Chitina/Copper River Drainages
Wrangell- St. Elias NP/Chugach Mountains

Spectacular. Awesome. Huge. These words can’t
be used enough to describe the country of the Chitina
and Copper River drainages. These rivers drain three
massive ranges, the Wrangell, the St. Elias and the
Chugach Mountains, comprised of lofty peaks, giant
glaciers and remote wilderness, forming the nation’s
largest national park. River volumes here are tremendous
and their waters heavily laden with the silt and sediments
from the countless glaciers and massive ice fields at their
source and the source of nearly every tributary. This is
consummate wild Alaska on a grand scale. Glaciers
cascade down near vertical valleys, bald eagles perch
in the tops of cottonwood trees, grizzly bears fish at the
mouths of tributaries and in every direction is the kind of
scenery that awes.

Nizina/Chitina Rivers

This epic Alaska rafting expedition starts high at the headwaters of the Nizina River, after a short scenic bush plane flight into a riverside gravel bar strip. The Nizina flows south directly from its source, the Nizina Glacier, from high in the Wrangell Mountains and flows big, fast and cold. The surrounding glacial scenery is stunning with loftly peaks rising over 5,000 vertical feet above the valley floor and the rock strewn ice of the glacier hugging the river’s north shore. We’ll run the braided upper channels of the river and stop often for hikes along gravel tributaries. We’ll see scattered evidence of the early mining that brought thousands to the McCarthy area in the early 1900’s. The river eventually becomes one channel and winds through the mellow multicolored rock walls of a canyon to eventually open up again briefly before funneling into the exciting Nizina Canyon. Here the river winds dramatically through narrow limestone cliffs, sometimes seemingly dead ending into vertical walls. The Nizina eventually dumps into the massive waters of the broad and braided Chitina River and heads west. We’ll
take several days to traverse the huge Chitina Valley, scouting for bears fishing in salmon choked tributaries, before we meet the equally as large Copper River at their massive and exciting confluence. We’ll travel by oar powered rafts and cover about 95 miles, to end our 7 day trip here at the small town of Chitina or you can continue down the Copper River for another 6 days , completing one of Alaska’s most spectacular and epic river adventures.

Copper River

The mighty Copper River drains the huge peaks and glaciers of the Wrangell and St. Elias Mountains and eventually cuts through the glacier riddled coastal Chugach Range. After a half days drive from Anchorage we’ll put on the river at it’s confluence with the Chitina River and head south into Woods Canyon on an enormous volume of silt laden water. We’ll take several days to float and explore the magnificent lower Copper Valley, spending part of a day hiking it’s renowned sand dunes and traveling to a popular grizzly bear fishing grounds. We’ll cross paths with glaciers that dump their giant columns of ice directly into the river and float with icebergs at Miles Lake just before the river leaves the Mountains and fans out across the Copper River Delta, an important migratory bird stopover, to eventually join the ocean waters of Prince William Sound. We’ll take out at the southern end of Miles Lake under the looming 300 foot face of the Childs Glacier, near the fishing community of Cordova, at the famous Million Dollar Bridge. This engineering marvel of it’s time is a remnant of the Northwest and Copper River Railroad that once traveled up the Copper and Chitina Rivers in the early 20th century to the once booming towns of Chitina and McCarthy and the rich Kennicott Copper mines. We’ll travel about 80 miles on our 7 day trip in oar powered rafts. There are no real rapids on the Copper river, but one should expect very large river volumes and possible extreme conditions due to the high peaks, glaciers and big water. If you are looking for a wilderness experience of spectacular proportions we can’t recommend this Alaska raft trip more.

Nizina/Chitina/Copper Rivers

12 days/11 nights
July 9-21
These trips can be combined for an epic 12 day Alaska rafting expedition that includes all three rivers, from the headwaters of the Nizina to the Chitina to the Copper all the way to the coast, covering 175 miles of spectacular glacial wilderness and
traversing three massive mountain ranges.  Nizina/Chitina/Copper trips start and end in Anchorage, Alaska.