The Talkeetna
The Talkeetna River lives up to its reputation as
one of the premier remote wilderness
river trips in North America. The native Athabascan Indians named it The River of Plenty
because the Talkeetna was an essential food cache for them. The epithet still holds true
today as Alaskans and visitors alike gather at its banks for the plethora of wildlife and
fish.
Today Talkeetna Town is more commonly thought of as The Place Where Three Rivers Meet as the Susitna and Chulitna Rivers converge there as well. Starting from its source high up in the Talkeetna Mountains, at its namesake glacier, the river runs fast and cold down into a wide, ice aged carved, u-shaped valley. Its canyon is 18 miles in length and its rapids are continuous and challenging by anyone’s standards. With rapids like The Ledge, Rock Garden, The Sluice Box, and Bobby Socks, this class III and IV canyon will satiate even a connoisseur’s craving for whitewater. But whitewater is merely one aspect of this wilderness expedition.
The upper river,
and our put in, is accessed only by 
bush plane from the small town of Talkeetna.
The surrounding country is wild and remote. Caribou, moose, wolves, bald eagles,
grizzlies, and black bears make this their home. The Talkeetna easily hosts one of the
largest bear populations we’ve seen along an interior river. Every summer, salmon run by
the thousands up the Talkeetna River and choke her tributaries with spawning fish, becoming
a feeding grounds for bald eagles, grizzlies and a fisherman’s dream. Dolly Varden, rainbow
trout and arctic grayling also add to an angler’s potential catch.
We've put together a 5-day schedule that allows for a layover day for hiking, fishing, or just relaxing in camp. We'll travel about 70 miles of river to return to our starting point of Talkeetna. This is one of our favorite trips and along with a small handful of guides, we have logged more Talkeetna river miles than almost anyone. We can't recommend the Talkeetna more for a whitewater wilderness trip loaded with extras.
We recommend a couple of warm-up days on the Nenana River with the Denali Kayak School as a way to get accustomed to a big volume, glacial river.
The Nenana
The Talkeetna
The Chickaloon
The Charley
The Happy
The Kongakut
The Tana
Kayak Alaska
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