Dalton Highway, Day 3

Another quick "pack up the gear, throw it in the car, and go" morning, but we had to get there for the tour.  We did, for a total of 430 miles.

The tour was great - we learned many things that we would not have - plus, we got to see the Arctic Ocean.  No one actually lives in Deadhorse or any of the three main camps in Prudhoe Bay - everyone, of which there were roughly 8000 people working in the three camps - works two weeks on and two weeks off or three on, three off.  The least paid employee makes no less than $65,000 a year.  There are absolutely no drugs, alcohol, or firearms permitted.  If you partake, you are escorted to the airport and are extradited immediately.  If you miss your flight to work, you are fired immediately.  People work on the north slope from all over the U.S. and some international.  One person we were told about commuted from England.

Two active drilling rigs.

We made it halfway.

Tourpeople dipping in the Arctic Ocean.

The caribou don't seem to worried about the oil business going on in the background.

Most of the drilling and exploratory work goes on during the fall, winter, and early spring.  Here are a few of the vehicles used in the winter.

Almost July and there is still ice in the water.


OK, we've seen what we can.  It's time to turn around and go back the way we came - the only way!






Lastly, the video below shows a 360 degree view of Deadhorse surrounding the lake.

BIG DAY: Return to Civilization, Part II

We arrive in Bettles about 5:30 p.m. - a good 4 hours after the others.  Glenda tells us how the plane was loaded with lumber and building materials for a remote lodge - where the plane went before it picked us up.

Glenda greeted us and escorted us to the "Bunkhouse" and associated real bathrooms and showers!  A shower feels good after 11 days without one.  Then we joined the rest of the group on the porch of the classic Bettles Lodge.

The sun shone on us, most of the mosquitoes were behind a screen, and we had beer and real food served to us on a plate!  Luxury!  The cards are out and we're all holding our ears from the noise.  The refueling station is where you see the red and white crosshatch.

Not only that, we had entertainment.  There was a forest fire (started from the town dump, a typical problem in Alaska) in Allakaket.  The planes in the picture on the left are fire fighting planes new to Alaska, Fire Boss AT802.  The plane can and scoop up 800 gallons of water in a minutes and then dump it on the fire.  The three planes flew in so the pilots could have dinner.





Unfortunately, I don't have a picture, but various helicopters landed to refuel.  Helicopters were delivering scientific parties to study road conditions between Bettles the Dalton Highway, through Bettles, and all the way to Ambler for Governor Parnell's "mining road."  (The short article here will fill you in if you're interested.  More on this later when I tell you about the Dalton Highway in later posts.)

By this time, Bettles was running out of aviation fuel.  Time to get some more!  Just fly it in!

It was 8 p.m. before the fuel plane showed up - flown in from Fairbanks by the Everts Air Fuel company.  But you have to remember it is the second longest day of the year - not only that, but above the Arctic Circle the sun never sets anyway.

I thought this was a DC-3, but it's a C46 as identified by a classmate of Mary Louise.  

Mary Louise took a picture of the logo on the side of the plane which we all appreciated.  After that, ML wandered around the planes and helicopters talking to all the pilots and fuelpeople. Luckily she didn't get run over.








By this time it was getting late and it had been a long day.  Ashley was the first to peel off to bed, followed by Bob and Glenda.  Mary Louise had Joey on the ropes in an exciting game of gin rummy, but he escaped with a win.  I was a woeful last.

The mosquito ridden "bunkhouse" without opening windows was a bust.  Half of us pitched a tent in the yard sometime well after midnight to get some sleep.  At least you don't have to have a headlamp to set it up.  So much for civilization.

What a great day.  I'll leave you with another great airplane, the DeHavilland Beaver.  Production of this plane ended in 1967 - and there are still lots of them flying.  Alaska wouldn't be the same without the Beaver workhorse.  Here it takes off from Malemute Fork with 2 rafts, 4 adults, and lots of gear.   Get out your earplugs.  See you later!

BIG DAY - WE RETURN TO CIVILIZATION Part I!!!

 This was a big day.  In fact, there have been a few days in my life that make a deep impression on my psyche as "classically Alaskan" - events or time reflect characteristics of the unique State that we live in and will stay with me for a long time.  This is one of those days.   

If you're an experienced adventurer, you're wondering whether we were really getting anywhere on the river and how we're going to get out of there and return to civilization.  Actually, we were wondering the same thing!  We were supposed to get picked up by Brooks Range Aviation (yep, go with them - they were really nice to us) at Malemute Fork at 10 a.m. in the morning.  But . . . we weren't going to make it despite our best efforts.

Up at 6 a.m. and a record time getting ready - probably because of the prevalence of mosquitoes.

