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v4.1

Version: 2017-10-30

This book is for Liam and Devin, of course. Everything I write, I write for you. —BM

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

RIVER OF RISK

Chapter 1: Scouting the River

Chapter 2: Running the River

Chapter 3: Path to the Pinch

RIVER UNKNOWN

Chapter 1: Signs of Trouble

Chapter 2: Rushing Rapids

Chapter 3: Reading the River

RIVER OF DISCOVERY

Chapter 1: The Long Haul

Chapter 2: Hippo Attack!

Chapter 3: Land of Plenty

DON’T MISS!

Index and More Information

Credits

Acknowledgments

Credit 1

Todd Wells is followed by two of his teammates as they explore the Chitina River.

Credit 2

The team rests in a patch of cottongrass after scouting the first portion of the Headwaters Canyon.

Alaska, U.S.A.

Todd Wells was wide-awake. Around him, his teammates snored and mumbled in their sleep. But not Todd. As expedition leader, he had too much on his mind. He had led other expeditions before, but none like this one. Todd and his five teammates were about to try something that no one had ever done before. And it was risky.

Todd’s group was camped in the heart of the Wrangell (sounds like RANG-guhl) Mountains. Their tents were nestled in one of Alaska’s most breathtaking valleys. But they weren’t here to camp. They were here to run the Chitina (CHIT-nuh) River.

“Running” the river means traveling down it in kayaks (sounds like KY-yaks). All six team members were experienced kayakers. Yet this 130-mile (209-km)-long river is unique.

Lower parts of the Chitina River are a favorite among boaters, who take to the river in kayaks, rafts, canoes, and other small boats. But one section of the river had never been run. That’s because until recently, this section was covered in ice.

The source of the river—called the headwaters—comes from the towering Logan Glacier (sounds like GLAY-shur). This massive block of ice flows into the river from the east. The Chugach (sounds like CHOO-gach) Mountains lie to the south. The Wrangells are to the north. A deep canyon cuts between these ranges, and the Chitina runs through the canyon. The first 10 miles (16 km) of the river have always been frozen and impassable.

Over time, changes in the climate have brought about warmer temperatures. The Logan Glacier has been slowly but steadily melting. As a result, this ice has become turbulent (sounds like TUR-byuh-lent), fast-moving water. Is it passable? That’s what Todd and his team had come to discover.

For more than a year, the team had been planning this expedition. They had pored over topographic (sounds like top-uh-GRAF-ik) maps and satellite (sounds like SAT-uh-lite) images of the river. They had talked to local people who had grown up in the area and knew the river well. They talked to other kayakers and boaters who had paddled the lower sections of the river. They had done their homework. But now that they were here, Todd knew he needed to read the river with his own eyes. The best way to do that was from the sky.

After his restless night, Todd asked a local bush pilot to take him up in his small plane. The plane lifted off from a runway in McCarthy, an end-of-the-road town in the Wrangell–St. Elias National Park.

It easily carried them above the Logan Glacier and over the Headwaters Canyon. For the first time, Todd could see clearly what they had been studying. But he wasn’t ready for what he saw.

Credit 3

It wasn’t like looking at a map or a photo. This river moved. A lot. The gray, murky water churned. To Todd, it seemed like a living, breathing beast.

The scale of the river overwhelmed him. It was massive. In the photos, some features had looked small and easy. In real life, they were very different. He saw waves towering 10 feet (3 m) high or taller. There were deadly pour-overs, where shallow water moved quickly over partially submerged (sounds like suhb-MURJD) rocks. From upstream, these looked like big, rounded waves. But Todd knew that once a paddler got over one, he could get caught in the swirling water.

The pilot flew over the river several times so that Todd could make sense of what he was seeing. The sheer volume of water worried Todd. It was early August and unusually hot. All that heat was causing more glacier melt, which was raising the levels of the river. Too much melt, Todd thought. The conditions aren’t good. They aren’t safe.

The pilot flew on. There was a specific point in the river he wanted Todd to see. It was a rapid they called “the Pinch.”

Credit 4

Glaciers are huge masses of ice that “flow” like very slow rivers. They form over hundreds of years where fallen snow compresses (sounds like kuhm-PRESS-ez) and turns into ice. Glaciers form the largest reservoir (sounds like REZ-er-vwahr) of freshwater on the planet. In fact, they store 75 percent of the world’s freshwater! Warmer weather has led to faster melting of the Logan Glacier. In the past 40 years, it has shrunk by 40 percent.

Did You Know?

A rapid is a place in a river where water flows faster and turns white and frothy.

The Pinch came at the end of a 10-mile (16-km) stretch of the river. It was the biggest challenge they would face. Here, the river narrowed, and the water squeezed through a gap in the canyon walls. Todd knew there were some large, jagged rocks at the mouth of the Pinch, but from the air he couldn’t see them. The water levels were so high, and the water was moving so forcefully, that the rocks were hidden. If the kayakers couldn’t see the rocks, they would not be able to steer clear of them.

Todd had a difficult decision to make. Were the timing and conditions right for this expedition? That evening, he and the team held a meeting. Together, they decided that the risks were too great. They would have to postpone the trip until the weather cooled and the water levels dropped.

