The third week of June, we rafted down the beautiful Charlie River. It felt good to be on that river, even as the wind whispered past my ears, trying to cut through my jacket, stinging my bear toes and fingers.
To access this run, we had to hire a plane to take us to the put in. The first member of the group to arrive at the put in had to deal with a curious grizzly until the rest of us got there. The river was pretty technical at first for the rafts and then gained more volume as we floated out further out of the mountains.
Here is our crew...
Allen, Jason, Matt, Mindy, Dale, Newman, me and Scottie
It was pretty rainy on 3 of the 5 days we were out. The fishing could have been better, but we managed to catch 2 or 3 pike and a she-fish. The trip itself was beautiful and our group was really entertaining. At one point, Scott and I stopped and checked out some wild sheep that were pretty close to the river. They seemed so much bigger when they were closer. As we watched them we began to hear sounds of thunder in the distance shortly joined by the sound of another cold summer shower, which began to fall from the sky all around us.
We did a hike one morning and were able to get a good birds-eye view of the river. Here is a picture of me with Newman and Dale, two of my favorite Alaskans.
The Charlie fed into the Yukon river, which the rest of the gang (minus Matt and Mindy) floated out until we reached the city of Circle, AK. Back during the 'golden' age of Alaska, this town was a bustling hub for prospectors. There was a theatre and about 12 saloons there, now there are only a few buildings, and not much else. It was really cool to see that town. There were some hotsprings nearby that we went to and then we headed back to Fairbanks.
Allen, Jason, Matt, Mindy, Dale, Newman, me and ScottieScott's Dad and his friend, Rusty, flew their float planes in and picked up Matt and Mindy to take them back to the airport so they could fly home to Utah. It was pretty cool to be out there for 3 days and then see two float planes land on the river. Not a bad trip for Matt and Mindy, too, to fly into and out of a river in Alaska during their vacation.
It was pretty rainy on 3 of the 5 days we were out. The fishing could have been better, but we managed to catch 2 or 3 pike and a she-fish. The trip itself was beautiful and our group was really entertaining. At one point, Scott and I stopped and checked out some wild sheep that were pretty close to the river. They seemed so much bigger when they were closer. As we watched them we began to hear sounds of thunder in the distance shortly joined by the sound of another cold summer shower, which began to fall from the sky all around us. We saw several bald eagles and I did catch 5 little greylings, which I threw back since they were too small to eat.
We did a hike one morning and were able to get a good birds-eye view of the river. Here is a picture of me with Newman and Dale, two of my favorite Alaskans.
The Charlie fed into the Yukon river, which the rest of the gang (minus Matt and Mindy) floated out until we reached the city of Circle, AK. Back during the 'golden' age of Alaska, this town was a bustling hub for prospectors. There was a theatre and about 12 saloons there, now there are only a few buildings, and not much else. It was really cool to see that town. There were some hotsprings nearby that we went to and then we headed back to Fairbanks.Here are some pics of the Yukon river:
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