Before tackling a pair of skirafting routes last year in the Talkeetna and Kenai mountains, Roman Dial had suggested that I take a look at the Eastern Chugach as the potential prime zone for combining long ski traverses and difficult whitewater. The eastern Chugach indeed has a striking architecture for people who like to draw lines on maps - sets of long range-parallel valleys that contain both rivers glaciers, cross-range rivers (like the lower Copper) and river canyons incised into the mouths of hanging valleys.
When our crew of 4 was cut in half a few weeks before our intended May trip onto the Nabesna Glacier in the Wrangells, Allen and I opted for an objective with easier and cheaper logistics and lower weather risk - a 250 mile loop in the Eastern Chugach. This loop, making use of the Lower Copper, West Tana, Tana, and Chitina Rivers, has an amazing 3-to-1 river to land mileage ratio (perhaps only bested by Forrest McCarthy's River of Return route). This ratio may run afoul of Roman's guidance on packraft symmetry, but it is highly appealing to the skirafter burdened with 12 days of food and 65 pounds of ultralight gear.
Trip Video (Click thumbnail to play)
The core of the eastern Chugach exposed along the lower Copper River corridor
Clockwise loop
While many of the smaller rivers and creeks in the Eastern Chugach present significant whitewater challenges, our route featured only one short section - pool-drop big water rapids in Tana Canyon on the back end of the loop. However, as Allen and I launched onto the class II Lower Copper River, we were consumed by an even more intimidating prospect - a large river that may not have completely broken up before our trip window started.
An unfortunate element of the early season Lower Copper River springs from the extreme precipitation gradient that it traverses: the interior basin it drains receives as little as 7 inches of precipitation a year while the coastal end of the canyon receives upwards of 120 inches a year. Thus, the slightest hint of springtime can open up the river at the put-in while it may take additional weeks for ice to clear from the lower section.
Allen and I knew that the conditions we were aiming for were balanced on a knifes edge - the time window separating full breakup and the melt-out of low elevation snow for ski travel was likely to be both vanishingly small and difficult to time.
We missed the window.
Forty-some miles down the Lower Copper we ran into river sections that were still iced over, despite a gage-estimated flow of 80,000 cfs. That river segment was 2 to 3 miles wide, and the iced-over surface was too punchy to walk or ski on, so a stark dilemma was facing us down. We studied our maps and noticed that a parallel river, the Bremner, was only 2 miles away across an intervening peninsula of sand dunes. If the Bremner was open it would be our savior, while if it was iced over it would cost us just a few hours of transition time, and might be more skiable than the Copper.
Springtime Dunescape
Miraculously, the Bremner was completely open for its entire remaining 15 miles down to the confluence with the Copper, which allowed us to finish paddling and transition to skis+boat sleds before sunset.
We skied up the Wernicke River and Glacier, progress slowed only by short open water sections and steep moraine slopes.
After breaking our first glacier camp, we ascended into a thick fog which would last for most of the next two days. We mainly used a compass to navigate to save phone battery, though at one point we were skiing over what I'd barely exagerate as being a mat of ice worms which all seemed to be aligned with, I assume, the direction of the sun.
30 miles of skiing from the Copper delivered us to the high point on our route, a 5700' pass. After two days of fog, a stunning morning set up just when we wanted it to the most.
We decided to spend our half-day weather window on a side trip up to a 8000' point on a ridge that featured views of the main Chugach crest, plus long range vistas of the Wrangell and St. Elias mountains.
After breaking camp before lunch, we started our long, low angle descent of the Bremner glacier system with a goal of making it most of the way to the Tana Lobe terminus.
Another system set in at our last glacier camp, but our position on the rain-shadowed side provided us with consistent visibility and even some sun as we approached the West Tana River.
We chose a point on the West Tana just below the terminal moraine and were happy to give our feet a break as we dried out and stuffed our boots and skis inside our boats for good.
One of the most surprising elements of this trip was the wildlife. Over 250 miles we saw a few bear and moose prints, but sighted few animals aside from birds.
The current and pace picked up as we joined the main Tana, as did the wind. Did I mention the wind? It had been fearsome at our put in where the Chitina joins the Copper (a notoriously windy spot), and it picked back up here. The wind blown dust at the outset of the trip had me coughing and sneezing for several days, and from this point it returned through the end of the trip.
The only reprieve from the wind came where the Tana cuts a sheltered bedrock canyon above the confluence with the Chitina River. Here, a set of riffles and grand canyon style rapids slowed our pace a touch. A near-miss for both of us on one of the longer rapids gave us motivation to start scouting some of the bigger horizon lines - an easy move to justify since our drysuits lacked neck gaskets.
That's no mirage. From our last camp the remaining crux is visible, the Copper River Canyon winds
This route has significant overlap with some team routes on the 2012-2014 Wilderness Classic, run from Thompson pass to a point near McCarthy.
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