Suffering for Beauty - AKA AK! series Pt.3

Ptarmigan

Captain and I have only truly failed at backpacking on one occasion - the headwater glaciers of the Toklat River - Zone 10.  Even then I got a good picture of a ptarmigan, so not a complete waste!  And since we failed that time, what did we do?  We did it again! ...successfully!
For some reason, setting out on these backpacking trips always catches us off-guard.  We never get more than 4 hours of sleep the night before for some reason or another, and we always get a later bus than we want.  Ah well.  It was mid-June when we set off on our third backpacking adventure, and this one was epic.  Capt, as always, dreamed big - he wanted to hike up the glacier, over the mountain pass and down the other glacier, which connected back up with the Toklat.  It sounded good, and looked fine on the map, so we set off.

First we had to cross the Toklat - three times!  The Toklat River, being a glacier-fed river, is so laden with silt that one cubic liter of the river water contains over a pound of silt.  This is not the clear streams that you imagine when you think of Alaska.  NO fish can live here and you cannot see the bottom.  Not to mention the water is a heart-stopping 36 degrees on a warm day.  The only way to get across?  Get your walking stick, grab your partner in a locked elbows position, and just grin and bear it.  Go slow, walk diagonally with the current and pick your crossing point carefully.  (Make sure your bag straps are unstrapped!) And yes...your shoes will get wet.  And squishy... The worst one was the last of the day.  The water came almost up to my butt, and the current was fast - I almost fell at least four times.

Captain, the Headwaters of the Toklat, and the Ice Waterfall

Then we reached the moraine of the glacier.  The moraine is at the bottom of a glacier - basically the area where all the rocks have collected over the millenia from the glacier's crushing mountain force.  This area is painful, an endless series of up and down loose rocks that really want to twist your ankle.  You can't go fast on this part - it's too dangerous.  We finally reached the part where the Toklat River came from the glacier - its headwaters.  Capt spotted an amazing waterfall across the ice - it was about a mile away. I straight-up refused to go because it would mean crossing the ice and then the river.  No way in Hell was I about to do that. Absolutely not! So he LEFT ME BEHIND!  JERK!  MEANIE!  ...And then I followed him.  He was right (don't tell him I said so!)  It was TOTALLY WORTH THE FREEZING, AGONIZING PAIN!
The waterfall was a towering monolith of ice and water. The ice was so blue and the water made everything sparkle - it formed a mystical aura. The cliff was sheer and the waterfall fell straight down, the ice, still frozen solid, looked like an abstract piece of art.  The water that splashed down the rocks was so clean and clear - it was fantastical.


After a break, we began to climb the moraine, heading for the pass.  Fast-forward through about 3 hours of agonizing up and down on loose scree, me trailing Capt by at least a mile, him with the bear spray and knife, me falling on my face repeatedly, me breaking down AND...then we finally get to the pass.  We stop.  We stare.  The "pass" is covered in snow.  It looks very steep.  And we can't see the end of it from where we were.  It was snowing!  Once again I straight-up refused!  Absolutely not!  No WAY IN HELL were we going up THERE!    No, he didn't leave me behind.  But he very eloquently said he would make it up to me.  So up the pass we went.  I was never good at debating.

The Infamous Pass

Revenge is muddy...

I got my revenge.  As soon as we started up, the ground became deep, sucking mud.  And Capt fell in it!!! Muahahahaha!  Revenge is sweet...  Anyway, up and up we kept going.  It began getting steeper and steeper, with deep piles of snow everywhere we went.  Learning from some climbing experience at Yellowstone, I knew to kick in my toes in the snow and use that as a stepping platform.  Capt was not as graceful, but he was ahead of me and had gloves, so he did a kinda crawl.  We were slipping and sliding everywhere.  Did I mention that it was snowing?  The false summits were demoralizingly painful, but finally, FINALLY, we made it to the top of the pass at about 5-6,000 feet (that's high up in Denali, tree line ends at 3,000 feet).  And we immediately wished that we were back down the glacier. 

