On Friday a co-worker and I biked from Jim Creek to the Knik Glacier in order to scout the Glacier Fork of the Knik River for a mountaineering course. The Glacier Fork was crossable by wading at the level 9.4ft but challenging. We explored the toe for a little bit, and then loaded the bikes on to the rafts. Floated down to our truck. A new bikerafting classic?
Anybody scouted or floated Glacier Fork?
We crossed it in the gravel bar and wandered around. pm me i will send some pics. i dont know what it looks like up in the canyon.
Not being able to follow conventional wisdom, I hatched a plan to get to Knik Glacier via an “easy” route of parking at the old bridge, biking the nice paved Knik road until it ends, and walking/riding/whatever up the drainage from there. Everything went splendidly early, obviously the pavement bikeriding goes fast. Due to the rains Hunter Creek was high enough I put in there and it was a nice little fun splashy play creek for a mile…
And then all of a sudden it multi-braided into the alders. Ok, no problem I thought, just start the hoofing part of the program towards the glacier. Headed off to the right. Became very swampy. After a lot of “mudding” picked up part of the creek again, only to head back towards the alders. Found out too late that had I gone off to the left when the alders first appeared I could have been rafting again with minutes. But anyway, by the time I got to actual walkable terrain on the Knik, it was getting too late and too windy to press on to the glacier, so just kept floating back to the bridge (FWIW take out on the left before the bridges has some nice soft sink your shoe 4 feet deep in mud places ).
So, two questions/requests: 1) Can somebody provide further intel on the traditional path (where exactly to park, “bikeability” of the atv trail, etc… sorry, just never been in that area)?; 2) Is there a slightly better route for what I was intending to do (maybe through the lodge there with permission)?
I had a similar experience at Hunter Creek. We floated to alders hiked to the eagle nest off the four wheeler trail, busted thru ice on the beaver ponds, and followed a trail which led us back to the creek. Shortage of time got us floating again, but the creek just slowly flows left, left, left.
There is a better take out at the Knik Public Use Area maybe a mile upstream from the Old Glenn bridge.