Description: The three of us wanted to do some scenic whitewater rafting in the Denali Area. There seemed to be two major outfits for rafting in the area. We chose Denali Raft as they seemed to be slightly cheaper and offered a 4 hour scenic whitewater rafting session for $122. We were able to book it with our AAA discount a few weeks before we arrived at Denali. They have two different types of boats, oar rafts and paddle rafts. The oar rafts have the guide doing all of the rowing with oars while the passengers sit back. The paddle rafts are more interactive with the passengers doing the rowing, and the guide more or less steers with the oars.

The Denali Raft office is in at mile 238.6 of the George Parks Highway. It’s in the northern half of the boardwalk shops across from the lodges at the Denali entrance area. Make sure to dress warm, with plenty of layers of clothing, thermal underwear/leggings, and double socks. The reason for the double socks is that the bottom of the raft offers little insulation between the freezing cold water and your shoes. Remember, the freezing cold water in the Nenana River comes off the mountain glaciers. We decided not to bring our cameras with us, as we didn’t want to risk getting them wet and also we assumed (incorrectly) that if we were holding paddles, we wouldn’t have the opportunity to use the cameras. We would have walked from our lodge across the street to the office to begin our adventure, but the Denali Raft shuttle bus showed up anyways.

We arrived at the Denali Raft office for our early morning rafting adventure. We signed the attendance and usual liability waivers and proceeded to a patio at the back of the office to be outfitted for a dry suit. For those that don’t know, a dry suit is the opposite of a wet suit, you stay dry inside the suit. There is a period of instruction with very specific instructions on how to properly put the suit on and make sure it’s watertight. The suits are quite expensive and difficult to zip and unzip. The staff are always around to help us into our suits. The dry suits had built in socks, and we traded our own shoes in for a pair from the raft company.

We split up into 2 groups, the 2 hour raft adventure started out nearby, while our group, the 4 hour adventure was shuttled to a landing on the Nenana River about 15 minutes ride south along the Parks Highway. The way this works is that the 4 hour adventure is actually about 3.5 hours in the water, and we start further upstream and eventually join up with the shorter 2 hour (1.5 hours in the water) tour that starts near the Denali entrance area.

At the landing, we were met by our guides and two rafts. We were given instructions on how to row, the commands used, safety precautions, and so on. We did learn that we wouldn’t be constantly rowing, and we could have brought our cameras with us. We had two other passengers, for a total of five in our paddle boat. We sat in the front and middle of the raft while the guide set up an oar rig in the back of the boat. The second raft was for safety, as the guide on the second raft could fish us out of the water if one of us fell in.

The first half of our rafting adventure was a little quiet, most of our rowing was for practice. The guide did most of the work, and since we were going with the flow of the river, it wasn’t turbulent, unless the guide steered us towards white water for fun. The raft adventure was a very nice scenic cruise down the Nenana River. We saw all sorts of plants, rock formations, some wildlife, such as deer and eagles, as well as a pair of A-10’s roaring past us from Eielsen Air Force Base. We had time to chat with the other passengers and the guide and got to know each other a little. We learned that the guides are outdoor adventure buffs. While our guide does get paid, he’s mainly doing this because he likes rafting and kayaking.

The first half of our adventure ended at a landing on near the Denali entrance area near the lodges. Here, we had a change to get out and use the facilities at the nearby parking lot. We watched the raft guides basically rappel rafts down the hillside into the water from the parking lot above. We were joined by two more rafts and set out again. We were lucky to keep the same people in our raft. As we set off, the shuttle bus shadowed our position on the nearby George Parks Highway, for safety reasons.

The second half of our rafting adventure was a bit more fun, with a little more whitewater as the river narrowed in the canyons. It obviously wasn’t too bad as a passenger in one of the other rafts had a video camera out the whole time There was also a lot to see and enjoy as well. From different rock formations, to wrecked rail cars that fell down the canyon from the tracks below. We eventually ended our rafting adventure near the Healy Coal power plant, an oddly large white structure out in the middle of the valley. We helped load the rafts onto the shuttle bus and rode back from the Healy area to the office where we got out of our dry suits.

I would definitely recommend this rafting activity to anyone. We really felt we got our money’s worth with the longer rafting adventure. They have the paddle rafts for those that want to be interactive, and the oar rafts for those that like to sit back and take in the scenery. The scenery was absolutely awesome! The guides were great, and we could tell that our guide loved what he was doing. The guides are taught well, and were able to tell us about the areas we were in, historical facts, and even helped us to spot wildlife. I’d definitely do this again, except I’d bring my camera this time.
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