA land and a permit is required to legally trespass (which we had). Here are a couple pics from Day 1:






Next morning we packrafted across the lake as we spotted 6 Hilleberg tunnel tents setup there and figured we meet who it was. Turns out it was a NOLS group. So maybe the next NOLS gear sale will have some Hilleberg tents for sale for a good price if anyone is in the market??

Anyways, after we met the folks from NOLS we paddled back out into the lake and did some fishing via packraft and caught a couple lake trout which we had for breakfast.




Then we began the 7 mile hike from caribou lakes to Tsusena Pass. The walking was great so we made great time on the game trails and saw some beautiful country.

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Once through the pass it continued to be great walking to where we setup camp that night about 5 miles down from the top of the pass and about 1.5 miles upstream from where we could began packrafting the next day.

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It rained all that night and into the next morning so we threw on our packrafting tops and bottoms (which also were our raingear) and hiked the remaining distance to where we had enough water on Tsusena creek to begin packrafting.



To say the water was on the lean side would be a giant understatment. In fact it was float dragging rock bouncing boney for about 8 of the 14 mile float from our put in to Tsusena Butte take out. The float starts out mellow Class I-II picks up to a solid Class II boulder field with a couple short Class III drops here and there. Which was plenty to keep us on our toes. Didn't get any pics of the float or the rest of the day as we were pretty cold and wet and more concerned getting to the take out at Tsusena Butte and getting warmed back up. Though we did manage to pull a couple lake trout out of Tsusena Lake for dinner that night.



The next day started out with a VERY brushy climb through the alders to get from 2500 or so feet at Tsusena Lake to 4000 feet to get back up to the good walking. Here is a pic looking back down at the Tsusena Butte and Lake



Once on top we covered a fair bit of country that day including a good sized lake that I am claiming does not hold any fish, but probably does its just that my fishing skills are lacking.


Yes Becca called me a Narwhal when I put my trekking pole in my pack like this.



Continued hiking from the "fishless lake" a couple more miles to where we make camp looking over Deadman Lake and Creek as well as the Upper Susitna Valley before it necks down into Devils Canyon.


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Went to sleep that next as it was starting to rain. Which carried on into the morning with less than 50 yrds of visibility. This made me aquainted with the term "hiking by instruments" (GPS) once again to make sure we were heading in the right direction. The fog lifted somewhat by 11 AM so we could see a couple hundred yards. Then we dropped out of the clouds completely, just long enough to cross Deadman Creek and go right back up into the mountains on the other side once again "hiking by instruments. Deadman Creek is a fairly large/deep slow moving creek that would have required airing up the packrafts to paddle across had we not seen when we fog lifted enough a place where the creek spread out 300 yrds across and was knee deep the whole way across.






It rained hard pretty much that whole day but we still were able to cover about 15 miles and ended up camping in a huge open basin at 4300' that held a BUNCH of caribou.




We went to bed that night hoping the rain would let up for tomorrow as we were only 5 miles away from where we planned to put in on the Brushkana to begin our float back to Cantwell.
Luckily we were blessed to just the sound of the howling wind the morning so we ate breakfast and began our descent down to the Brushkana put in.


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Even before we got to where we were planning on beginning our packraft down the river it was obvious that there was much more water than normal in the Brushkana which allowed us to begin our floating portion much earlier than we had hoped, which meant less hiking and more packrafting!

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As we neared the Denali Hwy on the Brushkana it became obvious that what we were used to seeing as far as rapids on this river were now a bit larger and more splashy which required a few extra stops to dump out the rafts inspite of having spray skirts. We had food cached near the campground and picked that up in addition to some other creature comforts for camp that night like foldable camp stools and wine! After the campground Becca attempted to highmark (snowmachine hillclimbing term) on a large rock and promptly flipped her boat in the middle of the Class III rapids about 3/4 of a mile downstream of the bridge. We were able to get her raft to shore with all the gear still strapped on and calmed down enough to continue downstream far enough to get to the good camping/fishing gravel bars that the Brushkana has to offer just a couple miles prior to it dumping into the Nenana.

The next day began the epically LONG and BORING float on the Nenana from the mouth of the Brushkana back to Cantwell. Couple slow 2 mph current with a stiff upstream breeze equals sore shoulders and arms from having to paddle nearly down the entire river back to Cantwell.

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All in all it was a wonderful trip with the wife backpacking and packrafting and getting to see bits of Alaska I never would get to see that time of year otherwise. Saw a lot of gorgeous country and lots of wildlife. I would highly reccomend this route to anyone with a packraft or just wants to hike the whole thing and see some truly stunning country, of course you could say that just about any 100+ mile stretch in Alaska.

Awesome looking trip! What kind of bug net did you use in the GoLite?

I used at Mount Laurel Designs DuoMid bug net (14.5 oz) its for 2 people plus it has a full floor so it is completely enclosed (which was a MUST as a couple nights there were atleast a 100 little skeeters waiting on the outside of the bug netting for us to emerge in the morning.

