Mount Whitney + Kern River Skirafting

       The Kern River is the anomaly of the Sierra Nevada - its upper half follows a range-parallel pathway along an old fault system, so it is greater in length and less insane in gradient than other adjacent river systems, though there is still plenty of class V.

    The Headwaters of the Kern River also happen to sit directly underneath Mount Whitney, so the linkup possibility is obvious to the packrafter, especially with such an advantageous hiking to paddling ratio. This summer route is probably completed by at least one party each year now in good snow years.

    The Skirafter in me had been attracted to this idea for a long time, but it requires an uncommon event for the Sierra Nevada - a Normal snow year. Drought years prevent both snow coverage and sufficient flows, while wet years like 2023 yield insane runoff (the Kern spent most of March to July between 4,000 and 40,000 cfs). This year, 2024, was a perfect setup with 100% snowpack from mostly cold storms (sufficient midelevation snowpack mid-spring).

    My largest uncertainty was whether there was a timeframe when there was enough water at the top (the put in barely has any upstream terrain below 10,000' elevation) but a manageable flow downstream for the Forks run or the roadside gnar (Canyon, Thunder Run). ~2500 cfs ended up being manageable for our team downstream, and the top ended up being on the low side of good. Perfect.

    Our original plan was to ski the west chutes of Whitney as a side trip after hauling our gear over the Whitney-Russell saddle, but the route conditions and time of day considerations caused us to switch to the Mountaineers route at the last minute. Skiing the SW aspect with full packs, plus hauling our full kit over the summit of Whitney, still seemed faster than any other option.

    At this stage we were still worried about the Kern River rising too much, so there was a silver lining to encountering frozen and manky conditions on the upper ski route.

Meltoff was in full swing even with moderate temps as we approached treeline.

    One of our micro-navigation goals was to seamlessly integrate north facing corn with dry trail after crossing Wallace Creek. 

    This worked out perfectly, and 3.5 miles of easy trail led us to the put in at the mostly dry Ponderosa flats in Junction Meadow. Even though we had only travelled about 15 miles since our start at Whitney Portal, skiing with a 45lb pack had highlighted my lack of training so I was ready to float!

    The upper high gradient section, ending above Kern Hot Spring, had a great medium/low flow. We portaged one slide move due to continuous manky/pin potential in the runout.

    The steeps below the Kern Lakes (no pictures) ended up being the real deal. Sharp, complicated, and continuous. It was almost all runnable, but too high consequence for us. Any swim would be a certain disaster. We ran less than half of that 1-2 mile long section.

    The Forks run was plenty filled in and super engaging at 2500 cfs. I ended up with about 3 portages and 2 swims, but the rest of it went well for us. We ran from the Little Kern to Salmon Falls in a day - by far the most whitewater, and the most read and run, I've done in a day. I was ready to call it quits before I was too mistake prone from mental exhaustion.

Needles behind, on the Forks run

    We stopped very little for media at these flows and a team of two, so video gives a better flavor of the overall experience:

Click to play Youtube video

    This adventure to me felt like the pinnacle of technical skirafting in the lower 48. There are still some grand traverses left to do in the northern US rockies, but it felt great on this adventure to combine ski mountaineering with significant technical boating with skis along for the ride. I have no qualms about this crossover sport even at the higher ends of difficulty for me as a whitewater paddler.

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   A great deal of thought was put into riding the knife's edge of weight vs. safety and comfort on this adventure. To simplify things in the realm of gear selection, here is a list of the critical equipment we used. My starting pack weight (6 days of food) on skis was 45 lbs.

    Hyperlite 4400 pack

    Western Mountaineering Versalite sleeping bag

    Thermarest Xtherm pad

    Homemade Dyneema 2-person mid (10 oz)

    Montbell plasma down jacket

    Outdoor Research Deviator Hoody

    Outdoor Research Echo Hoody

    MSR reactor stove

    

    Scarpa F1 LT boots

    Movement Racepro 71 skis

    Black Diamond Helio 200 bindings

    Black Diamond Vapor Carbon ski poles

    CAMP corsa ice axe

    CAMP skimo race crampons

    Arva beacon

    Arva carbon ultra shovel

    Arva carbon race probe

    Salomon pertex rain shell

    

    Alpacka Valkyrie (V3)

    Aquabound Whiskey Paddle

    (Old) Alpacka ultralight drysuit

    Astral V8 type III pfd

    Sweet Protection Rocker helmet

    Sockdolager ultralight uninsulated pogies

    Salomon Speedcross shoes

    NRS 75ft throw rope

    

Eastern Chugach Skiraft loop

 

    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.