Hot Springs Doubleheader, Day 6

A long day at the office, as Audun would say. Fourteen hours in the packraft, more than 40 river miles covered, but what we had to do to meet our plane the next day.  

Was an awesome day to be boating. Eighty degrees beat the bugs down. We took a break around solar noon for a swim off this gravel bar.

At 9 p.m, we found the rapids at Melozi Canyon. This is the pinch point that prevents motorboats from coming to the upper Melozi. A jet boat could make it up, but would get bounced off some rocks coming down, we thought.

The canyon was stunning. It was like we weren't in Alaska anymore. With its rounded rocks and high cliffs, we all thought we were in some western state other than this one. Jim remarked that it would be a great place to camp. It would be incredible, but we needed to put more miles behind us.

Here, the guys discuss running the rapids in the Alpackas. Jim and Dan did just that (and I'll post some video when I figure how). Ed, Mark and I used a calm, narrow channel nearby, made for packrafts.

Here's Ed in the non-rapid channel. Calm as a bathtub.

Once through Melozi Canyon, we paddled like heck to get closer to Ruby, seeing our first people (a couple who were naked, in a boat, and scrambled for their clothes when the first silent rafts drifted by). They escaped to a nearby cabin, the only one we saw since the ones at the hot springs.

We gave them some space and stopped on a gravel bar downstream after 13 hours of moving on the water.

The boys were gathering wood for a fire when a black bear appeared on the mainland. It never stopped moving, coming right at us, despite us yelling and Dan holding up his boat to scare it. The bear kept coming, plunging into the river and starting to swim toward us. Jim finally drove it away when he threw a rock that plunked in right by the bear's head. The jet-black bear scrambled back to the bank and melted into the woods. But he seemed so intent that we thought he'd probably be back. We all voted to find another gravel bar. We paddled another hour and finally shut 'er down at about 4 a.m., for a few hours of napping . . .