For approximately the last 300 years the Kaskawulsh Glacier has fed two rivers, the Kaskawulsh and the Slims.

The Kaskawulsh River flows east from the glacier for about 50km before merging with the Dezadeash River and becoming the Alsek River. The Slims River flowed into Kluane Lake which is eventually discharged into the ocean by the Yukon River. The Yukon and Alsek discharges are located 1500 kilometers apart on the Alaskan coast.

In Spring 2016, a change in the Kaskawulsh Glacier cut off water supply to the Slims River. More information can be found here.

This change made our route appealing in two ways; it provided a (hopefully) good fat biking surface up the Slims Valley and lots of water for the Kaskawulsh River. Most rivers were running low in Yukon due to a late Spring; we hoped the divergence of water to the Kaskawulsh would mean this wasn't the case on our route.

We set out on the Slims East trail. Many portions of this trail are overgrown or washed away. It was tempting to just head for the riverbed and ride up, however the dust blowing down the river indicated that the normal dusty winds were blowing strongly.

The Slims Valley often has very strong winds transporting glacial dust down valley and into Kluane Lake. I imagine the amount of dust has increased since 2016 due to the lack of water in the valley.

After one misguided foray involving leaving the river bed-searching for trail, terrible bushwhacking, finding the trail, and carrying our bikes on overgrown trail, we decided to go with the devil we knew. The devil being the dusty winds of the open former river bed.

Once on the river we rode into the headwind and made good progress up valley. There is still a bit of water in the river bed due to tributary creeks that used to add to the Slims River. This water was easily crossed by carrying our bikes and was knee-deep at the deepest. The closer we got to the glacier the less water was in the valley.

We'd been warned about quick mud that may make the river bed dangerous. The river was named after Slim, a horse that got stuck in this mud and drowned many years ago. We found a few sticky spots but nothing harrowing.

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