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After a marathon push to get home, I'm here. And tired. And sweating.
5 or 6 days ago I was shivering in the 35 degree weather at Point Barrow and now its 95 with high humidity.
What a freakin trip.. unbelievable.
Check back in the upcoming weeks for all the pictures/journal/other misc trip information.
Thanks to everyone who've been interested!
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| Be home in about 4 or 5 days.
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We fly to Barrow in a
Piper Chieftain, a twin prop, 8 passenger plane with dual GPS avionics up
front.
Just outside of Fairbanks
at around 1000 feet (clear weather so we fly low to see stuff), we in the true
interior. No roads, and as Gary our pilot puts it, you're now IN the foodchain.
The muskeg below would be hell to traverse but the burnt boreal forest is interspersed
with colorful Fireweed. It looks like someone took a paintbrush of purple,
green, and black and made random strokes on the taiga. The area around Fairbanks has been
subject to numerous lightning induced forest fires for the past few years. The
haze on the horizon is in fact due to some burning west of the city.
A stop in Coldfoot to refuel the plane and we're off over the Brooks
Range. Normally the weather over these mountains is poor enough to
force transport down into the valleys, but blue skies and sun await us. We get
a 7500 foot view of this massive, beautiful, and virtually untouched range that
extends for 200 miles in each direction.
After 30 minutes or so we start descending. The peaks taper off to foothills,
and then we are flying low over the most massive expanse of Flatness I have
ever seen: The North Slope. Covered in small ponds and streams, we swoop over only
500 feet off the deck. The clouds above forcing us down. If we pop up through
them, we won't be able to descend into Barrow - this flight is visual only, and
we can't change to a IFR flight plan despite the $50,000 in avionics onboard.
About 50 miles outside Barrow, we have to pull up through the clouds. They've
pushed us down to 300 feet and we just can't go lower. A minutes traverse
through nothing but whiteness and we're in blue sky. Gary gives us the option of pushing on to
Barrow in the hope that a small clearing will form.
The road trip gods smile on me again, and as we approach where Barrow should
be, I hear the hydraulic acuators lower the flaps. We're landing. Gary banks hard into an
opening that I didn't even see until now and swoops along the coast. The ice
pack is still holding a hundred yards offshore. A massive sheet of white with
blue schards pushed up periodically. We land and climb into a van.
The van takes us to Point Barrow, the northernmost point of North
America, and then around this Eskimo town. Thanks to well managed
oil money, this town has running water, a bus system, 8 cops, courts,
supermarkets, everything. In a place where complete darkness occurs for 2
months of the year.
We stop in at the cultural center, watch a presentation of Eskimo dancing and
singing, and then head back to the plane. 3 hours later we arrive back in Fairbanks. I step off the
plane actually glad that things didn't work out with the van ride up to Prudhoe Bay.
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The past couple days have, as indicated in my last
entry, been spent hanging around Fairbanks. I've checked out the
University of Alaska Fairbanks Museum of the North, driven outside of
town to check out an Alyeska Pipeline viewing station, caught a movie,
gone to the northernmost Walmart in North America, done a lot of
reading, spent some time getting to know Fairbankians, and in general,
relaxed.
I bought a pipe and some tobacco at a smoke shop near UAF and have
spent a considerable amount of time sitting back, feet up, pipe in
mouth, book in hand, next to a river, reading. Beyond that, nothing too
interesting to report here.
Imagine that, relaxation on a vacation.
Tomorrow morning at 7am my twin engine, prop plane departs for Barrow.
If the weather is reasonably clear I should get some decent views of
the Brooks Range and Gates of the Arctic NP.
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| Arrived in Fairbanks, hit a snag with transportation up to the Arctic Ocean. Looks like I won't be able to drive it after all. Taking a plane up to Barrow on Wednesday morning instead. I'll be spending the next two days trying to find things to do in Fairbanks and surrounding areas.
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Yesterday at 9am I found myself once again on the bumpy dirt road headed into the park. Unit 7 is located on the eastern side of Polychrome Pass. The East Fork of the Tolkat stretches off across the valley to its headwaters, a glacier, in the Alaska Range near Mt. Pendleton.
The bus driver stops, I grab my pack, say goodbye to the fellow hikers I've been talking to and deboard. The bus struggles up the next hill and is soon out of sight.
After sliding down the road embankment, I head off, following the river. In some spots I encounter cut bank and am forced into the willow and all the covered slopes. After the first water crossing, my boots are wet. I don't intend to make this a killer hike, so after four miles I find a nice tundra spot and set up camp. The rest of the day is spent reading, dayhiking farther up the valley and on some of the surrounding hills, and general relaxation. After dinner, I read myself to sleep to the sounds of the river.
Today's return is more of the same until I get about a half mile from the road. During the night the river either went up or changed course, and the gravel wash that I used in this trailless wildnerness to get out is now a tumbling river. I probe a crossing nearby to find that the channel is nearly four feet deep with glacier cold fast moving water. After backtracking a quarter mile, I find a suitable spot, well braided and above the confluence of a tributary. After sloshing through a few main channels of frigid knee-deep waters, I am headed up the other side of the river, and soon waiting for a bus to come.
A hot shower and laundry at the Riley Creek Mercantile and the rest of the day is spent reading at my campsite. Tomorrow I head north toward Fairbanks (did you know that a significant number of Fairbanks residents use outhouses during the winter- the cold freezes all pipes).
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Yesterday:
Rested and recovered from Kesugi. Explored the entrance area of Denali National Park, watched a couple of videos in the Wilderness Access Center and the Visitor's Center, walked through the museum, played with some more sled dogs (!!!) and read.
