Floatable Weed Smackdown
Copper River Watershed Project is hosting a new community event that will take to the water to tackle invasive white sweetclover, a highly invasive and fast spreading plant, in the Gulkana River Recreation area on July 6th, 2024! A total of 24 people may participate in this FREE raft trip down the Gulkana River with Copper River Guides to manually remove these pesky invasive plants from the river’s banks and sandbars.
We invite interested locals or any watershed advocate to join CRWP and Copper River Guides on this half-day journey. All participants must be 18 or older or accompanied by a signed guardian over the age of 18. Additionally, all participants will be asked to sign a liability waiver with Copper River Guides. The event is for those who will be willing to work hard to pull white sweetclover by hand. Participants should be prepared to encounter hot or cool weather, water exposure, and bending over for long periods of time, and a feeling of success!
RSVP to claim a seat in a raft!
Copper River Guides is partnering with CRWP to host 4 rafts containing up to 6 participants in each raft. Rafts will make multiple stops along the route to unload participants for removal of white sweetclover from the riverbanks, sandbars, and patches of land. Numerous amounts of previously surveyed invasive sites will be flagged to notify the participants of the areas in need of plant management. A safety briefing and introduction to the day will be held at Sailors’ Campground before all participants are loaded onto the rafts. Each raft will contain safety gear (life jackets will be provided), walkie talkies, gloves, trowels, garbage bags, and data sheets for invasive plant management.
Location:
The event will start at the Gulkana River Recreation Area Bridge, where outhouses are present. All participants will park and gather to prepare for transport via shuttle by Copper River Guides to Sailors’ Campground, where the rafts will be loaded and launched. A safety briefing will be led by Copper River Guides, and is mandatory to attend in order to sign the liability waiver. An introduction on to how to properly manage and remove white sweetclover will be led by CRWP to prepare all participants for data collection and manual removal of the plant. All participants who RSVP will receive final details a couple of days before the event.
Be Prepared:
– What to pack
- Rubber boots or water shoes
- Non-cotton layers
- Sunscreen, Sunhat, Sunglasses
- Water bottle for drinking
- Snacks for the raft ride
- Rain jacket, rain pants, or waders
– Please bring your own packed lunch if you would like to participate in the following:
- CRWP will provide light snacks and drinks.
- An optional tailgate-debriefing will occur after the float in the parking lot of the Gulkana River Recreation Bridge, where the cars will be parked.
- If the burn ban allows at the time, CRWP staff will burn the invasive plants collected, on site.
Didn’t Make the List? Join Us In Your Own Boat!
Those who did not have the opportunity to sign up before the list was full, you are encouraged to join us on the water anyway! We welcome those families, or individuals who own personal rafts, alpacka rafts, or kayaks who are interested in joining our journey. CRWP is not responsible for providing you and your rafts with safety gear, however, we will provide all tools for invasive plant management to participant with others. CRWP is looking forward to supplying an extended list of participants in this community experience! Please email Amanda to let her know of your attendance at stewardship@copperriver.org.
