Melozitna River

We spent early July on a sampler plate packrafting trip on the Melozi River near Ruby. Two hot springs, alpine hiking, river and lake swimming, exploring historical relics, glassy interior river, some white water, and a brief float on the Yukon. We hitched a ride up the Yukon River from Ruby, hiked over the Kokrine Hills to Melozi Hot Springs, then floated a small trib of the Melozi to the main stem, and eventually got spit out into the Yukon River just upstream of Ruby. Superb interior country which is seldom visited. Pics, etc here: http://edplumb.blogspot.com/2009/07/hot-springs-double-header.html

This gets the coolest interior trip of the year award IMO!

I did a version of this trip a couple of weeks ago and the Melozi hot springs and lodge complex are probably the most interesting place I have ever visited in the back country. The lodge has a creepy yet very cool feel - it feels sort of like the a scene from “The Shining” with a fantastic natural hot springs.

Thanks for the posting the trip Ed!

One of the folks on our trip ended up getting an article published on it in the News Miner -
http://newsminer.com/view/full_story/9573425/article-Deep-in-Alaska-s-Interior--a-deserted-hot-springs-lodge-fades-into-history?

Not much packrafting content, but an interesting read.

Edplumb and Spurceboy,

I am thinking about doing this trip but hiking in higher upstream on Hot Springs Creek. How far of a float was it from the Melozi Hot Spring Resort to the confluence with the Melozitna River? And how long did it take you guys to float that stretch it looked like it was a decent speed in your video on the blog. I keep hearing the Melozitna River is very slow how long did it take you guys to paddle to the canyon once you are on the main river. I only have three full days not counting the travel days I am flying in and out. Thanks so much for any help you can give me.

I think it took us a little over 2 and a half days of floating to get from the hot springs to Ruby. None of those days where particularly long, with something like 8 hours of floating each day.

The Melozitna River is a bit slow, especially the part below the canyon, but it is fairly scenic.

I think it might be pretty hard to do it in three days, including the hike into hot springs creek.

Some more details on my trip can be found here.
http://yak.spruceboy.net/2010/07/a-trip-to-melozi-hotsprings-like-the-shining-only-with-hot-water.html