It's routine.  Lather suncreen before the 99% deet bug spray with a final spriz from the pressurized "BUG DEFOGGING" spray can.  I'm starting to like it!

Another beautiful day!  The Alatna river is widening and the terrain is flattening out even more.  We can still see mountains in the background.

MODERN TECHNOLOGY can be a relief in more ways than one.  I'll choose this one today: Satphones.

Ashley is doing all the work calling Brooks Range Aviation while the rest of us are standing around "with our teeth in our mouth" (as our father used to say).


One of the best parts was that we were tagging along on Joey and Ashley's trip!! They had to do the organizing work!! And they did it well.

Thanks, Ashley and Joey.

WE DID IT - fighting through gale winds, hot sun, and mosquitoes.  We arrive at Malemute Fork where the a tributary of the Alatna River joins the Alatna.  But, exactly where do the planes pick us up?  That is the million dollar question.  We check the pick up description that Ashley very carefully wrote down 10 days ago.  Then MODERN TECHNOLOGY shows up again and Joey relents and checks his handheld GPS for the longitude and latitude that Ashley also carefully recorded 10 days ago.  The directions don't coincide with the GPS.  Time to use the Satphone.  We're there!  Right where we should be!   (As an aside, the 6 of us experienced a previous trip where it wasn't quite so easy, but that's a whole different story.)

We had time to take a picture.  Everyone always makes fun of me for my "camera teetering on some log time delay pictures," but this one turned out pretty nice.  Mary Louise is ready for the mosquitoes.

  Rafts deflated and rolled up, gear packed for the plane, lunch eaten, and we were ready.  Most of us are now quite excited about taking a shower.   It wasn't too long before the red and white showed up.    Chuck the gear in the plane and away they went.

Mary Louise and I volunteered for the second flight.    Mary Louise and I were careful to keep bear spray, bug spray, a stove to heat water, and some Starbucks packets.  Fortunately, the peach schnapps was all gone. 

A couple of hours later, the DeHavilland beaver showed up for us.  We didn't even need the bear spray.   If you haven't flown in a beaver, you're missing something.  Make sure you have your ear plugs when you do.

Stay tuned for Part II coming up!

Day 3 on the Alatna: SOLSTICE!!!

Ashley and Joey had been planning on a fine solstice celebration since we started.  In fact, we had been sipping on the peach schnaps, courtesy of Ashley and Joey, in anticipation of June 21 since the beginning of our trip.  Yes, peach schnaps - but better yet, it was contained in some kind of peach water bottle or something - peach on peach.  I wouldn't touch it at home, but is tasted surprisingly good on the hike!

We decided since the solstice was a special day that we'd get up at 5:30 a.m. and see some animals.  We'd certainly seen the tracks, but we were short on real sightings.  Yep, saw one duck and called it good.

Beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky - but the wind started right away.  Although people tend to exaggerate wind speed, it had to have been between 15 and up to 30 miles per hour in the gusts.  We paddled hard for 2 hours, lay on a sand bar for half an hour, and paddled for 2 hours again - and again - and again.  At our ages, I thought we were quite studly.  We still needed a rest.  Whew!  I thought this was going to be a float, not a paddle.

Look at that sky.

 At least when the wind blew, the mosquitoes were fewer.








The river started to change character as we left the mountains.  We saw many more birch trees, rocky shores, and the river banks were higher.

After a long day of paddling, we had a solstice feast of couscous, chicken, decaf coffee with Baileys, and Joey and Ashley's river cooled cheesecake. 

Then it was time to wipe the sand off the feet and go to bed!  After all, there's not much difference in solstice light when it's light 24 hours a day anyway!!!

HAPPY SOLSTICE!!!   May your feet be washed and clean!

Day 2 on the Alatna, Grit on the Face

Mary Louise got the sunny side of the tent.  It was so hot, she got up and waded around the glacial river to cool off.  Then, back in the tent, she just fell asleep when the wind blew a raging barrage of grit and sand into her face.  Nice wake up - everything in the tent and on our bodies was covered with silt.

This picture shows a sand/grit storm earlier in the day.  The wind was howling!   Try to paddle against that stuff!

In fact, we were exhausted from paddling.  We paddled hard for an hour or more, and then landed on a sandbar and did what you see here on the left.


Whew!

The river curled from one side of the valley to the other and seemed to go nowhere.  Or at least we didn't seem to be going anywhere, but I guess the river did. 

We found a nice place to camp on a sandbar that wasn't too windy but out of most of the mosquitoes.  Joey cut himself a willow branch and tied some light fishing line and a fly on to it and caught himself some fish!  What an angler!