The wind screamed, trying to tear us off the mountain.  We huddled behind a rock immediately.  I put on my extra layer - a thick wool Mexican hoodie (shout out to Mom on that one! Saved my life!).  Hypothermia was definitely setting in, the shakes were bad.  We had started hiking at 11 in the morning, stopped only for cereal bar breaks, and were on our last reserves.  We argued about what to do.  Should we make camp? We had to make tea and cook food if we stayed up there.  Should we just keep going or turn back?  We had come too far to turn back - it was actually easier to go forward or camp.  But we had to eat something before continuing.  So, huddled behind a pathetic rock which provided little protection, we desperately tried to turn on my SnowPeak (hahahah) stove.  It wouldn't light.  At ALL.  The wind was too fierce and the gas was too cold.  We learned later that we needed to warm the gas up with our body heat at those temperatures.  We moved on to Plan B - eat the cold little sausages in a can and trail mix.  The wind was so fierce it tore the can lid out of my hands and it flew back down the mountain we had just come up.  I hope that that tin lid will be the last thing that we ever leave in the backcountry.

Staring at what we just accomplished

Seeing how much farther we had to go...

We hastily devoured the cold food (I even drank the juice the sausages came in, disgusting, I know, but I was so hungry) and set off down the other side of the mountain.  There was even more snow there, but the wind abated dramatically as we went down the mountain.  Or should I say, slid down?  It was awesome!  We basically sled down the entire glacier on our feet and butts!  With the energy the food gave us, and the relief of being away from the hideous fearful top, we were having fun in the snow.  We saw some cool things, like where the river would start up and then disappear back into the glacier.  The fog above us was tremendously beautiful.

Homestretch!

It was after one in the morning when we finally stopped and made camp, on good old relatively warm tundra next to the Toklat.  Capt cooked some rice and lentils- the worse job he'd ever done, but we were so hungry and exhausted that I ate it all anyway.  We threw the bear can out of the tent and fell dead asleep.  We had hiked nineteen miles in twelve hours, with only a couple minutes break.

We woke at nine, because we wanted to catch a bus to anywhere early as possible.  We still had the Toklat to cross, a couple times.  But our previous experience taught us tricks, and it was no big deal crossing the river.  At around ten or eleven, we decided to eat breakfast.  We put our bags down, and I went to the river to wash out the pot - about 300 yards away from our bags.  I was sitting there, washing the pot, when I hear Capt yell for me.  I stand up and yell, grumpily, "WHAT, CAPT?!"  He was about 50 yards away from. "****!! THERE'S A BEAR RIGHT THE FUCK THERE!"  He was pointing downstream.  There, less than 100 yards away, was a grizzly bear.  The bear looked at me and I looked at him.  I put the pot down and followed Capt right in front of the bear, towards the bags.  I never turned my back on him.  It was a mutual agreement - let's not start anything, you go your way, I'll go mine.

The Rock behind him?  That's where my pot was.

He wouldn't have gone near me if he'd known I was there, he was trying to avoid Capt - which meant closer to me.  Capt walked in front of a grizzly to stop him.  The bear kept heading upriver, and I grabbed some shots after the fact.  After the adrenaline wore off, we ate headed home, almost losing Capt's binoculars, but I recovered them.  What an exhausting trip, but I'm grateful to Capt - dragging me up to the waterfall, across that ridiculous pass, sliding down a mountain, and saving me from surprising a bear.  Thanks, love.

Suffering for the Beauty of Nature

First Introduction to True Suffering - AKA AK! Pt.2

Savage River

After getting settled at Mile Post 287 at Glitter Gulch, Alaska, Captain and I finally attained that holiest of holies: a weekend!  We determined to start our backpacking adventures once again, this time in Denali National Park.  Denali NP is the third biggest national park in the US, I think it's something like 6 million acres!  It has two typical ecosystems, the taiga and tundra.  More on this later.

The system of getting into Denali National Park is a lot more complicated than for almost all other national parks.  For all the others, you get into your car, buy the ticket, and drive around on the roads, right?  Well in Denali, there is only one road - a steep, dirt/gravel road that only goes halfway (90 miles) into the park.  So you can only go in 15 miles into the park by car, otherwise you have to buy a bus ticket.  Also, if you want to go backpacking, you need your backcountry permit abefore you buy a ticket on the camper bus.  It takes some getting used to.

