40-mile paddle/cycle/run along Southeast Alaska’s Chilkat River

The Chilkat Challenge Triathlon will return in 2025!

The travel challenges that scuttled the 2024 CCT are behind us. We will piggyback onto the Haines Craft Beer Festival and hold the race on Saturday, May 31, 2025. The Alaska Marine Highway schedules enough ferries to bring 1000+ people to Haines during Beerfest. With the increased ferry sailings to and from Juneau, racers can plan on getting to Haines in time to race and get home in time for work after a fun weekend, and maybe have a great beer or two at the same time…

We hope to see you in May next year. We are already starting to organize the event to ensure a great race and a delicious post-race dinner/awards banquet, with great prizes as always for the top finishers. Stay tuned to this website for more updates on race details and registration information.

Please contact the race director with any questions.

 

Date:

  • This year’s race is scheduled for Saturday, May 31, 2025.
  • Registration opens Jan 1, 2025
CCT 2025 Important Notes and Changes
  • Pre-Race Meeting
    At Parade Grounds (time, exact place to be announced).
  • Paddle
    Mosquito Lake to just downriver from Klukwan, as before.
    All teams (with a maximum of three members) will compete in the same category.
    (The one-paddler/two paddler distinction for the team category has been eliminated.)
  • Bike
    Boat take-out to Parade Grounds as before–with a major improvement.  Road construction has been completed; cycling leg will be on new, smooth pavement.
  • Run
    10K, starting and finishing at Parade Grounds
    (This revised course eliminates the previous dusty, gravel finish at Chilkat State Park.)

The race will begin at ~9:00 AM at Mosquito Lake State Park, 30 miles north of Haines. Racers will paddle across Mosquito Lake, through the “slough”, and down the Chilkat River (total ~9 miles), past the Village of Klukwan to the takeout at 21 mile. Racers will then cycle 22 miles down the Haines Highway to the Parade Grounds in Fort Seward. The race ends with a 6 mile out-and-back run to the finish line at the Fort Seward Parade Grounds.

Overview/History

The 1st Annual Chilkat Challenge Triathlon (CCT) was held on July 15th 2017 and was hailed as a great time for all involved. Clouds were low but spirits were high, as racers completed the 40-mile course along the Chilkat River by boat, bike, and on foot through one of the most beautiful places on Earth. Since then, the race has grown and the 2018 race finished under sunny skies on July 1st, 2018.

The CHILKAT CHALLENGE is an annual, 40-mile paddle/cycle/run along Southeast Alaska’s Chilkat River, through the heart of the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve.

Beginning at Mosquito Lake ~30 miles north of Haines, Alaska, paddlers race down the Chilkat River, to the Tlingit Village of Klukwan and through the Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve, home to the world’s largest congregation of bald eagles. After an 9-mile paddle (canoe or kayak) racers  swap their boats for bikes and cycle 22 miles alongside the Chilkat River on the Haines Highway. The final leg is a 9-mile run along the Chilkat River from Haines to Chilkat State Park. From Mosquito Lake State Park to Chilkat State Park racers are surrounded by snow-capped mountains and glaciers, giant forests of spruce, hemlock, and cottonwood trees, bald eagles, and maybe even a bull moose or mama grizzly bear!

The CHILKAT CHALLENGE is destined to become one of the world’s great races but it will be more than just fun and a test of skill, strength, and stamina in one of the most beautiful places on Earth. ACWA is sponsoring the CHILKAT CHALLENGE to raise awareness of the importance of protecting the Chilkat River and the fish, eagles, bears, and people of the Chilkat Valley who have depended on the Chilkat River’s wild salmon runs for more than a thousand years.

The CHILKAT CHALLENGE is a great event, for a great cause. Please contact us through this race website if you would like to help sponsor the race with financial support or make a donation of outdoor gear and other prizes. For more information about ACWA’s efforts to protect the Chilkat River, visit our project website at www.acwa-alaska.org.

Race Maps