Packrafting the Happy

Happy River and Skwentna River Packrafting

This was a wild ride, for sure. Graeme and I ended up on a true Alaska Adventure:

To start the trip off we flew my plane to the tiny Alaskan village of Skwentna, on the Skwentna River. The Skwenta is a huge river and was just coming off of flood stage.

We hired an amphibious float plane (wheels and floats) to pick us up from Skwentna (wheels) and drop us off on Sheep Lake (floats) near the headwaters of the Happy River (which eventually runs into the Skwentna for a total of 85 miles)

We hiked/bushwacked with all our stuff down to the Happy, where there was a happy small stream. It then took about an hour to get into our dry suits, eat lunch, pack and blow up the packrafts. Then we launched into the tiny river and were off.

After a few miles of small brushy creek paddling and a portage or two, the Happy gradually got large. So so many creeks flow into the Happy. We didn’t realize that this high water had turned the normally Class III Happy into a very fast, very continuous Class III/III+ with occasional Class IV rapids. I soon got in line behind Graeme, trying to match his moves. It just kept coming

Did I mention no eddies to speak of? So, no stopping. Crazy. At that moment the Happy River didn’t seem all that happy.

Imagine my concern when Graeme went over a drop, disappeared and his boat shot straight up – without Graeme. It’s a whole other story about getting boats and people together again. Let’s just say we both knew it was critical that we get that boat back and we did. (Think about it. Critical.)

We camped the first night on a sand bar at about mile 13 which turned out to be below all of the hardest white water. A few miles into the second day we entered the gorge and we knew that the Happy turned truly happy. The gorge section is a beautiful fun Class III canyon. It then dumped us into the swollen and massive Skwentna River. Fast and easy.

Did I say easy? It was supposed to be, but recent floods had uprooted thousands of trees and distributed them in various channels of the heavily braided river. It was total focus on two goals: pick the right channel that doesn’t strand you on a gravel bar, and don’t pick the wrong channel that might eventually be choked with trees.

It was raining at the confluence where we had planned to camp, so we just kept paddling. After 42 river miles (only really possible with a fast river) we stopped for the night. I was so tired I just went to bed after eating a cold meal-bar. Graeme heated up something, I’m not sure what.

The next day, with 28 miles to go, we told ourselves not to try to finish that day, but by early afternoon we had covered so much ground, we went for it. After all, it doesn’t really get dark here.

We got back to the small empty airstrip and my lonely plane at about 5:00, but when struggling on a steep river bank of mud to get out, my iPhone slipped out of the pocket on my life jacket, hit the mud and slid into the river. Gone. I hate that. With many photos too.

Wildlife? We saw a young grizzly bear very close by, but he was on land and we were in the boats so no problem. We also saw black bear prints in the sand at our second camp. Graeme saw mountain goats prancing around on a steep rocky cliff.

Obviously, the Happy/Skwentna was a little more than we planned for, but in the end it was an amazing and memorable trip!