Mendy Laps

Mendy is quality low right now. No sweepers. Upper section to dog pool is clear of wood and fun up creek paddling. Come practice your eddy hopping skills before the rain brings water levels up. Class II right now.

Ran rapids today with Chrisser T. Expect II+, pushing III. Lots of waves to play in. Practice your eddy skills. I haven’t run lower river and haven’t heard any wood reports.

Versatile river. This is probably the closest thing to a beginning run in Juneau. If you are starting out here is the place to practice your skills.

Drive to West Glacier trial head and put in to paddle across lake. Once river starts expect Class I for a short while. Once you make a big right run and see a bench on the left, real rapids start. You can skip lake paddle by parking at upper bridge and walking back on trail about 5 minutes to Bench. Runnable sections very on water levels through rapids. Go under bridge and continue another 10 minutes to enjoy the rapids. After rapids find a take out and walk back to car at bridge. I typically take out after rapid Dog Pool (river constricts and sharp turn right due to a large yard protruding into river, often 2 pugs will be there barking at you), or continue on forever through river and take out at brotherhood bridge(TMHS), lower bridge…or tidewater if you really like sitting around and being cold. Lower section is without rapids, but is woody so watch for trees and sunken cars. Make sure you plan a path in advance.

Ran this last night just as the water was rising from the ice-dam breakup, around 10 on the Loop Bridge gage. Didn’t have many rocks to worry about as they were almost all washed out, nice large (for a packraft) waves. Put in at the glacier via the ice-cave trail, minimized time at the glacier due to disaster potential, had tailwind so paddle to river was about an hour and change. Took out at the high school (river left, before the footbridge). With the high water made it from the Loop Bridge to the HS in about 10 minutes. No river wide sweepers. Tremendous fun combining glacier, icebergs, and class III in one short package. I’m sure the locals know this, but for any visitors they are working on the Glacier Highway bridge constructing a second bridge, and there’s a couple river level girders that mean there’s only one slot to get through and if the water drops apparently it will be rocky. They are however not stopping anybody from rafting, but without much excitement on that stretch the nice pull out at the high school might be best bet.

A friend and I also ran this last night (7/10/14) around 6:00 PM with the river gauge reporting around 10’. Really exciting waves with a few keeper holes to dodge. We put in just upriver from the Mendenhall Loop Rd bridge off the Dredge Lakes trail system and took out about 1/2 mile afterwards (basically just ran the rapids). Today’s level is out of my comfort zone, but I think by tomorrow evening or Sunday, it should be back down to a manageable level.