W. Fork Atigun River

This was a nice long weekend trip from Fairbanks that starts on the Dalton Hwy just south of Atigun Pass and ends on the north side. There is great Brooks Range scenery and the feeling of remoteness within easy reach of the road. We hiked up a creek just below Atigun Pass and crossed the continental divide and then floated the W. Fork of Atigun northward. The river joins the main stem of the Atigun River after about 20-miles (where there is road access). So with a short car shuttle you could easily stash bikes near the take-out and ride back over the pass to the starting point. The river has several other road accessible points downstream as well.

We did this trip back in mid-June when there was still a significant amount of runoff from snowmelt. This stretch of river is not gaged but there is a USGS gage on an adjacent tributary…but unfortunately the gage has been slightly relocated and current stage/flow data cannot be compared to what we encountered earlier in the summer. There was plenty of water in June so lower flows may not be that much of a problem.

I posted some pics here: http://edplumb.blogspot.com/2009/06/w-fork-atigun-weekender.html

Any thoughts on how this might be in July or August, Ed? I do not know what centrl Brooks Range rivers do for flow patterns.