Hot Springs Doubleheader, Day 5

On the fifth day, we floated.

We yanked the Alpacka rafts from our packs, inflated them, and put our headnets back on.

And kept them on, for the first part of the float down Hot Springs Creek. The creek was amazing; clear water with green torpedoes shooting upstream—Chum salmon so thick you could walk across on their backs. And the Alpackas? Four pounds, really stable, really tough, and they totally enabled this trip. And made it much more fun than a round-trip hike would have been.

In all our floating, the boats (five of them) suffered just one wound. Dan hit a freakish sharp rock in Hot Springs Creek that tore a three-inch hole in his boat bottom and the thermarest he was sitting on (but not his butt). He fixed it with this piece of Tyvek tape in about three minutes, and the tape held for the duration (and is probably still on there).

We popped out to the Melozitna (known locally as the Melozi) and caught our breath after the exciting descent of rocky Hot Springs Creek. Found a gravel bar for a nice fire to dry our clothes and set up our tents, staying up till 2 a.m. or so. This is the sunrise from the bar, right before we shut 'er down. The next day, we had the unknown of Melozi Canyon ahead . . .