Nice setting to fish in, huh? 

Joey catches an arctic grayling.  The coloring was very pretty.  The picture certainly doesn't do it justice.

HOT HOT HOT

It is always amazing what I fail to think about.  I just never considered that Mary Louise and I would be literally sweltering in our tent above the Arctic Circle deep in the mountains in the Brooks Range.  But we were last night - until midnight, in fact.  We had been under the spell of a mountain ridge to the north of us while up near the Arrigetch mountains - which blocked the sun and dropped the temperature about 9 p.m.  Not here on the river.  We sweated in our underwear on the top of our sleeping bags until midnight.  By morning, Mary Louise was cold inside her lighter sleeping bag.

I can't say how the day dawned because the sun never set.  But we woke up to a glorious sunny day nearly free of any clouds.

The Alatna River is a pretty river draining a section of the Brooks Range.  It has a "Wild and Scenic" designation and eventually drains into the Koyukuk.

We were "floating" a four day section where the mountains of the Brooks Range disappear.

The river carried some silt, but it was still pretty clear and it didn't fill up our water filter with gunk.

We stopped for lunch on this sandbar to keep company with a caribou backbone and antlers.

We saw lots of animal signs: moose tracks and poop, wolf tracks, bear tracks and poop, beaver chewings, rabbit tracks.  But this was one of our most exciting visual confirmations - a lynx that we caught walking along the riverbank.  When he/she saw us, it took a good eight foot leap up off the water.  Then it just sat there looking at us as we drifted past.  Fun.




In the afternoon, the wind came up and it was tough paddling.

Day to Meet the Girls at Circle Lake

Or  . . . the title to this might have been:  Flummoxed and Defeated by Beavers.

But that story is still to come.

The advantage to the return trip to Circle Lake is our packs are lighter!   The food is nearly gone.  All eaten, and damn good it was.  It's time for "resupply" of food, and even better - Glenda and Mary Louise are arriving complete with food and rafts for stage two of our trip.  Of course, the best part is to see our wives!

First we have to get there.   We go a different way, but in the end, we find that there is no good way to get from Arrigetch Creek to Circle Lake.  You still have tussocks, mosquitoes, marsh and bog, brush, and other fun stuff.  But, there is always a bright spot.  Here is one - the sun shining through white birch bark setting off an orange glow in a sea of green.

We get to the right spot on Circle Lake and the day picks up speed.  Although we had seen lots of moose poop and tracks, we hadn't seen a real animal in person.  Literally 3 minutes after we dropped our packs at what we were sure was the right spot, Ashley says, "I hear a plane!  Maybe it's Mom and Mary Louise."  Just after that, Joey says, "Hey, there's a moose!" 

Ashley and I run down to where Bob and Joey are hanging out by the Lake.  Joey was right!  There's a real moose.

Then, we see the plane fly by behind us.  It has the distinctive yellow and blue colors of Brooks Mountain Aviation.  It banks its wings in a tight turn and comes back our way.  It's the girls!  But what about the moose?

It flies low and there goes the moose in the bottom of right side of the picture.  What you can't see is that it is followed by two more meese skeedaddling for all they are worth. 

But it works and after another circle (is that why it's called Circle Lake?), the plane lands and it's great to see Mary Louise and Glenda.

They bring more food and two rafts.

In amazingly short order, we've had some lunch, the rafts are blown up, gear is packed and loaded, and we're off.  Now how do we get out of here?

Dan, the pilot, said go by the beaver house.  So we did.

It was the biggest beaver pond/lake/ocean that I ever saw.  Those beavers had cut off every possible exit to the Alatna River. 

How do we get out of this pond?

Yep, you figured it out.  Carry all our stuff, including the rafts, the 200 yards from the beaver pond to the Alatna River - amid numerous mosquitoes to keep us company.

But, we did it and got on the river - and headed for the first sandbar to feast on fresh steaks that Mary Louise and Glenda had brought. 

What a great change from freeze dried food - and we were on the river for a nice leisurely float!

Back the Way We Came

Our 4 days of base camp are done!  It's time to fold the tent, roll up the sleeping pad, stuff the sleeping bag, and cram everything into the pack for the day and a half trek back to Circle Lake.

Since we've already been on this route, it's time to look around.  The "spring" flowers are amazing, as are the lichens and other plant or "semi-plant" life.

It was also fun to follow the Arrigetch Creek back out of the mountains.  It's a beautiful cold clear creek.  The other evening I washed myself and some of my clothes.  When I washed my hair, my whole head hurt from the cold.  Glorious.

The sound of the river had been with us for 6 days.  It was early enough in the spring that considerable water was running.  The few times we were beyond hearing the stream, it almost seemed strange.

