The Yentna & Lake Creek
A Mighty Confluence
Lake Creek Lodge sits at the confluence of two very different rivers. One is big, silty, and powerful. The other runs remarkably clear, fast over gravel, and you can see straight into it.
The Yentna
The Yentna is big water. It drains a vast portion of the Alaska Range, including meltwater flowing off Denali, and when it runs hard it looks the part. The river can be silty and powerful, its color shifting from gray to brown depending on conditions.
The Yentna is also an essential highway. In summer, it is navigated by boat. In winter, it becomes a frozen road traveled by snowmachines and sled dogs. The Iditarod passes directly in front of Lake Creek Lodge each year, following the same corridor salmon use to return home.
Lake Creek
Despite being fed by glacial systems, Lake Creek runs remarkably clear. The reason lies upstream at Lake Chelatna. Glacial streams dump their sediment into the lake first, and Chelatna acts as a massive settling basin.
By the time water flows out of the lake and becomes Lake Creek, it has been filtered and clarified. What remains is a cold, fast, gravel-bottom river that is ideal for spawning salmon and everything that follows them.
How we travel
Where they meet
From its headwaters to the Yentna, Lake Creek covers roughly 54 miles. The lodge sits right where the two rivers meet, with side channels and sloughs wrapping around the property. Gravel bars shift, channels braid and re-braid, and logjams appear where they did not exist the year before.
Polarized sunglasses are not optional here. When sockeye arrive, you are often sight fishing from the bank, watching small groups slide through the current.
At the end of the day, you can stand on the front lawn and watch clear Lake Creek water fold into the darker flow of the Yentna, swirling together like a slow-motion lava lamp. After dinner, it is not uncommon to grab a rod one last time and fish until midnight, the sun hanging low on the horizon as if it forgot to set.