Hot Springs Doubleheader, day 1

My friend Ed Plumb, King of the Packrafters (at least in Alaska's Interior), planned a trip that included hiking a seldom-visited mountain range, the visiting of two ghosted-out hot springs, and a good amount of floating on two remote rivers and the Yukon. He invited me along (lucky me!) as well as his nephew Mark and friends Jim Brader and Dan Carlson.

 

Here's the map for Day 1, which included the flight from Fairbanks.

 

We flew from Fairbanks to Ruby with our backpacks, four-pound rafts in their bellies, and Sam Clark of the Yukon River Lodge picked us up in his riverboat with a blissfully quiet Honda four-stroke 200-horse motor.

 

 

T'was wonderful to get back on the Big River in summer again. Had been a few years for me.

 

 

Sam and his wife Tamara have built a lodge from the wilderness about 40 miles upriver from Ruby. Sam has a sawmill at the site, and milled almost all the framing lumber for his buildings. He also milled siding so lovely I wish I had a nice stack of it here in Fairbanks, to slap on my house. Here's Tamara, Ed, and Scotty, who was busting with character.

 

 

At Sam and Tamara's, we spent the night, met Sam's two friends from Maine, and checked out our gear. Here's Ed and his 15-year old nephew getting their things straight. Mark is visiting from Nederland, Colorado (where I've got to visit someday, and go to the NedFest). He does all sorts of trips with his uncle. How cool is that?

 

 

The Yukon is about a mile wide at Sam and Tamara's place. I loved just standing on the bank and staring at it. The next morning, Sam would drop us upriver, at the faded path to Horner Hot Springs, which would be the last real trail we'd see.