All in all I am very happy with the shelter. At 30 oz for the shelter, 14.5 oz for the bug net, and 8 oz for 12 MSR ground hog stakes comes to 52 ounces all up. Being as I use two trekking poles together for my center pole I don't have to count that in my shelter weight. So 3.2 pounds gets me 90 sq ft of shelter that I can stand up in the center in to change and also set up the bug net inside after I get the shelter up to get out of the weather as well as 2 people pack up everything, bug net included, easily inside the shelter before taking down the tent in the rain. Plus its nice to decide if you want the bug net in the back of the tent or parallel to the door depending on how or where you pitched your tent. Very happy with this setup in how it stood up to some stout winds and a fair amount of rain on three of the nights on this trip.

Here are some more pics of the tent:

Setup with 2 treeking poles


Lots of space at the foot of the bug netting to store packs and other gear


Lots of space for a couple pics to sit back and relax out of the elements even before crawling into bed.

Great looking trip, did I ever show you the pics of my backyard camp out?? <grin>

How many days was your hike?

Awesome, how much do the rafts weigh?

You are one lucky man to live in a great state and to have a beatiful wife to share your adventures.
This is a great post, how about a follow up with a review of the gear used, pack weights,foods, etc. and what worked well or didn't.
Thanks for shareing, Rick

Fantastic! Thanks for sharing the pics...

Yes, thank you for the great read and photos! I really enjoyed it.

The trip took 7 days 6 nights. The rafts are roughly 5 pounds apiece, plus about 2 to 2.5 pounds for paddles and about a pound or so for the PFD. All up packrafting stuff adds roughly 10 pounds to your total pack weight.

As far as gear used, we obviously were using a GoLite SL5 with MLD bug net for a tent. For sleeping bags we used Lafuma warm n' light 600 (25 oz 40 degree bags) zipped together plus a 20 oz GoLite Ultra 20 quilt inside to share for added security which was nice as it got down to 37 degrees one windy night. Sleeping pads were a regular NeoAir for my wife and a short NeoAir for me at 23 oz total for the two pads it almost saved 1.5 pounds right there over our Big Agnes pads, though the BA pads do have their place in the fall with the mercury drop it is nice to have insulated pads. Our pads were coupled together with a exped pad coupler that we have used for a few years now that prevents the dreaded pad gap between two pads when the sleeping bags are zipped together. For a stove we used a SOTO canister stove with a jetboilette (my mini version of a jetboil designs to work with a SOTO stove) and also had along an MSR frying pan for frying fish.

As far as food we had a mix of a bunch of stuff to keep it interesting. My wife and I have it worked out that I plan the gear and trip route and she will take care of the food. We had mountain house meals for dinner, oatmeal for breakfast, cliff bars, GU energy gels, roasted nuts, granola, pilot bread crackers, blocks of cheese (ate early in the trip), peanut butter packets to go on the pilot bread, and of course a big grab bag of "fun size" candy bars to keep things interesting. It was nice to have a selection of different food as oppose to the very unimaginative meal plan I would have came up with.

As far as packs went, I was carrying an Osprey Aether 85 with between 55-60 lbs the whole trip. I know its a bit heavy for average backpacking, but in reality packrafting gear weighs about as much as my rifle, spotter, knife, game bags and all so its almost a wash there. Plus I am a hunter at heart so this was a good chance to get in better shape for the fall season. Overall I am very impressed with how I felt after carrying the Aether 85 with 60 pounds day in day out and felt it could have had more in it and still been comfy. It won't replace my MR NICE 6500 for hunting, but it fills a nice niche in my quiver of packs, or at least that's what I tell my wife to justify having another pack.

My wife's pack started out at about 40 pounds and got progressively lighter throughout the trip as she had all the food in her pack. In fact by the time the last day rolled around I would venture to guess her pack was around 25 pounds or so. Her pack was a Granite Gear Vapor Trail that she turned out to like A LOT. She was initially going to run what she knew was a super comfy pack in a the MR longbow, but I urged her to go with the GG pack to knock 4 lbs off her pack weight right there. Turns out she really likes the GG vapor trail now and with the external pocket layout of the vapor trail it seems it is almost custom made for packrafting. I have one myself that I plan to use on shorter endeavors, but we needed the larger volume the Aether 85 had to offer for this trip.

Lance,

What did you use for PFDs?

I'm bringing my Alpacka up for a bear hunt in Sept and haven't looked into the PFD laws there.

Can I use a "pull to inflate" type fishing vest with a CO2 cartridge?

Steve,

The only law for PFDs really is that kids 12 and under are required to wear them. Otherwise you do not even have to have wear them. Though it is reccomended of course. We use both C02 cartridge and passive standard whitewater pfds. For this trip we both used our C02 cartridge ones. They are called SOSuspenders or something like that made by Stearns. They have a large front pocket for keep snacks and a camera handy. I really like them for our uses worth looking into.

Excellent stuff. I love the topography of that country. Beautiful part of the world. Thank you for sharing.

I showed my wife your pictures and she immediately zeroed in on the MLD bugnet as a must have item for our future trips.

Awesome trip and great pics!

From the looks of it, you used the Alpacka rafts?

Just awesome!

Awesome post. What a great place to live and hunt.

Dink

Perfect. Thanks for the info and for all the pics. BTW, your wife may be in the top 10 all time of cool wives...

+ 1 on the cool wife. Does she have an older sister?

Nice. Thanks for the pics., and way to get out and get it done.

Luke,The only thing you forgot was....

ME!!!