A float on Alaska's Beaver Creek
by schlumpyj
The day started with me picking up my pack raft rental and making my way through some surprisingly solid gravel roads to the Nome Creek put-in.
As I get closer to my destination, I see some solid haze from local wildfires. Just 2 days ago, I received a call from the forest service warning me that the area just south of the river I’m floating is closed due to wildfires. I asked directly if I was an idiot to continue my float and they thought it was fine. They assured me that if the fire progressed faster than their projections, a helicopter and plane would be dispatched to find me.
Gathering my things out of my truck, I was greeted by my favorite insect, the mosquito. At first, there were swarms but not unlike swarms I’ve seen before. As I make the mini portage to the put-in for nome creek, the nasty devils come in numbers I’ve never seen. I quickly put on my mosquito net and pray to God that this is not how the rest of my trip is going to go.
To make matters a little more annoying, I wasn’t super sure how I would put everything in the pack raft, or even how the pack raft could be inflated fully. After playing around for about a half hour, with a serious cloud of mosquitos to keep me company, I set off for the Alaskan wilderness.
At first, the going was very slow as the creek is narrow and the water is low, as you would expect from a creek that is just starting. The mosquitos weren’t ready to say goodbye for this 4-mile piece that eventually joins with the creek I will be floating the rest of the way.
Once Nome creek and Beaver creek meet, the water is slightly more floatable, requiring fewer dragging and pulling episodes. I end up at a decent gravel bar for the night and set my bear barrels away. I try my hand at fishing and I can report the stories are true, grayling are stupid easy to catch. In the span of 15 minutes, I caught 7 before I started to feel bad for the fish since I wasn’t planning on eating any this trip. They make the bluegills of Minnesota seem like Harvard graduates.