Today:
I joined the throngs of tourists on a park bus to Fish Creek, an eight hour round trip. The road turns to gravel after you cross the "No More Cars" sign and climbs above the tree line. Polychrome Pass is the first substantial, monster view of the Alaska range across a huge valley of braided rivers. It was refreshing to be in the relative comfort of the bus, free to gawk at the scenery rather than drive.
Continuing on, the road leads along the rim of this massive valley for another fifty miles. Near the end of our run, a colossal piece of rock begins to fill the sky. Sam, our driver, matter-of-factly says, "...and the mountain is coming out." Over the next fifteen minutes the clouds, in a veritable cinematic sequence, shed away from the mountain and part to a blue background. There she was, totally dominating the entire landscape, twin peaks and all, Mount McKinley.
The people on the bus are more interested in getting back to see the blonde grizzly and her cubs, so we depart. As we leave, the clouds start obscuring the flanks and the last view I see of the mountain shows only a sliver of the summit. I swear someone or something has my back on this trip.
Tomorrow I'll venture off into the trailless wilderness of Denali, to share my sector (about the size of a county in CT) with three other people.
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After getting a bear resistant container at the park information center, loading up my frame pack with three day's worth of provisions, I headed out on a thirty mile trek. At first the trail climbs through broadleaf plants, tall grasses, and alder thickets- I was yelling "Hey Bear!" the whole time. After an hour or two, I came to a scree slope and after topping that was laid out into vast open tundra. To my right, the Alaska range was in full specter, its jagged snow-capped peaks reflecting a bluish hue. If you can picture in your head what an ideal Alaskan hike would be, this ridge is it. I continued on for about eight miles and then set up camp. At 9pm on an open plain, I had no shade from the glaring sun. A night of tossing and turning ends with me finally getting up at 3:30am. The sun is just starting to rise.
Thirty miles with a 40 mile pack is...a lot. But what is also difficult about it, is that unless you force yourself to be idle for hours on end, you can do it in two days. So, as Ray would know, I did it in two days. So yesterday I pushed on through early morning showers, watched sections of the ridge ahead and behind me go into white out, and caught a quick glimpse of Denali bathed in a brilliant orange from a sun that I couldn't even see. After a few hours, I encountered a descent back to the tree line. Here I was treated to swarms of mosquitoes (no, literally, a black swarm of mosquitoes that lay and wait on the trail), shin-deep and unavoidable mud, river fordings, and hundreds of repeats of "Hey Bear!" By the time I started gaining altitude out of the valley, I was feeling it. My feet hurt, my knees hurt, and my shoulders hurt. But in all my genius I still had another eight miles to go. Clouds moved in and drew the magnificent view to my right closed and I mushed on. Finally, in a fit of elation at finding the right trail, I encountered a junction that means I'm four miles from the trail head. A hellish descent (over 1500 ft in less than 1.5 miles) down muddy and slippery slopes, followed by a gentler down, across a very, very swingy suspension bridge (with one wire railing gone), and I'm at the trail head.
I meet up with some Boy Scouts from San Diego, who aside from offering me water (I was totally out and very thirsty) also offered to give me a ride back to my car, which was 20 miles away. This was a one-way route, and i wasn't looking forward to hitchhiking with a full muddy pack.
I head north now into Denali National Park proper to spend a few days.
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..is flying hundreds of feet over the ice ridges
and valleys of the Brooks range in a De Haviland 7 seater, clouds
situated perfectly to offer a sense of speed and depth, Mt. Mckinley
standing over the entire time. It was like in a dream, flying amazingly
close to rock outcroppings and peaks and hanging glaciers and ice
falls. The broken surface of the glaciers below tinged with the most
perfect blue. Completely, and utterly unbelievable.
Talkeetna is the jump off point for several flightseeing tours. For
$300 bucks, from Talkeetna Air Taxi, you get 2 hours in the mountians
including a 30 minute, get this, glacier landing. I arrived here late
yesterday afternoon and have been biding time until the weather and
seat became attractive.
Yesterday I headed north from Homer, pausing in Anchorage at the
Moose's Tooth brewery and pizzeria. After bottoming-up a couple
porters, a stout, and a 10.8% dark (and waiting in the car for an hour
or so) I exited the city. Anchorage had the potential, at least in my
mind, to be a "cool" city, something along the lines of Fort Collins,
CO or something. But it's not.. being closer to Hartford than anything
in Colorado. Except for losing the only FM stations I've had in a week,
I was glad to get moving.
My next and only interim stop was at the Iditarod Headquarters. Here,
the Reddington family (of whom the patriach founded the race) has a
small musuem with information about the race and the dogs. A few
minutes spent there, and the realy appeal was off yipping 50 yards
away. For 10 bucks you can get a 30 second wheeled sled ride. While a
sled ride didn't really do it for me, spending 45 minutes playing with
each and every dog on the team did. Maybe for a second career I'll move
up here and raise a team of dogs.
Tomorrow I'll move further up north and head out into the backcountry
of Denali. I've got a route planned that will take me along Kesugi
Ridge, and should be out 2-3 days. If the weather holds, I should have
excellent views of the mountain. Until the next time I can get wireless
access..
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Spent yesterday morning taking care of some
household items, shower, laundry, post office. Then spent the rest of
the day browsing the Homer Spit (4 mile pier - look at google maps),
walking the black sand beach, playing cards, and reading.
Today I'm headed up Anchorage way to get the oil changed and then move
north towards Denali and Talkeetna. For the next few days I'll be in a
holding pattern waiting for good weather over Denali to take a
flightseeing trip. I ponied up the extra 70 bucks to get a glacier
landing out of it too.
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