Stage 3 – Packrafting the lakes and river down toWhitehorse

Yours truly at Bennett Lake, Trailhead of the Chilkoot Trail in Canada

After a good night’s sleep we were ready for Bennett Lake. The local first nation guide Danny offered a few words of caution about waves and strong winds until he heard of the previous challenges from the Big 5 team.  The Alpackarafts were pumped up in a few minutes and what ensued was almost an hour of load balancing the heavy packs onto the tiny rafts.  It was like loading the smallest pack horse with a truck load of kit.  The rafts took it all and they were ready to go.   We were a little tentative at first and also cautious as the water contained some debris and metal objects, presumably from the gold rush days. I bit the  bullet and rolled up my trouser legs and waded in. Was it cold? Bloody freezing. I mounted my Packaraft Steed as quickly as possible to get my feet out of the freezing waters.

The first day was 11 hours of paddling down the lake flanked by snow capped peaks.  The highlight was without doubt the White Pass and Yukon Route train passing by with all its passengers waving in each carriage.  The day ended in Carcross at the head of the Lake. We arrived on the small beach and located a decking area, perfect, wait until late (still light of course) and pitch our tents. I only had one pair of shoes with me and they were now extremely smelly following a soaking in the raft. Incidentally having jumped in and out of the raft 4 x throughout the day my feet were now blocks of ice. Despite 2 pairs of socks and them in my sleep back stuff sack they would not thaw out.  Locals passed by, enquired what we were up to and then confirmed we were crazy.  We in turn asked about local places to restock on water, other goodies and some hot food. My brother went walkabout to find the local service station on a highway.  After an hour I began to worry. After 1hr 20 mins he returned laden with some treats having made a few wrong turns based on local directions.  So we ate, and pitched our tents, stashed our food away from the camp and then turned in.

The next day we rafted for 13 hours covering almost 32 miles at a max speed of 2.5 miles per hour.  This was much slowly than we had anticipated. On the Yukon River we knew the flow was 5 mph and grew to over 7mph, what we discovered was the flow on the Lakes and river here was negligible.  Every time we reached a small connector between the Lakes I hoped for a drop in elevation and flow. Non was forthcoming what so ever.  It proved physically and mentally challenging although highlighted the sense of freedom offered by these unique craft in long expeditions across mountains and water.  It was a case of just keep moving, hope that the end of the day comes quickly and the pain goes away. We were working extremely hard to keep these rafts moving slowly. Tough love!  That evening the boys camped on the shores of Marsh Lake getting eaten alive slowly by squadrons of mosquitoes. We beached and discovered a huge selection of footprints from different animals on the sandy spit.  We were too tired to continue and decided to risk it.

The final day was an even longer one at almost 14 hours to reach the final destination of Whitehorse.  Waking up we looked down the lake, miles to go but never the less within striking distance.   As we passed down Marsh Lake I witnessed that ‘small world feeling’ once again, this time meeting up with Mark from Up North Adventures in the middle of nowhere.  It was great to see him.  He shouted “hey man paddling the lakes like that is Old School, you heading to Dawson? “  “Nope did that last year to Circle Alaska” I responded. “hey are you guys the Big 5 kayak challenge?” – you gotta laugh.  We continue paddling and headed down the final arm of the lake. We were accompanied by petrol heads thrashing their speed boats around the lake. Talk about tortoise and the hare?! We reached the Yukon River and again hopes were raised at finding some flow.

Packarafting down the final stretch on the Yukon provided a small flow to assist the paddling. The River twists and turns but we never seemed to get any closer to the end.  There were some great moments, paddling across the wider flats with various channels and then passing a beaver sat motionless on the bank.   We edged closer till we were spotted and he disappeared into his lodge.  The river then flows under a large blue metal bridge before passing through sluices.  The canyon is the feed water down to the Yukon Hydo electric scheme.  Miles Canyon, the scene of so much hardship during the gold rush with white waters and rapids was a real treat with its swirling flow but now much calmer after the Yukon Electric dam was installed.  Our final task was to portage the dam and paddle the final couple of miles to the Whitehorse reaching the start of the previous year’s expedition. Personally I was pretty exhausted by this stage, put on the heavy pack and fell over backwards with my feet in the air. Nice, some adventurer I turned out to be. It was now 10.30pm.

We scouted the river below the dam which was fast flowing wave trains, eddy lines and boils. We picked a spot to enter in an eddy and paddle into the flow. At last after nearly 90 miles we had found flow.  By our reckoning it was about 1.5 miles to downtown Whitehorse.  We enjoyed the last bit, picking a route in the whitewater.  Town approached fast and we rounded a bend to see the SS Klondike paddle steamer.  We ducked under the road bridge and playing the flow meant a large wave in my lap. Not ideal. We landed at close to 11pm. A job well done, and a true sense of achievement.

“We really set ourselves an epic challenge this time by tackling the trail with such heavy packs and mixing three different modes of unsupported adventure.  Completing 5,000 miles is something I am proud of and it was appropriate that this milestone was achieved in Alaska and the Yukon, places I have grown to love.  Without doubt despite plenty of experience of adventure this is one of the hardest things I have ever done. Reaching the end conjured up a huge range of emotions with relief, pride and above all a shared sense of achievement with my brother Matthew.  I am now looking forward to another 5,000 miles of adventure.  – Richard Harpham