Day 11: July 17 –White Water Rafting and Other Denali Joy

Up at 7 for our 7:50 shuttle to Denali Outdoor Adventures for our 25-mile, half-day white water rafting excursion on the 38-degree waters of Lake Minnetonka, I mean, the Nenana River. (A super awesome prize for the first person who gets the Minnetonka reference. Not really, but I’ll be slightly impressed.) What we didn’t know (and neither did the girl at The Salmon Bake Restaurant who booked our trip) was that their office is one of those long New York City blocks away from where we boarded the shuttle. I felt like such a tool when he drove for twenty seconds and stopped. I thought he was waiting for more peeps to board until he rounded the van and opened the door.

 

We entered the place to don our dry suits and boots before heading up the road to the drop in point. These aren’t the easiest items of clothing to throw on and there are tight rubber gaskets for your neck and wrists, so professional help Is required for dressing. My first dry suit, yes I said first, fit fine until he pulled it over my head and the gasket clinched around my carotid, jugular and larynx rendering my speechless and unable to swallow, breathe, speak or turn my head. For those of you that enjoy embarrassing me until my ears turn red, this method was much more immediate, but could have easily caused permanent damage. It felt as though The “Nature Boy” Ric Flair slapped on a sleeper hold and I was ready to tap out like a school girl. If I had kept the first suit, I would have cut off all blood flow to my brain faster than the Road Runner says “beep, beep.”

 

Once I got out of that grand mal seizure inducing garment, I was blessed with a seemingly brand new dry suit whose neck fit snugly, but did not have asphyxiation on its mind. The boots, however, were not as nice to me. Thanks to the dime-sized hole in the left one, my foot was a bit chill-chill for the duration.

 

The only thing that sucked was that I couldn’t bring my camera along on the river. I’m glad I didn’t since it was white water rafting and doing so would have been a dim-witted move on my part, but there were many photo ops that went untaken such as my beloved Alaska Railroad passing on the bluff above. They did, however, have folks stationed along several points of the river taken photos to sell to you once you were on dry land again, Busch Gardens Tampa style. And so is the tale of how I dove into that trap. I couldn’t take my own photos, so I, all tourist-like, bought their overpriced CD of shots. It was worth it.

 

There are a few interesting thing about glacial fed rivers:

1. Just two days ago, the water creating this WWR experience was ice on a glacier, hence the 38-degree temperature.
2. Due to the glacial nature of glaciers, they do glacier things as in crushing rocks to “silt flour” and carrying said baking ingredient downstream.
3. And the final and, perhaps, most important fact for a WWR trip –  what Jeff failed to mention was that when one is about to take one’s white water rapid Category IV wave smack dab in the chops, one should keep one’s mouth closed as it tastes like ingesting a pint of freshly mixed concrete. On the bright side, it makes for a very refreshing, yet heavy, wake up call. Thanks Mother Nature.

At one point on the river, Jeff, our super awesome guide and native Alaskan, said, “This is one of our swimming holes. If you want to jump in, you can.” Since Jeff had cracked several corny rafting jokes slathered in puns earlier, I naturally assumed that he was pulling the proverbial leg. That is until I saw six heads of folks formerly in the rafts ahead of us bobbing in the water. It was then that his non-joke registered and I, who does not know how to swim, jumped over the side into the 38 degree ice bath known as the Nenana River. It kicked all possible ass, but it was the coldest water in which I’ve ever knowingly/willingly immersed myself.

And that awesome feat was not just a one-time occurrence. Jeff made the same offer downstream at which point the father from an Alaskan native family of four jumped in and just let himself float about ten feet away from the raft. I suddenly had the overwhelming urge to monkey-see-monkey-do and did. Pretty sweet for a guy who can’t swim. But, alas, there is no photographic evidence, so did it really happen? Does a bear defecate in the tundra? Now that is something of which I do have evidence. So take that Plato.

On another subject…

Have you’ve seen the movie, Into the Wild? It’s about Christopher McCandless, who gave his $24,000 life savings and hitchhiked to Alaska to live in the wilderness, got trapped on the other side of a river, ate the wrong shizz after which he died on the bus he stumbled upon 11 miles into the park. There’s your synopsis. Anyway…that bus is still 11 miles into the park and you can even hoof it out there, which isn’t recommended since a woman drowned last year in the very same river that trapped Christopher. But the movie prop bus that was used in the Sean Penn-directed flick from 2007 now sits on the property of the 49th State Brewing Company and can be toured for free. Its extreme attention to detail is remarkable and if I hadn’t read otherwise, I wouldn’t know it’s not the real deal plucked from the tundra for my own morbid curiosity.

Long story short (after a 154-word build up)…we went there and took photos. Now we’re back and getting ready for a 10 a.m. sled dog demonstration followed by five miles of Denali hiking. It’s either five miles or whatever our old and worn bodies allow. After that, we’ll me the Alaska Railroad to head to Fairbanks for the night before the homestretch on Tuesday/Wednesday.

That is all.

For photographic evidence of everything but me floating down the Nenana River in a dry suit, click HERE.