Haines Road to the Wheaton River Valley Complete

Back in 2003, inspired by the reports of ski traverses in this area, I became enamoured with the idea of a hiking route from the Haines road in BC to the Yukons Wheaton River valley.  

Packrafting the Donjek

For years I have avoided "popular" Yukon hikes and rivers on general principles.
However, sometimes trips are popular for a very good reason.

Seagull Creek to the Nisutlin

A couple of years ago, we had walked into Seagull creek and determined there wasn't enough water.
Then we walked out again.
However, the area intrigued us as a cheaper, less time intensive route to the Nisutlin and its fun whitewater.

Little Rancheria River

A recent trip into the Little Rancheria.

Tungsten to Tulita Video

The cold weather has been good for something.....

T3 Part V: Thundercloud Creek to Tulita.

While we had had glorious, hot sunny weather coming up the creeks, the day after the Flood creek thunder storm, the weather turned on us.

T3 Part IV: Hell Roaring Creek to Thundercloud Creek.

Hell Roaring (yet another evocotive Nahanni country name) creek is typical of the creeks in these parts.

T3 Part III: Grizzly Creek to Black Wolf.

Up to this point, while things had gone well, one problem we had been encountering with the heavy loads was that while Paul and Dylan in their new Gnarwhals were riding high and proud, Sky and myself, in our older Llamas, were dragging.  A lot.

T3 Part II: South Nahanni to the Broken Skull.

Sunday July 16th.
The big hike loomed large.

T3 Part I: Little Nahanni to the South Nahanni.

Saturday morning, July 15.

Anthony dropped us off just North of Flat Lakes, and we and our gear explosion blew up and loaded on the side of the road.

T3: Tungsten To Tulita.

Back in 2008, the federal government created the Nááts'ihch'oh (Porcupine in Dene) National Park Reserve.  Since then, Parks Canada has been actively promoting the virtues of the Nahanni's' shy cousin as an adventure destination.

Burning the Tyers

Grant and I walked into the remote and seldom (like, I have heard of one party to paddle it in the past 30 years) visited Tyers river in the South East Yukon.  They spoke of portages, canyons and epics.
Access is off the CanTung road via old mining roads and animal trails.

Upper Wheaton Run 2017

The Upper Wheaton Run is becoming something of a Yukon PR classic.

Not yet a trade route, as there aren't that many PR's around, but it will get there.

Carrying a PFD for Packrafting

You know how much of a PITA it is to carry a PFD.
Bulky, so they take up room in your pack, same goes for the exterior, and they are always snagging bush.
If you own an HMG Porter, this system works well.
The Porter Stuff Pocket is a pretty much necessary add on to these packs, and if you have one, stuffing the PFD behind it is a great way to keep things sleek.
However, the plastic gimcracks that hold the pocket to the daisy chains on the pack are fiddly at best, and pretty much eliminate any sort of quick release function.
Solution: use some accessory 'biners (I like the plastic Black Diamonds)to attach the pocket to the daisy chains.  You can cut the old plastic ones off if you like.
Now, you can place the PFD under the pocket, and use the pocket to hold the FD in place and out of the way.  Depending on the PFD, you can vary the placements of the pocket straps to the daisy chains quickly and easily.
Speaking of PFDs, while the Astral V8 seems to be a standard light weight, it does lack back protection and a bit of buoyancy.
You can pick and chose from many excellent (heavy, bulky) rescue PFDs, but for remote trips, my own philosophy is that if you are getting into situations where a rescue PFD seems like a necessity, you are either willing to carry a lot more weight and bulk than I am, or, maybe consider scaling back the gnar.
Regardless, after much research, I settled on the NRS Ion as a good compromise PFD.  Its not a rescue PFD, but it does have good back protection and high buoyancy.  Bonus, its not much heavier than the V8, and its not bulky.  No zippers to mess with either.

This can be tidied up by tucking the straps behind, but you get the idea.

BD accessory 'biner.

Tubeless Surly Clownshoe

There are quite a few ghetto DIY tubeless setups for CS out there.
Split tubes have their own draw backs, and sourcing the right size tubes can be a pain.
The Gorilla Tape version seems to be the most popular, but, as with any tape based CS tubeless setup, the major fail point is the longitudinal seam that any tape less than 4" (100mm) will have.
At some point, sealant will penetrate the long seam and mess up things.
However, there is an alternative.
Siga tape.  Siga makes building membrane sealing tape in a variety of types and sizes.
The one to get is the Wigluv 100.  Its 100mm wide, sticky as hell, fiber reinforced and can be found at most building supply centers.  Kilrich has it here in YXY.  Drawback?  At $100 a roll, make sure you have some friends who want to go tubeless as well.
Another drawback is that it DOES stretch.  Tony put me onto the Wigluv, and hes had it on his tubeless CS/Bud?lou set up for a while, but with only the rim tape backing it, and running the wheels at hard condition PSI, he finally had a bulge fail.
In a nutshell, I have about 300 Km on this system now, and its been bombproof, touch wood....
So, bearing that in mind, the install that seems to be solid is as follows:

An early attempt using Tyvec Tape.  As can be seen, Stans sealant gets everywhere.

