Packrafting the John River in Alaska

A brief vlog of packrafting the John River from Anaktuvuk Pass to Bettles from 02Aug2016 to 05Aug2016 with Brooks Fry, Jack Fry, and Pete Allred.


Packrafting the John River
On August 2nd,
I flew with my friends Brooks and Jack Fry, to Brooks' home of Anaktuvak Pass in the Brooks range in Alaska. (I was even wearing Brooks shoes)
From Brooks' front door we walked a little over a mile to our put-in spot in the John River. As you can see we were getting snowed on, Despite it being the middle of the summer. We braved the cold temps as we inflated our rafts and pushed into the river.

The water is flat at first and it is fairly slow going as we wind our way down through the tundra. Brooks is telling us about how beautiful the surroudning mountains are and I'm feeling bad that we're missing out. We all hope for clearer skies.

Fortuneately for us, it isn't long before we see blue skies ahead, and while my hands are still pretty cold, the increasing view of the mountains keeps me in a good mood.

Eventually the river picks up a little bit and before we know it we are enjoying some class II and even some class III rapids. It's mostly carefree but I excercise a litte extra caution on this tight corner since a meeting with that boulder could send me for a cold swim.

At about 11:00 pm we decide to call it a night and we set up camp on this sandbar where we set everything out to dry and cook our dinners.

On day two we use up the rest of our class three rapids and enjoy a few pleasent hours of social drifting. until eventually the current slows and we have to start paddling again. We start to realize that we still have a long way to go and the river just keeps getting slower, nevertheless, we make camp after our second solid 12 hour day.

Here are some of the great views from day two.

On day 3 we set out paddling the flat water in earnest. The river is painfully slow and our arms are getting tired of paddling. But we have a plane to catch in bettles and so we keep after it and make up time where we can including this shortcut over a long horseshoe bend. After a long day Jack, Me, and Brooks each take a quick dip in the cold river. Then we settle in for an all night paddling session.
It's a race against the clock but by Friday morning we've reached the end of the john after 135 miles. A quick paddle across the koyukuk and we are able to find a nifty trail all the way to bettles and we make it in plenty of time to catch a plane back to fairbanks.