Peter, his friend Jon, and several other friends and I headed up to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to hike for a few weeks and then float out across the famous and biologically rich (“North American Serengeti”) north slope plain to the Beaufort Sea.
We met up in Fairbanks, and flew to the little Inuit town called Arctic Village (arcticvillage.com, no kidding! Do check it out!) on little planes then flew on to the Refuge in 3 passenger little planes, which meant 2 trips to get our group of 6 in.
We got to fly over part of our route, which was cool. We landed on a gravel bar on the Kongakut River, which is popular among rafters. A raft party was camped by the airstrip; they went down the river and we began our hike up the river.
The landscape is very big, wide open, wet tundra vegetation, shrubs, and grasses. The peaks are big, not in elevation but in their rise above the river, and largely rounded… light green and tan spreading out for miles. The scale proved misleading, what looked like a half hour’s walk could take three!
The river bar was wide and cobbled and soon it was obvious that the travel was easier there than up on the tundra.
The second day we hiked on aufeis (“off-ice”) which is overflow ice up to 6 or 7 feet thick, remaining from winter when the river dammed it itself up. It’s really cool: a huge sheet of ice, the top of which is needle ice: vertical ice in needle like forms and packed densely together. It usually supports compression force, like stepping on it, but collapses under shear force, like if you kick it.
The ice came up to the edge of the river, and we saw a couple big chucks fall off and be carried away. There were all sorts of interesting surface features to examine as well.
Our days were sunny and pretty warm, really beautiful weather.
As we continued up the Kongakut, we found ourselves wading across the river dozens of times (no kidding, I counted one day and got over 50) so that we could stay in the river bed where the hiking was easier. We noticed limestone outcrops on the peaks, and the river was getting quite small, a creek really.
The only sign of people were a pair of tracks that we saw off and on. Each day we saw lots of animal tracks: caribou, moose, bear, wolf, squirrels, porcupine… quite cool!
At each break, esp. early on, folks scanned for wildlife with binoculars. One day Dave noticed a distant blonde grizzly and yearling cub. They were headed down a creek on the other side, and Jon predicted correctly that they would catch our scent when they got to the river, and head the opposite direction. Truly wild bears, esp. a mom with offspring, don’t want to have anything to do with us. None of us were broken hearted about that!
Another day Jon spotted a bull caribou in the creekbed. He was very handsome: nice coat, large antler rack, and big.
That night we heard wolves howl, and Dave spotted one on the hill across from camp. We watched this individual for awhile, lamenting that s/he was too far for a good photo. It was moving up and down the slope, sitting to howl now and then.
Later we were told that it’s very unusual to see a wolf… cool!
As we got up high into the boggy tundra zone, we encountered MOSQUITOS. I wore a bug shirt (lent to me by a friend who I deemed more wonderful each day), tho’ the others seemed ok with generous dousings of Deet. Fortunately it was only a day, really, that we were escorted by a swarm of flying itch-needles. That was also the day when sometimes we practically waded through bogs on top of permafrost. It was when we went up over the pass into the Sheenjek River basin.
We dropped down into there and found our second sign of humans (and I really do have an eye for such signs), a bit of leftover camp trash from a previous summer. The next day we came across an old Inuit hunting camp, though Jon thought it was only 50 or 60 years old, which was still cool to me.
On the way to one of our Sheenjek camps we saw another blonde bear. This one was closer, above us both up the river and up the side of the slope, and slowly ambled past us while we emphasized our presence with our voices. We watched to make sure our camp wasn’t going to be too close for comfort. That evening we saw a young caribou appear out of nowhere and run down into the river bar and disappear.
Such quick random sightings make me wonder how many similar potential sightings we miss. Our camp as also visited by a porcupine that evening. The next morning, after our usual first-thing-river-crossing, we enjoyed amazing light as a low fog intermittently lifted and slowly dissipated, a beautiful orange all around us, then on the glaciated craggy summits.
A year ago Peter and I had chosen a route, from the map, from the Sheenjek drainage into the Hulahula drainage that looked more interesting than the main one. It turned out to be super cool: a narrow gorge with waterfalls, that took some scouting and scrambling. It was very beautiful and Jon said that most likely no one had ever been in there (though given the human history in the area, I had my doubts). It topped out into a wide open upper valley with glaciers coming down from each side esp. up near the pass. We found ourselves walking on more recent and chaotic glacial debris, and made our camp up by the pass.
Nights were just getting dark enough to require a camera flash.
We had plans to climb some of the peaks near the pass the next day, and had reason to believe that no one had ever been on them. We visually scouted routes that avoided the steeper ice/snow, and were looking forward to some bigpack-free exploration.
The next morning was foggy and threatened to snow. We knew the other side of the pass could be challenging: that finding our way down it under a foot of snow (possible) would be difficult and unpleasant, so we dropped the peak climbing in order to get over the pass before the snow.
This was a drag, but turned out to be the right call. The glacier on the north (far) side of the pass went all the way up to the pass, so we went up higher, climbed some snow, and soon, one at a time, downclimbed a loose gully. Later we walked along the edge of the glacier where the slurry of fully-saturated debris demanded careful footwork. It was actually pretty cool.
We had crossed the Continental (?) Divide (yup, the same one that goes through the Rockies!) again, and found that this part of the north side was drier. And now with the chilly weather, the nature of the trip changed. Mosquitoes of course were non-existent, and we enjoyed the snow frosting above us on the peaks (and a bit in camp a time or two!). It was as if we’d come over the pass and into fall/winter suddenly.
We had crossed the Divide again, and found that this part of the north side was drier. And now with the chilly weather, the nature of the trip changed.
Mosquitoes of course were non-existent, and we enjoyed the snow frosting above us on the peaks (and a bit in camp a time or two!). It was as if we'd come over the pass and abruptly into late fall. We meandered down the Hulahula, enjoying the feeling of Alaskan wildness, and watching the river get larger. Each day we saw a lot of Dall sheep up on the hill sides. They are essentially arctic white bighorn, and the kids were cute! We continued to see wolf and bear tracks, and kept our eyes open for another sighting. We arrived at the airstrip where Lisa and Dave were to fly out (they didn't have time for the river section) and the raft was to be flown in. The low ceiling delayed the arrival of the plane.
In fact when it left with Dave and Lisa, it circled back and landed again, having just missed the weather window. Another pilot had also landed after realizing he wasn't going to make it home after a drop-off somewhere else, so we had a little party, sort of. We were running low on food by this time (ever had reconstituted powdered egg fried with spices? Kind of rubbery). The pilots had their own food and tents for just such occasions.
The river was low, lower than the pilots and sheep hunting guides had seen it in umpteen years, and, unfortunately, too low to paddle. Eventually we were able to fly out, at least to Arctic Village, where we spent a night in a shack next to the airstrip. We cooked on the back of a shot-up pick-up, and lived the white trash lifestyle for a day until we could get back to Fairbanks.
It was really amazing terrain, especially with the truly wild feeling. There were no trails (other than from the caribou), no people on our route, none to very minimal signs of people period, and tons of un- or marginally explored land. It felt like we really were in the land of the animals, that our presence was truly an aberration. I sure hope this area continues to be fully protected as it deserves to be. With the new Congressional balance, there are rumblings again. never ending threats... keep your ears open.
Cheers, Susan
