Come enjoy a 30 mile trip up the Kelsal River
The rain had stopped and Sean's wife was in Anchorage, I get a call early this morning,
It was Sean, "hey let's go for a ride."
So I get the sled in the back of the truck, grab my snow gear, and off I go.
We decided to take the Kelsal, It's a wide river-bottom valley between large steep mountain ranges. The river changes every year, so there are lots of channels, and lots of islands, lots of uprooted trees and cut banks, in short, there are lots of cool hazards.
There is an old logging road, of sorts, up
the south-west side 20 miles or so. That is pretty much the only way up... or so it was thought!
Today we paved a new rout.

The first 10 miles are familiar territory, we have trails through the thick scrub alders, and know where the river is frozen and where it is to thin...for the most part.
There are large swamp areas where the river used to flow and they make great areas to open up and run, then at the other end is maybe a slew with a frozen bottom that leads to another such swamp,
 

Of course once in a while the only way is to just "Juice it!" this is me crossing a slew that ran into one of those swamps. sean and I spent some time just seeing how well our new sleds could fly! Notice the eagles nest high in the tree beyond me.
(click this photo to see more jumps)
 

(I sure hate to crop these pictures down, but for down loading...)
This is our first serious river crossing. Snowmachines are not characteristically built to use as boats, but the new light and powerful sleds are amazing. Some sleds just do alot better than others, if water is sprayed into the cowling The belt get wet and..you sink! if the weight of the rider is not balanced you begin to hop, and it gets worse until..you sink. if there is to much weight built over the skis..yep, you get the idea.
So we had to try out how well our new sleds do.

Now the deal is nobody sets out to go say 30 miles up a river. We were just out for a fun day, but one thing leads to another...
So why cross? I mean besides that! well, because the river flows in a serpentine fashion and is constantly changing course, it cuts out steep banks on one side, in alot of places 20' high. In so doing it takes out alot of large trees and scatters them along the bank and into the water, so you must cross (we call it "skip") from one inside bank to another, working up river in the opposite serpentine direction as the river.
the inside bank is usually low to the water and not as steep...usually.

As you can see the water is shallow on this side of the river, but just off to the left of the photo, the river bends back to the right, it is much deeper in this bend. Sean is headed from the inside bend on my side to the next inside bend on the other side. there is a steep bank and lots of tangle of fallen trees just to my left. In the center of the river the water is running about 6-8'deep. We are now well into uncharted territory!

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