Little Susitna River

I am hopeful to paddle a more significant portion of this river to formulate my own opinions on it, so expect this post to be updated eventually.

Baby Susitna

1.5 mi

Class III

The last bits of whitewater before the Little Susitna river settles into a calmer flow allows for amazing class III+ progression. The run begins right at the bridge near the Hatcher Pass subdivision, and it ends at the bridge on E Edgerton Parks Roads. This gives you 1.5 miles of pool-drop style class III whitewater. 

The drops along the way are well spaced and most rapids are not too long, making for easy boat scouting and read-and-running. While the rapids don’t tend to be long, a swim could still be dangerous due to the risk of foot-entrapment on the large, granite boulders that define the run. The size of the boulders also could lead to getting banged around a bit in a swim; however, by assuming a defensive swim position, swimming any of the rapids should not end up in too much carnage.

While the run is not very long, the road access makes it an easy one to lap. If you are driving up from Anchorage, doing multiple laps makes for a worthwhile trip. The upper portion of the run has more stacked rapids while the back half of the float turns into less exciting boogie water. Because of this, you could also bushwhack a short distance to reach the road after the bulk of the whitewater, and once on the road, hitchhiking back to the bridge is a realistic idea.

6/8/25

510 cfs

(Little Susitna River, near Palmer)

Eager to get on some new water but not wanting to commit to a full day of paddling, Olga and I headed past Palmer and into Hatcher Pass to have some cheap thrills on the Baby Su section of the Little Su. We met at the take-out on the E Edgerton Parks Road and took a look at the river from the bridge. We knew the water was low, and what we saw looking down into the water confirmed the gauge’s low readings. The river looked so low that Olga expressed concerns about the floatability, but I had a feeling the clear water was playing tricks on our eyes. Us Alaskan boaters aren’t too used to clear water since many of our rivers run a murky blue to grey color so typically seeing rocks means the river is extremely low, but the clear water on the Little Susitna allows you to see rocks straight through inches, even feet of water.

Since the river parallels the road, we figured there was no harm in attempting the float. We drove up to the next bridge up-river, parked the car, and in no time were looking for an eddie to launch from beneath the anemic class 4 rapid directly upstream of the bridge. We started our float in the tail-out of the class 4 and quickly were in the next class 3. While the water was low, the float went without too much of a headache. We were dodging rocks non-stop, but we never found ourselves stuck or walking through a dry portion. 

We enjoyed the first float enough to inspire us to run the upper half of the stretch a second time. Instead of floating all the way to the bridge, we elected for a short bushwhack back to the road and quickly were invited into a stranger’s truck bed for a ride back up to our cars.