Several years ago, some friends and I, inspired by Ed Plumb’s epic trip to Dall Hotsprings , talked about using the Kanuti river for a longer trip looping back to the Haul Road. After a bit of discussion, the plan morphed into a three hot springs trip. First, float the Kanuti River from the Haul Road, stopping at Kanuti hot springs for a soak. Then float down the Kanuti river for another 20 miles and hike to the Upper Ray hot springs. Finally, walk or float to the Lower Ray hot springs and then back out to the road. It seemed viable, but while I was aware people had floated the Kanuti River below the traditional take-out for Kanuti hot springs, I had not talked to them about it. While the walking looked good on the maps who knows how it would be in person. Early this June, Ed, Matt, Chris, and I headed out to see if we could pull it off. It was going to be awesome — a new section of river, two new hotsprings, wahoo! Heath and Patrick joined us for the first leg, floating to the first hot springs, Kanuti, and shuttled Chris’s truck to our take-out (thanks guys!).
We left town fairly early in Chris’s “fry truck”. (Chris and his wife Robbin heat their house and power their truck with used oil from local restaurants.) We drove the Kanuti River, and after a bit of futzing around, put it and began the adventure, yahoo!
The water in the Kanuti River was high, and the float was fun and fast. The day was beautiful, with lots of sun and a brief rain squall that mostly avoided us.
The birds of prey were out in force, and we saw quite a few large raptors and a few owls. The hours sped by, and soon we were at the take-out for hotsprings number one. Kanuti has had a problem bear for the last few years, but fortunately we didn’t see it. Alas, it was a beautifully hot day, and unfortunately that meant the hot springs were a bit too hot to soak in for very long. On the upside, it was great to see the field of grass and wild chives surrounding the hot springs in the summer again. It feels like a green oasis, and smells unique.
We still had a long float ahead of us, so we said goodbye to Patrick and Heath, and continued floating down the river. The Kanuti to our takeout was an interesting river – mostly pretty mellow, with a few splashy sections with large rounded rocks. If the water was a lot higher, those splashy sections would have been a handful. At one point we came upon a cow moose with a young calf in the middle of the river, and we tried to gently sneak by, but they kept going downstream slightly ahead of us — until a black bear charged out of the brush on one of the banks and attempted to snatch the calf. Much to our happiness and the bear’s sadness, the cow and calf escaped, leaving the bear splashing in the stream. It climbed out bedraggled and wet, and then disappeared into the brush along the bank. Matt is a biologist for the National Park Service, and explained the cow was probably aware of the bear and had been sticking to the river so that if the bear had attacked it could have used its longer legs to stomp the swimming bear and gain the upper hand. Much to everyone’s happiness (besides the bear’s, I expect) our involvement hadn’t driven the cow or calf into the bear and caused a disaster…
As we neared the ridge on which we were going to begin our hike, it soon became apparent that the nice campsite overlooking we Kanuti River wasn’t there. Instead the bank sloped somewhat steeply up to the ridge.. We spent a few hot hours hiking up to the first flat spot we could find, at the high point of the ridge.
Matt had packed a few beers, and they were enjoyed in style, with a view. Thanks Matt!
The next day, we hiked over to Tokusatatquaten Lake, a beautiful lake with awesome sand beaches and really nice walking.
It is in a truly wonderful spot, and if we had been faster it would have been a great place to camp.
Alas, it was late morning, so we pushed on, enjoying great ridge hiking and neat tors while a thunderstorm passed off in the distance.
We had planned to camp at the Upper Ray hot springs, but a mile or so of dense alder slowed us down enough that we camped on a ridge above it. In the middle of the night, I woke to wolves howling in the valley below us.
In the morning we zoomed down to the Upper Ray, enjoying awesome walking. We saw our first sign of humans since leaving Kanuti, in the form of a survey cut. We followed a hot stream of water through a dense patch of cow parsnip (the northernmost patch I have ever seen!) to where the water came out of a bluff into a neat pond.
The water was hot, and very refreshing, with minimal sulphur smell. Alas, we couldn’t spend all day there, and we headed for what we hoped to be a shortish day to the Lower Ray. Ed had been here once before, and had hiked on the south side of the creek, and said the hiking was pretty bad. Instead, we tried to take game trails on the north side of the creek.. It mostly had good walking, but it was very indirect. After several hours of averaging under a mile an hour in a straight line we gave up, and put in and tried floating. The Upper Ray is deeply incised in silt banks, so it was sort of like paddling through a mud canyon. And it was muddy. Everyone else seemed able to keep mud out of their boat, but I wasn’t, and by the end of the day my boat weighed a ton with all the extra mud in it. I made a serious tactical error and left most of my food in my pack, which was stuffed into my boat, and I only had 2 candy bars for most of the day.. By late afternoon I was full-on hangry. Fortunately, Ed took pity on me, and gave me some more food to tide me over. Eventually we made it to the Lower Ray hot springs – hurrah!
The Lower Ray hot springs is a neat place. The hot water comes out of a gravel bank, and flows right into the Ray River. It had by far the least alge I have ever seen in a hot spring. Alas, it also had cow parsnip. The camping was great, too — a heated gravel bar, how can anyone beat that! And ever better, there was an old cabin across the creek. I love old rusty stuff, and this cabin was full of it — some old, some new.. It looked like it had been visited somewhat recently, but alas was a bit run down..
The final day, we floated out to the road. This section of the Ray had several sections of class II-ish rapids. They were just bouncy enough to be fun, but not very threatening. By late afternoon, we made it to our takeout, and after a short but steep climb to the road, we were at the truck, and heading home.
The upper and lower Ray hot springs are unique and well worth visiting. I am already scheming ways to get back there.
Thanks for the company Ed, Matt, Patrick, Heath, and Chris!
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Tags: arduous, hot springs, kanuti, kanuti river, lower ray, packrafting, ray river, upper ray
Beautiful pictures – thank you for sharing!
Thanks!
I was wondering if you had any additional thoughts on the paddle from the Dalton to Kanuti hot springs? I’m planning a trip out there and the other sources I’ve found conflict on the difficulty and whether it’s considered Class II or III. Great photos and trip report, thank you for sharing!
–Anthony of Faulk County
Anthony,
In my opinion it is class II to the hotsprings from the road, and pretty mellow except for the pinch were the water presses up against some small rock bluffs. That section should be clear from looking at topos. If you are going soonish, I would be prepared to just walk out there and skip the float if the river is low. Have fun!
Thanks a lot for this info, I really appreciate it! I’ll be sure to watch out for that pinch.