Aniakchak

Tomorrow I leave for 8 days in Aniakchak National Monument. Weather permitting of course. Aniakchak was made a national monument in 1978, the year I graduated from high school. It is 450 miles south of Anchorage. It is known for its notorous bad weather and exciting white water rafting. It is a remote area of recent volcanic wildlands. Aniakchak is a 6 mile wide 2000 foot deep caldera fromed by the collapse of a 7000 foot mountain. It is the largest caldera on the Alaska Peninsula. The floor is covered with small cinder cones, lava flows, and explosion pits. Surprise Lake lies in the caldera and tomorrow I will be landing there in a float plane.

My goal for the next eight days is to monitor wildlife and birds around the caldera and along the banks of the river as we raft down the 27 mile river that starts in Surprise Lake and flows through the gates. The gates are a narrow passage throught the volcanic wall that drops 75 feet per mile. When we have passed the gates the river becomes slow moving until we reach the confluence with the Hidden River where we again will shoot rapids on our journey to the pacific coast. After a few days at the coast we will be picked up and flown home. To me this is a Lewis and Clark kind of trip, as few humans go to Aniakchak. The reason being the expense and constantly changing weather. I have always wanted to go back in time and see the United States before the white man screwed it up and this will be as close as I can get. So for the next eight days or more I will not have any new entries to the blog but I hope to come home with untold stories for all of you to read. While I am gone I hope you can find an adventure or two of your own.