Chitina Dipnetting

The Trail From Hell

On June 26, my middle sister's birthday, (happy birthday,) my brother, my nephews and I drove to the Copper River at Chitina. The old road downstream from Chitina to the salmon dipnetting area follows an old railroad bed perched precariously on the edge of cliff. Above the road bed rises a mountain of loose shale covered with timber and top soil. Landslides and mudslides during wet wheather are common. Below the road bed is a 50 to 250 foot steep drop off into the Copper River. The lower part varies from shale slide areas, shale slide areas covered with loose soil and trees to vertical cliffs of shale. The first 10 miles of road to OBrian Creek has been maintained and actually improved slightly in the last few years. There is no problem driving a 4X4 pickup to that point. However after multiple large mud slides a few years ago the road past OBrian creek is officially closed. Climbing on our Honda 4-wheelers we continued past the large orange signs that warned you of possible death and trekked the 8 miles back to Haley creek. That meant traversing several slide areas on sketchy 4-wheeler trails weaving between Volkswagon sized rocks that are just waiting for the next rain to destabilize the mud enough so they can continue thier slide into the Copper River below. We caught 6 fish in 10 hours. (When I say "we" I'm including all 4 of us although actually the nephews caught the fish.)

It was a fun trip anyway.