Hiked/rafted twenty mile via upper winner creek trail with my girlfriend ( beginner), me (intermediate), and dog (greenhorn). First time doing this trip, first time with the dog pack rafting. The hike in was stunning to me. I’ve been in many remote ak areas and this really felt like we were heli d in. Berries galore beautiful lookouts and the trail was well maintained up till the bridge on upper 20 mi. The hike took us 6 hours but we stopped frequent to pick berries. Bear and moose sign was prominent, bring protection and make noise as there’s many blind corners. Got to upper 20 mi bridge and hiked the flagged portion down to the creek. Water was a bit high and putting in here was a mistake. We made several attempts to paddle this section and it was simply sketchy for us. Zero visibility, high turbulence, sweepers everywhere. It looks like the channel has moved due to a landslide I suspect . The water flows straight through bushy areas now. To sum it up, unless your advanced I would leave the raft in your bag, hike down this section about 1/2 mi then put it. Once we got on the water from here it was straight forward and easy with a couple semi technical areas that I navigated and the gf followed. Took us around 3 hours to float out…the dog did well once we got on the flat water. Sketchy with her up to there. Would not recommend rafting with a dog in technical stuff. Anyways, epic trip, will do it again.
Ps we saw 4 boats and if you keep your ears open you’ll have plenty of time to move over and let them pass.