Tatshenshini: Voyaging Together

We traveled in three rafts with three guides and 10 other clients down the Tashenshini to its confluence with the Alsek and then down the lower Alsek.  These rivers flow through Kluane, Glacier Bay, and Tatshenshini-Alsek Parks, three parts of a UNESCO World Heritage Site comprised of four contiguous parks.  Wrangell-St. Elias is the other, and together the four protect a total of about 38,000 square miles.    

The UNESCO website says the parks hold "the largest non-polar icefield in the world and contain examples of some of the world’s longest and most spectacular glaciers" and "demonstrate some of the best examples of glaciation and modification of landscape by glacial action in a region still tectonically active, spectacularly beautiful, and where natural processes prevail."

We shared this massive protected place with a friendly community of strong, good, careful, caring people.   Here is the village, population fifteen, starting with the three guides, third-generation Tatshenshini guides from Haines, AK, who learned the river from guides who learned it from guides on the first commercial trip there in 1976.

Alisa

Steve

Bryce

Steve and Dale

Glen and Marcia

Donna and Eric

Nancy and Tom

Ray and Connie

John

Sarah

Southeast Alaska

AMHS M/V Columbia at the Dock in Petersburg

We were away mid-June to mid-July on what came to feel like four trips: 

an Alaska Marine Highway System voyage in four legs that held the whole trip together,

Mendenhall Glacier from our Campsite near Juneau

five days in Juneau,

Lower Alsek River and Sapphire Glacier

a raft expedition on the Tatshenshini and the Lower Alsek,  

Paddling in Jamestown Bay near Sitka

and eight days in Sitka. 

We'll start with the Tatshenshini in the next posts; the other three trip parts will follow in time.  Patience with us, please.  We will sort through what we saw and thought, posting as segments are ready.  And forbearance, too, please.  Even edited, the photos and words will mount up!