Hike up Teklanika River and Calico Creek to Raft Sanctuary River

2.5 days

Sebastian and I spent the night Friday at some friends in Denali, and then Saturday morning at 9a stopped by the backcountry office to get a permit. The bus had stopped running the park road. Perk was we got to drive a personal car into the park, con was hitch hiking instead of a bus pick up. We drove to where the road was closed and starting hiking up the left side of Teklanika River mid day. It was nice walking, with a mix of river banks and trails. We cut into the bushes to cut over to Calico Creek. This provided new scenery and some shelter from the wind, but the easier walking could be to follow the river bank around. After around 7.5 miles of walking we decided to make camp. The wind was getting worse, and we couldn't tell if there was shelter ahead. We found a gully that was sheltered on 3 sides. The wind was ripping even with the block, and it snapped a guy line in the middle of the night. Was a bit glad we didn't camp in the middle of a bunch of trees, because it could have been scary with the amount of wind. 

 

The next morning we continued up Calico Creek to a pass. The morning had unexpectedly nice weather (maybe last warm weather of the season!), followed by some rain/snow. There was some snow sticking in the pass but not a bunch. Initially we had talked about continuing up Teklanika River further and going over a pass to connect with Refuge Valley higher up, but the rangers had said snow stuck in this pass more. We crossed the pass more towards the right as we were walking up, and there was a nice descent down from it. 

 

Sebastian thought we should pop up above the drainage to the right. Once we made some distance on the right, it proved to be the right decision. The drainage got steep, and the left side of the drainage got cliffy. 

 

We meandered down to the Sanctuary River. At the end there were some bushes. We walked around 9 miles this day. The next morning snow line looked quite low, right above us. The snow line has probably gotten this low and then melted a few times. But overall great timing and potentially the last week to do this trip. The raft out was class II. We didn't run into strainers which the rangers had said to look out for. The river seemed pretty wide for the size of trees, so it seems rare that a tree would cross the whole river. There were a couple shallow spots.