(no)coffee-(no)pizza traverse 5/27-5/28

     So there was this cool-looking traverse involving a packraft about 4 hours north of A-town, we thought we would give it a go.  Known as the "coffee-pizza traverse" we got our info from Ed Plumb's blog, I even printed off his map.  It usually starts in the morning(coffee) and finishes in the evening at Panorama Pizza.  We took off early-ish Monday AM and arrived around noon at a closed Panorama Pizza, disappointing because I was going to rock the pizza-pizza traverse.
     We went up the ATV trail from the powerline easement which deposited us on a nice ridge above the treeline, traversed a bit to valley-floor, and followed Carlo Creek all the way to the pass from there.  There was a fair amount of snow which would have been easier travelling if it were not so melted/rotten.  The valley bottom was brown, still being too early or dry(more likely) for growth.  The sky was smoky from surrounding wildfires.  Yet it was gorgeous.  The creek was beautiful and offered a variety of colors to marvel at.  We saw caribou, caribou bones and antlers, beaver habitat, sheep up high, and moose.  Lucy was in heaven and clearly happy, she wore herself out.  There are a number of small ponds/lakes on either side of the pass that are also worth looking at.
     After cresting the snowy pass, we descended the other side and set up camp on a flat shelf next to a creek.  It had been windy all along and although it was less there, it was still there.  I would recommend camping down at Schist creek for those doing this in the future: water, shelter, scenery.  After a much-appreciated dinner and night of rest we continued down to the Nenana river, picking up a wonderful game-trail to the shore and a nice gravel bar to set up on.
     We pleasantly floated the Nenana back down to ~1 mile south of Panorama Pizza and pulled out there, quickly hitched a ride back to a once again closed Panorama Pizza (they opened at 5 but we didn't feel like killing time).  The float took a surprisingly brief ~3.5 hours.  The scenery was again amazing and the spicy class 2 a bit after the bridge was a great conclusion.

Descending to the Nenana