Yuck.
Essentially, in version 1, the sealant got through the Tyvec layers and only the rim tape was sealing.  This can happen with the Gorilla fiber tape as well.

Gorilla Repair Tape.  Strong, light and clean.  Needed to prevent bulging of the rim tape.  Seems to be better than the Black duct tape like Gorilla tape as it doesn't leave residue behind when you remove it.

After you have cleaned the rim tape and surface, run a single strip of Gorilla repair tape down the middle.  Important!  Use a heat gun on low to ensure good adhesion.  This is key.

After the first middle strip of Gorilla repair tape, add a strip to either side of the rim channel, ending it on the shoulder, then add one more on the middle.  This adds strength and prevents bulging and therefore strain on the Siga tape.
Use heat on all strips.

A thing of beauty.  100mm of WigLUV!  Use heat on this as well, low heat, gently.

The final bit; 1" Gorilla Tape to build up the shoulders.  In hind site, I think I would have used the Gorilla repair tape.   Again, apply with heat.
It seems like lots of tape, but the stuff is lighter than the Black Gorilla tape.
So far, so good, no bulging of the rim tape and I've been running pressures to 17 PSI.
Note: in the above image, you can see some Wigluv outboard of the Black tape.  Take a sharp Olfa/razor blade and trim it.

Rabbit River Video

From our trip last summer.  Not too much longer 'till summer....


Packrafting the Rabbit River. from Yukon Frolics on Vimeo.

Friday Creek the Right Way.

A couple of years ago, Dylan and I checked out Friday creek off the Alligator lake road.
Turned out it was a great ride in the alpine.
So good, we decided to head back to ride it the other way, which is starting at Fish lake and ending up at Annie lake.
So good.
Lots of descending on buff dog sled trails.
Paul B, Evan W, Josh D and I set off on Saturday from Fish lake.  Josh made it approximately 5 meters before snapping his Carbon fork airing off a large rock in the parking lot.
The rest of us had a great ride,ending up at our collective cabins on the Annie lake road.
Josh, you would have loved it....

Punching our way across Coal lake.

Coal Lake

Evan about to bliss out on the descent to Coal lake.  So, so good.

Summer 2016 Randomness

The Rabbit trip was the "Big" trip, but there were lots of other shorter trips squeezed in.

Rose River.

I had the bright idea to try to PR Seagull creek off the South Canol.  Bad deal. No water.
However, there we were on the South Canol with 4 days in hand.  Didn't want to head home, so we blew up at the Rose River bridge #5 and cast off.  The Rose is full of fun rapids, and while not terribly "remote", its still a fun 3 day paddle down into the upper Nisutlin.  The lower portion from bridge #2 to #1 is almost never paddled, and we had no intel, so it was fun exploring.

Supposedly III at normal flows.  It was low.

Gotta love river camping

Yukoners don't deal well with rain of any sort

This is some of the fun below bridge #2 which almost never sees a paddle.

More fat camping

Lounging on the flat water of the Nisutlin

Muncho Lake to Rabbit River

Ever watch Monty Python's Holy Grail?  Remember the bunny rabbit scene?  Sure you do...

OK, the Rabbit river isn't a killer bunny, but it isn't your average cute little stuffed Easter bunny either.

This Rabbit has teeth.

And that's what attracted us to it.

Us being the usual suspects of Dylan, Paul B and new gang member Dave Gonda.  This tripped "patched him in" as it were.

The Rabbit is a remote river in Northern BC with very limited access.  The "normal" access is by float plane into Netson lake, and then down Netson creek into the lower Rabbit.  We were attracted to the seemingly unknown upper Rabbit that looked to have heaps of rapids and a really nice walk in.

Walking/portaging in Red, floating in blue.

It had all those things, plus 2 canyons with LARGE waterfalls, fat camps and an amazing lower canyon, but more on those things later.

We packed up the MegaCab and booted out of town after work on Friday the 15th of July.  We rolled into Muncho lake late that night and dossed in a gravel pit for some much needed Z's.

The plan was to hike into the upper Rabbit river drainage via valley bottoms and horse trails, then start floating as soon as we had enough water.  We'd take out at the Coal River Lodge on the AlCan, then hitch a ride back to Muncho lake.  Great plan.

Saturday had hot weather, sunny skis and fantastic hiking up gravel bars and horse trails.

Numerous creek crossings kept us cool and soggy.

At a major drainage intersection, we took a short cut up a smaller drainage that would get us onto a major horse trail one of the outfitters in the area uses.  It proved quite interesting.

Some heavy afternoon thunder showers had us setting up the trap for some down time.

We rolled into a nice old horse camp tired, soggy and ready for dinner.

The next day was a repeat with a hot sunny morning.  We hit the horse trail and followed it up a creek and into the alpine.  

