Moody Creek Packraft - 6.3.2017

Updated in 2025 include another great day on this little chocolate river.

After a dry winter in the Alaska Range (and everywhere else), spring 2017 brought persistent cool weather to Southcentral. We wanted to get onto the water, but the weather history was tricky for predicting how much water we'd find. Driving north on the Parks Highway, the plan was to make a game-time decision. Passing Honolulu Creek, it had way too much water in it, so we headed for Moody.

We dropped a bike shuttle at the Healy bridge then parked at Dragonfly Creek to begin our customary late start. Following the dry drainage was straightforward and within a mile we were on the clear ridge.


Complete with game trail highways, the ridge was a great way to gain elevation towards the plateau above. Pretty good views southwest into the foothills of the Alaska Range too.


It also had vivid folding rock patterns to check out. The quartz intrusions are neat. Alex for scale:


And without Alex - I need to get back into my copy of Roadside Geology of Alaska.


Around 4,000 feet we skirted left behind the large promontory that bulges from the edge of the plateau.


Then we climbed the last little headwall to the ridge. This upper basin had several small ongoing debris flows to check out; and what looked suspiciously like an airplane door.


The ridge was remarkably flat and covered in sheep sign. It was hard to believe there could be that many sheep in one spot until we saw one giant flock. Then another giant flock.


Sugarloaf Peak coming into view. We followed a game trail to just short of its summit before dropping over the backside and down another trail towards the creek.


Looking back towards Glitter Gulch.


The rusty yellows, oranges, and browns were one of the highlights of the hike for me.


After scrambling up Point 4784, we turned towards Sugarloaf Peak and began our descent. From the top we could look east into the headwaters of Moody Creek. Its along basin, I'd be interested in going back and putting in higher up. It wouldn't be worth following the ridge to do so, maybe people have gone in from Montana Creek?


The incredible trails continued as we contoured down. Below us a large herd of sheep frolicked on the hillside. I wonder how many generations of sheep have been frolicking there.


Looking into the long headwaters of the Moody:


Now well below Sugarloaf Peak.


A good view of how well defined the trail is.


The game highway even had an off-ramp to the put in at Moody Creek. Perhaps AKDOT can hire these trail engineers?


Immediately after putting in, the creek turned into a fun game of boulder dodging thru chocolate milk.


Alex approves.


Ice persisting well into June. Look at those huge chunks of loose rock - what a dynamic landscape!


After some confusion (by me) on whether or not this rapid needed to be scouted, and a questionable brace off a bedrock ledge I setup safety for Khalial.


Perhaps I should give pointers on bracing off of rocks.


Alex and more ice. The blues of the ice contrasted nicely with the hues of the degrading rock.


I think this is the bottom of the most sustained rapid section. Based on the Tuff Shed sized boulders in the creek, this drainage must produce some major runoff!


Portaging across the one major strainer. I'm pretty sure that scrambling along loose, steep, and slippery rocks above the strainer was just as dangerous as paddling past it.


Continuous and exciting rapids continued down the small creek until its confluence with the Healy Creek. A few minutes later we joined the Nenana and cruised to the bridge in the evening glow.


By 11 PM I was on my bike, blasting Creedence Clearwater Revival, and blissfully cranking thru the last 13 miles of the day. I would do this trip again in a second - great hiking, views, geology, and water. Complete with optional bonus-exercise-bike-shuttle.

June 2025 Update:
Eight years since my last visit to this awesome little muddy creek, I finally returned. With the shuttle set at the power plant, we drove back through Glitter Gulch and parked at the trailhead behind the Grande Denali Lodge. The trail is easier than the scramble up the loose rock of Dragonfly Gulch, but still the typical shoddy construction of most social trails around southcentral AK. An hour of sweating up the muggy bushes of the steep trail and we were refreshed by the wind on the ridges of the Nenana Valley.


Like the Dragonfly Gulch access, these rolling ridges are splashed by patches of yellow, pink, and orange rock. The Dragonfly route is definitely faster for getting to the meat of the whitewater, but these extra miles of beautiful alpine are worth it if there's time.




From Point 4985, we started down to Moody Creek. This off trail descent is not as smooth as the boulevard of sheep, moose, and bear tracks on the Dragonfly Gulch route. The views into the headwaters of Moody and the Yanert were great, and we were treated to a close encounter with a large flock of sheep: I'd seen a few sheep from a distance and suspected there were more tucked into and behind small draws and ridges. As we approached, more of the white animals appeared out of the terrain and milled around to watch us as we passed their idyllic alpine meadow on the way to the creek.




45 minutes of bushwhacking down the valley brought us to the creek where about 200 cfs of Willy Wonka's chocolate milk was rushing past. Like last time, we were near peak snowmelt, but there was significantly more water in the creek this time. Here are pictures of the bedrock ledge drop now and then (red boat) which in 2017 I thought was the hardest feature on the run - that is no longer the case. You can see how much more water was in it this time.




Moody wasn't how I remembered it. There have been several new rock landslides, and there has been significant permafrost degradation and black spruce forest slumping into the creek. We saw a few pieces of wood in the creek, so I imagine that some of the black spruce from the slumping has flushed out, but I also wonder if there was dangerous wood that was fully covered in water that we did not even see. The rock landslides have added many technical features to the run making it even more exciting, technical, and continuous than I remembered.

The most important feature of note is a messed up undercut sieve at 63.82996, -148.83575 where the surface of the creek is constricted into a 4-foot wide pour over. This feature reminded me of stuff in Magic Mile or Upper Honolulu Creek:


By Healy Creek, the whitewater was over, replaced instead by even whiter skinny dippers. Hopefully you wild souls will stumble across this post someday - you looked great.