What exactly happens on a jetboat tour of the Susitna River, and is it worth driving two hours north of Anchorage to find out?
The short answer: yes, probably. The longer answer starts in Talkeetna, a small railroad town about 115 miles north of Anchorage along the Parks Highway, where Mahay’s has been running jet boats up the Susitna and Chulitna rivers since 1970. The operation is family-owned, decidedly low-key, and genuinely good at what it does.
The boats — flat-bottomed, jet-propelled, and loud — can skim in as little as six inches of water, which matters on braided glacial rivers that shift channels constantly and run shallow in places no conventional prop boat could navigate. That’s the practical side. The experience side is that you cover ground fast, stop where the scenery demands it, and occasionally find yourself looking up at Denali from river level on a clear day, which is a different thing entirely from seeing it from a highway pullout.
Mahay’s runs several tour options depending on how much time you have. The two-hour Devil’s Canyon scenic tour covers about 30 miles of river and gets you into a stretch of canyon where the walls close in and the current picks up noticeably. It runs around $70 to $85 per adult, less for kids. Longer wilderness tours go deeper into the backcountry and can include shore landings, wildlife watching, and lunch. Those run closer to $150 and up. Combination packages that add a flight or a fishing trip are also available if you want to make a full day of it.
The wildlife piece is real and not staged. Moose stand in the shallows. Bears fish the same gravel bars the guides have been pointing out for decades. Bald eagles are common enough that the guides don’t always slow down for them, which is a strange thing to get used to. Salmon push through the Susitna system in season, and the guides know the timing well.
What Mahay’s does well, beyond the boats and the scenery, is restraint. The guides are informative without being performative. They know the river the way people know things they’ve done their whole lives — matter-of-factly, with useful detail when it’s relevant and silence when it isn’t. You won’t feel like you’re on a production. You’ll feel like you went somewhere real with people who know it.
Talkeetna itself is worth a stop before or after. The town has a handful of good restaurants, a famously eccentric atmosphere, and an old train depot that still sees Alaska Railroad service. If you’re driving up from Anchorage on a weekend, plan to leave early enough that you’re not rushing the tour. The drive is pleasant — the Matanuska Valley opens up wide, and the Alaska Range starts to dominate the horizon well before you arrive.
Tours run from late May through September, peak season being July and August when water levels are predictable and the light lasts until midnight. Book ahead in summer; they fill. The Mahay’s dock is right in Talkeetna, walking distance from the main strip, easy to find.
If you’ve driven past the Susitna a dozen times on your way somewhere else, this is the trip that finally makes you stop and take it seriously.
