During my time living in the Brooks Range, I spent a lot of time staring at maps of the surrounding area and dreaming up routes and places that I wanted to go. One of those places was a packraft loop involving the North Fork of the Chandalar and the Bettles River via Geroe Creek. The area is infrequently traveled outside hunting season due to it not falling within the confines of one of the neighboring famed management boundaries (G of A and ANWR), despite having all the same characteristics. This past weekend, I joined up with my friend Steve in Wiseman to undertake the trip.
We drove up to Chandalar Shelf through cloud enshrouded mountains and a steady trickle of rain. The Interior was expected to receive a major rain storm starting on Sunday and continuing into Monday with some areas receiving as much as 1 inch per hour. It was a few hundred yards from the road to the nearest channel of the West Fork of the North Fork where we found sufficient water to allow us to blow up and float. We had heard of people canoeing the river so we had thought that we would encounter a narrow, quick moving river devoid of major rapids like the Hammond or even the Upper Dietrich. Yet within a few miles we found our prior conceptions were quite wrong. The North Fork drops a few hundred feet over its first 25 miles or so, leading to a river full of splashy class II rapids. There were little to no large boulders allowing us to run everything and scout on the fly. We stopped only once in the canyon and took a look above and beyond, looking for any hazards before continuing on. By the time we reached the narrows, the rain had stopped but we were thoroughly soaked from the rapids and stopped ten plus times to pour water from our boats.
We were able to make steady progress into the evening and found ourselves about 8 miles away from Geroe Creek 7.5 hours into the journey. We caught sight of three grizzlies, a bald eagle, two golden eagles and a late season harlequin duck along the way. The quick progress all but stopped as we reached the flats and paddled around bend after bend. With dark clouds threatening to burst, we paddled to and set up camp at the base of Geroe Creek in the early hours of the morning, after a seemingly endless three hours of winding and winding and winding and winding….
We were both ready for bed by the time we summited the pass and initially agreed to find the best spot that was available somewhere lower in the valley. But upon descending we found we had slightly more energy than we had though and vowed to push on to Roberts Creek. Our energy levels proved no match for the soft ground and sidehilling and I doubted whether I could continue down to the Roberts that evening. It wasn’t long after that we came across a horse trail, travelling all the way down creek to the Roberts. Our moods soared and we moved almost as a trot, relishing in the hard packed surface beneath our feet. We covered the remaining distance in quick time thanks to the trail, following it most of the way down to the Roberts, setting up camp along the water in the early hours once again.
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Despite being wet and cold the whole time, the trip was enjoyable and mostly lived up to the expectations that I held. It would be far more enjoyable with better weather (perhaps 2 hours of sun instead of 1?) and the absence of the flat water paddling on the Chandalar. If I were to do it again, I would take out before Geroe Creek at one of the passes heading into the Roberts. That would cut off a good chunk of the hiking portion, but eliminate the tedium of paddling the winding sections of the Chandalar. A spray skirt also seems like a good idea given how frequently we were dumping our boats. Water levels definitely influence the character of the trip, I’m not sure certain sections could be floated on the upper North Fork at low water and much of the Bettles would be very bony and slow.
Thanks for sharing