Anyway, after many travails, we got on the bus to Savage River, which is 15 miles into the park; the rest of the park road wasn't opened yet since it was still May!  My bag was the only one big enough to hold the BEAR CAN OF HEAVINESS.  So I was loaded up with all the food and my bag weighed a ton!  It's close to impossible to be an ultralight backpacker in Denali because you need so many clothes to keep warm and the bear can is so heavy.  Still, we carried a lot less stuff than some people. You don't need to bring all the stuff in your house, people!!  Yes I am talking to you Sarah! 

The ranger had mentioned a wagon trail that followed a ridge.  The thing about Denali is that there are only about 10 trails in the entire park, and two of those are not on the maps.  The park discourages trails because they want to maintain a wilderness - though it makes backpacking and hiking extremely difficult.  So this would be cool if Alaska wasn't a SWAMPLAND WITH ANNOYING BUSHES EVERYWHERE! Because that's what tundra is.  A swampland, with only a foot of thawed soil, and lichen and moss everywhere.  Super comfy to sleep on, except it's always wet.

Squishy, pretty lichen and moss

Let me lay out the scene.  You just left the only road that connects you to civilization.  You seek a ridge, where a "trail" is.  You look for a ridge.  Oh wait, there are 15 streams, lots of  bogs, pit holes filled with water and willow bushes/trees everywhere.  Not to mention mountains and ridges everywhere!! Which one is it?  Every step sinks into the tundra by at least 3 inches, usually more, so you have to lift your very heavy foot 3 inches more with every step.  This is why the Park Rangers recommend sticking to the river beds of gravel.  After zigzagging for about 3 hours, we give up on finding the hidden trail and start sticking to the river.  Pretty much immediately after we give up, we find it!

Harlequin Ducks

So we started following it, heading towards Fang Mountain, a beautiful, jagged peak in the distance.  We wanted to reach the headwaters of Savage River.  But as the trail wound on, big willow trees started becoming the predominant feature of the landscape.  Now, willow bushes/trees are very dense, brushy, aka very annoying to walk through.  And the trail kept disappearing because, by now, it's nothing more than an animal track.

Ptarmigan

But we kept on, finding cool treasures like moose antlers everywhere, BIG wolf tracks, and bunches of animal scat.  We saw a snowshoe hare, which was beautiful and cute!  For the bird lovers out there, we saw ptarmigan and harlequin ducks, both of which had beautiful coloring.

The biggest kick for me was, of course, dinnertime, aka Tuna and Rice (our favorite!).  We passed out after 8 hours of hiking in a pretty valley filled with beaver dams and ponds.

Bear Tracks

We woke up early-ish the next day and started back, following the trail that would disappear and reappear, like all animal tracks.  Suddenly, we looked up and saw three Dall sheep!  They were running across the valley, trying to quickly make it back up into the mountains.  It was only the second time we saw Dall sheep, so we were very excited.  Didn't manage to get any pictures though, because by the time the camera was out, they were halfway across the valley. Not gonna bother posting another picture of three white spots in the distance.

On the return journey, we followed the trail the whole way.  The way back was substantially quicker - 3 hours!  But we saw some big bear tracks, and had to cross the Savage River where it was all iced up and boggy.  We were very careful crossing that part, didn't want to get our feet full of cold ice water!*

Soggy Ice - Still May!

Some lichen, grasses and mosses.

We made it back alive, after capturing a glance of a huge beautiful bull caribou.  Once again, slow on camera and missed the shot, but I enjoyed seeing him nonetheless.  We returned to the comforts of civilization, pleased with ourselves. This was the easiest backpacking trip we would ever go on.  Also, the only one where it didn't rain.

But we began to appreciate the difficulties that people and animals have to deal with in the far north - it's cold, even in May, and all life up here is the toughest thing in the world, except for perhaps desert creatures.  This lichen on the left - one inch represents a century.  Chew on that!

*We got pretty used to walking through ice water by the end of the summer though!