Rafting the Copper River (Part II)
9/1 – 9/3/22
9-1
The rain continued all night. Waking to the familiar patter on the fly, I packed my gear, collapsed my tent in a downpour, and bolted down breakfast. To my surprise, the rain stopped almost the instant I finished my meal, and we launched the rafts into tentative sunlight, a rainbow arcing overhead.
In the canyon, the rafts bounced over a series of riffles and compression waves, throwing up spray that the relentless upstream wind flung into our faces. After stopping to refill our water jugs at the base of a shivering cascade, we ran Abercrombie Rapids, a short stretch of boiling water that inherited the name, but not the fatal ferocity, of the rapids that the railroad builders encountered a century ago. Dozens of seals emerged from the water to watch as we passed.
At the rapids’ end, incredibly, the wind died, and we found ourselves floating gently across Miles Lake, the wide stretch of open water formed by the retreat of colossal Miles Glacier. Although the glacier has fallen back something like four miles over the past century, it remains a magnificent sight, especially when its three-mile wide calving face catches the sun.
Hundreds of cobalt icebergs, cast aside by Miles in the course of its long retreat, dotted the expanse of the lake, dappled by passing clouds. On the other shore, framed by the vast back of Childs Glacier, I could see the Million Dollar Bridge – the critical link in the building of the railroad.
It took about an hour to cross the lake, and I can never remember being so awed by the light. Passing curtains of rain, shot through with sunlight, played over the surfaces of both glaciers, now kindling, now concealing. The icebergs caught every shaft of light, and assumed every conceivable shade of blue. Every minute, the scene changed: different light, different constellations of icebergs, a new perspective.
As we approached the Million Dollar Bridge, a grizzly ran out from beneath the pylons and leapt into the river, bobbing downstream. We ate lunch a short distance away, watching icebergs crash into the breakers guarding the bridge’s piers.
After lunch, we floated beneath the bridge, and were immediately confronted with Childs Glacier, whose gleaming face – 300 feet high and more than a mile long – overhangs the gray current of the river. Every few minutes, some part of the vast ice sheet would creak and groan, and a fragment of ice – sometimes the size of a car, sometimes the size of a house – would plummet into the water, sending huge waves toward shore.
We set up camp in the Childs Glacier campground, directly across the river from its namesake. Although the campground has excellent facilities – including a large pavilion and very welcome outhouses – it has been abandoned since 2012, when the highway connecting it to Cordova washed out.
Once we had established camp, I walked over to the Million Dollar Bridge, following the overgrown highway to Cordova for the last stretch. The bridge was even more impressive than I had imagined: a huge pile of steel, suspended over the endless procession of icebergs from Miles Glacier. In a whistling wind, I walked back and forth over the bridge, trying to capture the magical contrast of Childs Glacier – somber under a mountain snowstorm – and distant Miles, lambent in the evening sun.
9-2
There’s something surreal about camping so close to an active glacier. Twice last night, the thunder of falling ice jolted me awake; and when I unzipped the tent flaps, there it was, shining dully in the rain. As I sat beneath the campground pavilion, while waiting for breakfast, a huge chunk of ice fell from the glacier, sending 6-foot waves rushing across the river.
Despite the driving rain, I walked out to the Million Dollar Bridge, hoping against hope for weather clement enough for the drone. That weather never appeared. Instead, my time on the bridge was enlivened by a howling wind and a horizontal downpour. Despite the weather, I managed to get a series of establishing shots with my trusty phone.
The rest of the group walked up as I was finishing, and I joined three of them for a very wet hike to Childs Glacier. The first hundred yards, through alders and clinging mud, took us nearly an hour. Fortunately, after regrouping in the machine shop of a disused lodge, we found a relatively clear cobble beach. A mile over shifting stones brought us to the glacier face, here gently sloping and carpeted with debris.
We hiked a short distance up a meltwater canyon, cobalt ice glowing underfoot. After a short hot chocolate break (and, in my case, a series of pictures toward the bridge), we beat our way back to camp, wind dashing torrents against our slack-soaked rain gear.
After changing in my tent, I spent a chilly afternoon sitting in the pavilion, sipping cup after cup of tea and hot chocolate, and watching wind-driven rain pelt the yellowing trees. The storm seemed to loosen the glacier ice; cracks and booms announced a series of spectacular calvings as we ate.
9-3
The glacier thundered all night, and the rain never stopped. This morning, after packing my gear away, I ventured into the downpour to launch my drone, and flew it along the glacier face for a few anxious minutes.
Then, drone stowed and drysuit donned, I launched myself into the raft. We floated downstream through a thick fog, cobalt icebergs bobbing alongside. As we entered the river’s vast delta, the rocky shores receded and softened into marshes and mud flats. Leafless trees leaned over the channel, and icebergs rolled like dying whales in the multiplying maze of channels.
A bear peered up from a sandbar to inspect us, eagles perched on snags, and dozens of seals emerged from the river to inspect us. But the marsh seemed lifeless under the pall of the fog. After about ten miles, the mist parted briefly, revealing a range of snowy peaks.
By the time we landed on a mudflat beside a broken bridge on the Copper River Highway, the clouds had closed again. Taking advantage of a brief lull in the rain, we loaded our gear into a van; and after a final look at Childs Glacier, gleaming dully on the horizon, we set out for Cordova. Almost immediately, the rain resumed with redoubled intensity. I moved closer to the heater, watched water streak across the windows, and was fervently glad that I was no longer on the river.
My room wasn’t yet ready when I arrived at the Reluctant Fisherman Inn in Cordova, so I sat in the lobby, listening to a group of wealthy anglers swap tales. Then, at last, I was given my key. I stepped inside, spread out my wet clothes, shaved away a week of stubble, and took one of the most blissful showers I can remember.