Wooden Boat People

By McKenzieDriftBoat.com

Off the road system

Finally realized a dream of running a local Matanuska-Susitna Valley stream that is off of the road system. We had to haul our driftboat on the back of a jet boat 15 miles upstream and drifted out over the last weekend; October 8th and 9th. The boat was surprisingly easy to load up onto the jet boat:

The UHMW plastic on the bottom of our boat slid very easily across the rails of the jet boat. Here she is all loaded up onto the jet boat before we strapped 'er down. That's Bob in front of the boats. He's Lewis to my Clark in all these adventures of discovery:

All strapped down and ready to run. My son there on the bow of the jet boat seems to be saying "c'mon papa, let's roll!"

Splashdown! Gravity assisted the unloading 15 miles later:

Saturday night's camp at the gravel bar. Those snowstorms in the background never reached us:

We were serenaded Saturday night by a pack of coyotes nearby. They start out barking just like dogs, then produce these weird, crazy sounding warbling howls. Coyotes sound very different than wolves. Got treated to a nearly full moon, the aurora borealis a little later that night and spotted several meteors. There is no background light from any town nearby, so the stars shine very brightly.

Coyotes aren't the only critters around these gravel bars:

It frosted hard overnight:

Nothing like wrestling yourself into frosty frozen waders in the mornin'. To even be able to work your feet into frozen wading shoes, you need to soak them in the river or set them near the fire (but not too near!) for awhile:

The Alaska Range

FISH ON!!!

We caught rainbows, grayling and dolly varden char:

The Denali massiv at the end of the day. This country has gotten into my bloodstream. I will never be able to leave it now.

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Comment by Will Kimball on October 19, 2011 at 9:44pm: Thanks, Robb. Just read your profile information. Got a kick out of that little story of the thrill and trust of having your dad teach you to row, only to figure out later it was just so he could fish more and how you have come to enjoy rowing as much as fishing. Funny, because I often say exactly the same thing. If you know how much I like fishing (a lot!) then that should tell you how much I like rowing and just generally messing around in (wooden) boats! And of course, it was raining! (snowing?)

Comment by Robb Grubb on October 18, 2011 at 9:18pm: Will, Great shuttle! Great stories as well. The Denali range always looks so close, yet so far away. Cheers, Robb

Comment by Will Kimball on October 17, 2011 at 9:11pm: Hey thanks guys! It was quite a trip, now we've got to go back with a little more time. Only problem is getting / affording time off of work to mess around in boats on a remote stream! Bob just sent me a nice shot of one of my rainbows:

Comment by Bob Wallick on October 17, 2011 at 5:49pm: Can't wait to go back!