The trail up to Berry Pass is fine with a few snow fields to cross. Normal for July. Before you enter the woods on the way down be careful crossing snow on creek. Getting thin in spots. We followed the new trail until it starts to contour and hooked up with the bear trail. We didn’t want to get to the bridge and bushwhack down to put in.
The creek has changed from last year’s August storms. At the normal put in the creek splits. We followed the right channel. There are two sweepers creek wide within the first half mile. The creek then enters the woods and we portaged over to the other channel. The creek becomes one channel and it’s all good. If you float Twenty mile and hike to the bridge and find a route to the put in on the creek, please post. Steve Johnson
We are headed up Saturday for the first time!!! Will post results when we get back Saturday night.
Steve
Started off at about 645am from the alyeska parking lot Saturday morning. Light rain made it feel über muggy. Got passed by some trail runners early on. One of hem cleared the path of bears for us all the way to the waterfall crossing.
Sun came out as well as the bugs. Several sketchy snow field crossings. We only had on pole with self arrest head among the the three of us I it turned into one crosses and throw it back to the next etc.
Two groups had camped out in the pass. We continued on after a nice snack break in the pass. The weather had cleared so we enjoyed some great views. As we descended the pass towards the creek we did not see “the bear trail” and came to the bridge to nowhere. Hilarious to cross the very nice bridge to absolutely nothing. I wonder if the packraft option has killed the plans to pursue continuing the trail all the way out to Seward?
Anyway we didn’t put in at the first creek and found a four wheeler trail near the end of the gravel bar just past a couple large dead trees. We followed this trail which eventually became a flooded trail to another braid and put in there. 7 hours of hiking done. Time to have lunch and inflate the boats.
We headed off on the creek which turned out to just be another braid of the first channel. So after a couple of portages around sweepers we followed an old gravel run off to another channel and put back in. No more sweepers!!!
Great float until the upriver wind kicked in. Felt like 20-30 knot gusts which slowed our progress, especially once we hit the tidal backup. We pretty much had to paddle straight for three of the three and half hour float to make progress into the wind
Only saw one jet boat which gave us plenty of room. The bigger concern was the guy shooting parallel to the river at a bend. A slight miss appeared that it could send rounds down river. I yelled a couple times and luckily he decided that would be a could time to go stomp his targets “cans” into the ground before reloading
Made it back to twenty mile bridge and beat feet to gird wood for ice cream treat
Great trip, one I have wanted to do ever since I learned about packrafts
Steve