During the wait, Todd had another problem to solve. How would the team get their kayaks to the river? They couldn’t carry them. The distance was too far and the location too remote. He could think of only one way—by air.

Finally the time came. Each 9-foot (3-m)-long, 50-pound (23-kg) kayak was strapped to the bottom of the plane and flown, one by one, to the starting point.

Todd was eager to see the river again, so he went first. When he and the pilot flew over the Pinch, Todd’s stomach tightened. The water levels had not dropped. The river raged as it had before.

Credit 5

Three of Todd’s teammates pass a horsetail falls within the Headwaters Canyon.

Todd sat on a sandbar near the source of the Chitina. Behind him, melting water trickled off the Logan Glacier. He was waiting for the pilot to fly his teammates and their kayaks to the starting point. He had made the decision: The team would attempt to run the river. Now, as Todd waited for them to arrive, he worried if he had made the right choice.

Credit 6

It was a long wait. It took the rest of the day for everyone to arrive one by one. The team made camp. While waiting for dawn, they planned their approach on the river.

They would split up into two groups. Both groups would scout sections of the river from the safety of the high canyon walls. For each segment, they would ask the same questions: What were the dangers? Was there a safe line, a clear path? Where could they safely stop and regroup?

Next, one group would go down and run a section of the river. The other group would stay on the rocks to be lookouts and to film and photograph. When the first group was done, the groups would switch places. The first group would be lookouts now, and the second group would run the river.

There was a nervous energy the next morning as the team suited up. Each kayaker wore a thick “dry suit” to keep warm, a life jacket, and a helmet.

It took more than an hour to scout the first section of the river. Moving along the slick and icy rim of the canyon wasn’t easy, nor was making sense of the chaos below. The team quickly understood that once they put their kayaks in the river, the river would be in charge. The water at their point of entry churned like a boiling cauldron. But looks can be deceiving.

The icy water took Todd’s breath away even with his dry suit on. All the nervous energy disappeared. It was replaced by a steely awareness.

From the first stroke of his paddle, Todd felt the river fighting against him. Murky gray waves crashed across his chest. The water was so full of silt and debris (sounds like duh-BREE) from the glacier that he could feel its extra weight pushing against him. Reading the river was next to impossible. There was no way to see anything clearly.

The team was rapidly being swept downriver. They charged from one danger to another, avoiding rocks and strong, sucking currents. One wave would pull them underwater, and the next would force them skyward, high above the surface.

Credit 7

When “reading” a river, the main features that kayakers look out for are waves, holes, and eddies (sounds like ED-eez). River waves are similar to waves in the ocean. Usually, they’re safe to paddle over. Holes are recirculating (sounds like ree-SUR-kyuh-late-ing) currents. That means they fall back on themselves. Holes lie behind submerged rocks. They can be dangerous because they can trap kayakers, making it hard for them to move forward down the river. Eddies are places where the water slows down and sometimes even flows back upstream. Eddies are good places for kayakers to pull over and take a break from paddling downstream.

The sound was deafening. Their calls to each other were swallowed up by the river’s roar. There was no way to be heard. The team began using hand signals to communicate with each other. From above, the scouting team watched and documented as their teammates were battered back and forth.

Todd had warned the team: Swimming is not an option. Normally, when a kayaker gets knocked out of his kayak, he swims. But on this river, that would be unwise. The current was too strong, and the rapids came one right after another, without a break. If anyone got knocked out of their boat, swimming would be hard. And Todd worried they’d be swept away before their teammates could help them.

Now, as Todd feverishly paddled, he saw a huge wave flip one of his teammates upside down. Kayakers are used to flipping. Todd knew his teammate would be skilled enough to flip himself upright without coming out of his kayak. Seconds passed before his teammate rolled up to the surface and started paddling again.

As the kayakers hurdled down the river, the river continued to change. At points, it was as wide as a football field. In other places, it narrowed. Lines of white quartz in the dark rock flashed by the kayakers like lightning.

Todd looked for a slower place where they could exit the river. He signaled to the others to follow. Wide-eyed and dripping wet, they regrouped on a rocky ledge. The river was wild, but they were running it!

Ahead, they spotted something they weren’t expecting. The river flattened out for a short stretch. Beyond that lay a series of house-size boulders. At the bottom of this rapid, there were two, huge hydraulic (sounds like hye-DRAW-lik) holes, one immediately after the other. In hydraulic holes, the river rolls over enormous boulders and then recirculates (sounds like ree-SUR-kyuh-lates) upstream.

They are extremely dangerous. If a paddler were to get stuck in one, it would be like being trapped in a washing machine on the spin cycle. He might spin in his boat over and over, unable to catch a breath of air. Or, the force of the rotation could rip the paddler from his boat and send him barreling downriver.

Did You Know?

Kayakers sometimes have to do a “portage.” This means they carry their boat to avoid an obstacle.

There was no question. Todd would not risk the lives of his teammates. To avoid disaster, each boat had to be hauled up the side of the cliff by rope. Each team member carefully walked along the canyon rim, balancing his boat on his shoulders. Then each boat had to be lowered back to the river, just past the hydraulic holes.

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