While taking a breather at the top of the pass, a small rabbit hopped past us without so much as batting an eye, indeed if anything it was a rather coquettish rabbit.  We took it as a good, welcoming omen rather than the Python-esque prognosticator of Doom.

  The hiking in over the two passes is mind blowingly beautiful.  Great horse trail and alpine vistas abound.

  There is some brush however.  Without the horse trails, it would be pretty miserable going.

We dropped down to the nameless tributary which we have affectionately dubbed The Upper Rabbit. Pretty slim going at first, so we put in a few Kms and made a camp at the first major tributary coming in on river left.  Here there was now enough water to consider blowing up.  The walking is easy going on nice horse trail, and easy on the eyes as well.

The next morning we aired up and embarked on our journey.  The river was just full enough for drag free paddling, and in short order, small rock gardens started spicing things up.

Pretty soon, the first canyon appeared and from then on, things got seriously fun.

Dave doing his best to avoid Gin-Su-ing the stern of his boat.

Soon we hit the first major canyon, and after a short scout, we discovered the first of three major waterfalls that had us looking for a portage route.  Fortunately, we found a good horse trail around the canyon, and although it put us in a bit further downstream than we would have liked, it beat thrashing about in the bush.
Of note, the first waterfall appears to be hard IV, but the next two drops are definitely class V.

After sweating out a few gallons of water, we put back in at a nice pool and cruised off.  The river slows down below this canyon until hitting a small constriction which forms this nasty little class IV.

Paul B and Dylan eyed it like a couple of hungry dawgs for a bit, but ultimately decided that the big boil at the bottom only meant trouble.  It would have been fun to try in a non-wilderness setting, but you have to pick your battles out in the wilderness.
We found an A-1 grade camp just as the sun was staring to dip.  We cranked up a fire and settled down to some fat camp living.

The first rainy day greeted us as we paddled off to the next big canyon.  We hit the entrance rapids, pulled out for a scout, and promptly made a ferry over to river right to air down for the big portage.  Just below the entrance rapids, the river jacks left into a big hole, and continues down into a sluice box waterfall.  Maybe someone will run it, not us.
It was an ugly portage, with the odd trace of an old horse trail, but it did the trick.

We got back into the river, again much lower than hoped.  Future parties could do a much shorter portage river left and come in just below the sluice pictured above.

As we had gotten out of camp quite early, we finished the portage around noon, then kicked back for some fat floating.  Netson creek came in from the left and added a bunch more water to the Rabbit.  At the end of the day, we met the Gundahoo river and made the best camp yet.

The cool thing about the Rabbit, well, there are lots of cool things, but it has zero evidence of other travelers. Owing to the canyons on its lower portion, this isn't a surprise. We did our best to make sure future travelers won't notice ours.
The Gundahoo adds a bunch more water to an already good sized river, and things felt much less creek like as we sped off early the next morning.  This section of river doesn't have many rapids worth noting.  One fun class III had an interesting split below a ledge that grabbed your attention for a moment or two.
We kept trying to find as good a camp as the previous nights, so we ended up paddling much later than we really wanted, and it was a hangry foursome that finally pitched camp on a Dryas flower flat at the tail end of an island.  A big fire and fat de-hys soon improved our outlooks.
The next day was the BIG day.  Previous trip reports had indicated a big canyon with no easy portage and at least one class IV rapid with many more IIIs.  The only trip report we found on the lower Rabbit was a canoe trip in the low water levels of fall, with the recommendation that others avoid the higher water levels of summer.  Our water level seemed average, but with no gauge on the Rabbit it was tough to tell.

The rapids kept increasing in number and size until we finally hit the entrance to IT.

This canyon is one cool spot.  Amazing Turquoise water, Limestone walls, Tufa srpings, rapids!
As I pulled over to take a shot of Dylan, I sliced the bottom of my floor and seat.  A quick repair job had us back on the water in no time.
The big rapid finally came.  It was preceded by heaps and heaps of fun III's.  Great times!
We had a look from river right, made the plans, and I shot video of Dyland and Paul hitting it.  The following image is from the video (to come) and while poor, gives a good idea of it.

 

September image of same rapid.  Photo credit Laurel Archer

In the end is was pretty straight forward, and well had a great time running it.  The water below is very narrow and boily with lots of funny whirlpools and squirrely water.  All too soon we were down to the Liard.

We ran a sneak line on river left through Whirlpool canyon and then ended up at Coal river lodge.  We took turns trying to hitch a ride, and Dave was finally successful.  We drank beer in the sun around a picnick table, shot the shit with the owners and locals, and generally enjoyed ourselves.  Dave returned from Muncho lake with the truck around 8, then we loaded up for the 7 hour drive back to Whitehorse showing up at 3 AM.
Thanks Dylan, Paul B and Dave for a fantastic adventure in amazing country.  A great team makes the trip.  

A snowy return to the Primrose

It was so good 2 years ago, we had to go back.  But with more snow....

Snow?  In early September??

Great trip.  Our objective was to run all the rapids besides the falls and its canyon.
Mission accomplished.