July 24, 2024.
All I wanted to do for my birthday was to go packrafting. I’d found this extensive canoe trail system on the Kenai Peninsula that I thought would fit the bill. I was excited about the idea of route-finding on water and doing a portage between lakes. Besides, we hadn’t taken the boats out in a while and we packed them all this way. The weather was even lining up, too. After a late breakfast and a lot of driving down gravel roads, we arrived at the west entrance of the Swan Lake Canoe Route.
It was still pretty dreary and gray outside, but the forecast offered a slice of hope for clearing skies later that afternoon. Since the days are SO long this time of year in Alaska, I wasn’t worried about the 1 pm start. From the staging area, we immediately had to hike our rafts in a couple hundred feet or so to the water’s edge. We put our rafts into the water and tried our best to get in without dumping a bunch of water into the boat; this is always a challenge. We plotted a course across the lake, through lily pads and around the bits of land poking into the water. I was glad I dressed lightly because I got warm pretty quickly!
Our packrafts are very basic. They’re good for flat water and short distances. They don’t have much room to carry supplies, so I had a half liter of water and a small dry bag with a map, snacks and my Garmin inReach. That’s it. I carry way more on a casual day hike. We were trying our best not to make this an epic.
It took us about an hour and a half to reach the trail sign on the other side. We tried to find the closer trail to a different lake but there was no sign of it. Continuing on, we found the take-out to get to Canoe Lake #2. Goal achieved: we’d be doing a portage today!
We got out of our rafts, rather ungracefully, and stepped ashore. We were greeted by a thousand mosquitoes who were happy to see us. To get away from the bloodthirsty swarm, took a quick snack and pee break. Then we carried our boats down the trail. I enjoyed walking on the boardwalks and through the lush, green Alaskan forest. Shortly we found ourselves at the second lake.
By the time we got back in our boats, we were feeling pretty tired. I can hike and scramble all day long, but water sports are not in my wheelhouse. We decided to keep it mellow. Aaron took out his book and I poked around, hoping to paint in my journal from the raft. It was so windy here that staying in one place was impossible and we both had to paddle out a ways just to get a few minutes of rest as the wind blew us back to shore. I hastily completed a sad painting as my boat rotated uncontrollably in the water. Not an ideal painting setup but I was glad for the silly experience.
After I finished painting I looked in vain for the next connector trail, if one was planning to canoe to the next lake. I couldn’t find a sign or anything that looked like a takeout. I stared at the map and at the shoreline and the best I could figure is that the trail was buried behind some downed trees. And we’d barely touched this 60 MILE long trail. I started to comprehend just how challenging it would be to plan a canoe trip from one end to another. Someday, perhaps…
Light began filtering through the clouds as we packed our rafts back to the first lake. We paddled back, taking only a slightly different path than our route in. The clouds gradually burned off, leaving bright blue skies behind. We moseyed back, appreciating all the beautiful aquatic plants and watching the birds. I was obsessed with the yellow pond lilies. Their fruits were so weird and cool. The stalks vanished into the dark blue water below. And living contentedly on their above-water surface were lots of insect larva. I’d look them up later to learn about an entire family of beetles that lives out its whole life on water lilies! How cool is that!
The weather was so nice late in the afternoon that we decided to just bask in the sun until we got hungry. We parked our boats in the water near the put in and relaxed. I took a million photos of plants and Aaron read his book. The only sounds around us came from the occasional bald eagle or songbird. Pure bliss.
By 6 pm, we decided we were ready. We retraced our steps back to the van and re-parked at a nearby camping area. Aaron made me a nice burger for dinner and we spent the rest of the day lounging in the van with fireweed blooms creating a pink backdrop outside. Happy birthday, indeed.
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