Tom, Ms Marsh, and I did a repeat of a trip Tom and I did last year – a hike, float. bike loop that visits Nugget Creek Cabin in the Chena River State Receration Area. This time we did it when the Chena was pretty high, and it was a much more fun float – the water was fast and there was no low water dragging at all. The river guadge at 40 mile was reading about 17.14 ft during the middle of the day. This is a wonderful high water float – there are sweepers but nothing really dangerous so long as you are paying attention, and the south fork flows a lot faster during high water making the float quite a bit more fun.
The river at Nugget Creek Cabin was almost bank full.
State Parks is in the process of putting in a new trail that will start somewhere around 1st bridge – this should make this a “instant classic” easy water pack rafting route.
They also improved the marking substantially – which is super as parts of the existing trail are very hard to follow. Wahoo!
The hike is a little under 6 miles, and the float is about 20 miles from Nugget Creek Cabin to the Rosehip campground.
A Map:
More pictures here:
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| Nugget Creek Hike Float, 2010 |
Tags: chena_rec_area, mondays, nugget creek cabin, packrafting, south fork of the chena, stub