Another river north of Fairbanks that has an easy car shuttle, we paddled it with Luke and Emily. The river was about the same difficulty level as the Chena River. There was some small rapids, rocks to dodge, and the occasional tree to maneuver around. We camped one night. A moose cow and calf splashed by our tents during the night.
While on a foot patrol Scott ran across some tracks in the mud.
Fortunately he was inside a vehicle when he encountered the other bear.
We canoed the Chena River north of Fairbanks with our friend Luke and some members of the Fairbanks Paddling Club. We are relative novices when it comes to paddling on tight little rivers with lots of rock dodging, however after some exciting maneuvering around obstacles and some tense moments, we are now calling ourselves experienced paddlers.
Scott caught his very first grayling, and Jen caught some too.
After we made camp we paddled across the river and explored a series of beaver ponds, until some downed trees blocked our forward progress
The first night of the trip we drove down to the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge and camped. We hoped to get the canoe wet for the first time this year, however we woke up to find that the lakes were mostly covered in ice. So we moved on to Homer with a dry canoe.
Homer activities included some hiking, a boat ride, a guided bird tour, and a lot of independent bird watching.