This video is taken at our lunchspot on the way back down. 

Here are a few flowers for you to look at.  Mary Louise identified them all with a book when we got back but I didn't.  She's a lot better at that.  

These on the right were just so pretty in a generally bleak landscape. 

The lichens, or at least I think they were lichens, were just amazing.

I confess that I know almost nothing about them.

But look how these on the right grow in concentric circles on top of the rocks.  How come?

I don't think I've ever seen such brilliant lichen colors as in the Arctic.  What a pretty yellow.

This picture doesn't lend itself to the brilliant orange lichen that was prevalent on the rockscapes.  Pretty neat, huh?

I can't describe the profusion of this brain-web white lichen.  That's all I can think of - the connected dendrites of a brain in huge form - all in a mass.

OK, you come up with something better.










These are just a few of the flowers and growing things that we saw. 

Day Hike #4: Up the Mountain, Straight, No Chaser

Woke up during the night to hear rain on the tent.  Thought about getting up to put my almost dry laundry in the tent, but was too lazy.  When I got up a couple of hours later, it was dry anyway!  Just like Arizona or Utah and here we are above the Arctic Circle.

Joey entertained us at breakfast with a pancake "style cooking" treat.  What talent!  It's not easy to make pancakes in a pot.

Our last day at basecamp, we had decided to climb the ridge behind us - just to give us another perspective or where we had been the three days before.  It was a direct walk up 1800 vertical feet just behind camp.  It was worth it.

Ashley took a bit of a nap after lunch.  The Brooks Range extends off to the east.









 When I turned the camera around the other way, here was the view.  Cameras, or maybe this photographer, can't give it the true impact it has when you're there.

Day Hike #3: To the Right

Each day, as we shouldered our daypacks and trudged off into the distance, we walked backward through Spring.  With the 24 hours of light and most of that with direct sunlight (the only time we didn't have direct sunlight was when the sun went blessedly behind the mountain to the north of us), the plants grew fast at basecamp.  But as we climbed higher in altitude, the plants would have fewer and fewer leaves until they had no leaves and might be just emerged from the snow.

This was accentuated by the fact that as we climbed, the gouging of the glaciers was so "new" and much of the rock so bare and steep, that plants were not established yet.

We walked up the right tributary of Arrigetch Creek today.  The walking was great and we actually felt like we were going somewhere fast.

The creek was slower moving than farther down near basecamp and was clear and cold.  There is something about cold clear streams that I love, and this one was pretty with the occasional reflections of the mountains surrounding it.

 


The mountain on our left was so high, it blocked the sun for awhile.

We walked back into the bowl on the left where there were multiple glaciers hanging on the mountains. 

After walking back into the bowl, our little group couldn't let well enough alone, so we decided to climb a mountain that had a rushing stream with a pretty good waterfall coming out of it.

Here comes Bob.  

It got fairly steep for awhile.  You can see the nice ridge on the opposite side that blocked the sun earlier in the day.

Joey and I decided to walk up to see if we could see a small lake that was supposed to be up at the end of the bowl.

On the way back, he did some rock climbing on a "little" boulder.

Day Hike #2: Left and Left and the SUN!

 I had been above the Arctic Circle before, but hadn't spent any time there.  And, I did know that we were in the "Land of the Midnight Sun."  But, I was unprepared for the whirling feeling of the sun going round and round and round in a circle - and its omnipresence.   It just doesn't let you up - it just keeps beating on you.

I lucked out on my outdoor gear.  I feel confident in what goes in my backpack in Southeast Alaska - good raingear and clothes that are warm when wet being the most important items.  But Alaska is so huge with different environments that I felt very confused when I packed my gear to go to the Brooks Range.  According to the National Park Service, precipitation averages between 8 and 18 inches, depending on whether you are on the east or west side of the Range.

I was prepared for the light, but I wasn't prepared for the heat.  With the sun shining so much of the time, sometimes it was downright hot!  I also didn't really think about the fact that the air was dry!  It was downright easy to wash and dry clothes!  It felt more like Utah or Arizona than Alaska.

On the other hand, it did cool off between 10 p.m. and midnight.  In fact, the first night we were at base camp, there was frost on the backpack covers. 

A laundry tree!  It doesn't take long to dry.











It still feels good carrying just a day pack.

They look a lot happier than with their big packs on, huh?

Today was a bit steeper, but still nice climbing.  It was rough and tiring, however, to continually hop and balance from rock to rock.

A rain squall interrupted a well deserved lunch.  We crawled under a big rock and it was definitely more pleasant.  Some people say I was born under a rock . . .

It was fun to watch the water cascade and drain off the big granite cliffs.