looking for any ideas about a good float trip that would last 4 days and 3 nights. i don’t have the $ for an air p/u so that rules out anything like that. i’m in the fairbanks area (so preferably something other than the chena), but am willing to do some traveling to get there, nothing too far for we’ll be strapped for time. this would be for august, 2nd week or so. we’re more so looking to get into some fish than run any whitewater. i looked into beaver creek, but we’d need an air p/u due to the time frame. also looked into birch. i don’t imagine that we’d have the time to complete the entire road-road float on the birch, but then again i’ve never floated it. any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
It might be a little shorter than you are looking for, but the Chulitna is a fun float. We powered through it in a 14’ cat spending only 1 night on teh river, but I’d say a normal pace is 2 nights 3 days. You wouldn’t have to stretch it too much to make it a 3/4. It’s road to road, and I don’t know how primo teh fishing is, but my firend did in fact catch a fish on that trip form one of the feeded creeks. It is pretty mellow, but does have a 4-mile canyon section in the middle which has some III- or so in it, which are all easily avoidable. Other than that it’s mainly moving water with some class II riffles here and there. A beautiful/cheap/fun float. I can provide more details if you’re interested.
Drive on over to Tok. Then head on up to Eagle. Park your car at the Yukon take out. Hitch or ride bikes back to the O’brain creek D.O.T station. Walk under the bridge and put in on the 40 Mile creek. I ran it last year really late and it seemed liked like it would be class II to III- at higher water. Takes about a day and half to get to Yukon, then float on the ol Yukon another 2 or 3 days back to Eagle. I don’t know the Yukon salmon runs, but…EAT EM UP!