Adventures in Onionism

Possibly my biggest mileage day in Alaska so far, given that I was on maintened trail all day.  Passed the second big lake, and hit the halfway point of this section. We're all pretty bored with this section (under the trees, views not great) and John and Daisy decided they were done. Off to the Kings Basin High Route for them. I need to get my raft from the Hope Post Office by Saturday at 1:30, so I kept on. The Resurrection Pass half of the hike immediately started being a bit more interesting. Lakes, and the trail isn't all under tree cover. Still very mellow, but less boring. I got most of the way to the pass. May not make Friday PO hours, but definitely should make Saturday. Then Hope to Homer? Or...? 

Well, the freezing swamp was still there in the morning but it ended pretty quickly. So we were on decent, though brushy trail most of the day. Stopped to cook wild mushrooms and play cards at a public cabin for a bit. Hoped to end up at another cabin for the night but no dice. Did see a griz catching salmon, so that was cool. Mostly the trail wasn't that interesting scenery-wise, unfortunately. Under tree cover too much. 

Jeebus, Alaska is trying to kill me. We got to Denali, me via the Yanert, and then Revine Creek ATV trail after the Yanert narrowed up and turned into a wave train. It was fun but a little daunting by myself with no drysuit on a cold day, so I took the safe and boring and kinda sloggy way out. Daisy and John soon met me in Healy where we spent the night recooperating. We went into Denali the next day, and started talking to rangers about permits, but we noticed that the 10-day forecast for Kenai, Hope, Homer, and Anchorage all show solid sunshine, while Denali showed more of the same rain. So I watched the touristy sled dog show and we bailed on the Alaska Range traverse. We weren't going to complete the whole route anyway, so why suffer when we can see equally cool stuff nearby? Maybe I'll come back later in life and actually get to see Denali instead of being near it while it's covered in clouds. Hitching to Anchorage was easy. John found a contact to get us out of Anchor...

We're done. Possibly for good, but we'll see when we get to the ranger station tomorrow. It ended well. Yesterday was gorgeous! I built a fire on a beach of the Yanert and then saw the northern lights. Today was mostly overcast. I paddled some more, but the canyon got a little tight and the waves pretty big, so I got out before the Yanert meets the Nenana. Didn't seem like a smart idea to be doing that without a drysuit. It was an uneventful ATV trail walk out from Revine Creek to the highway. Pizza, beer, cheesecake, trying to fix my shoes with massive amounts of Shoe Goo, laundry, shower, and a hotel room. 

Crossed Big Grizzly, split our group up, and I hiked up little Griz, down Dick Creek, bushwhacked, and got to the Yanert Fork, where I started rafting! Fun! 

A hunter guide walked into our camp as we were getting going this morning. I got going, and talked with him and his employee (an 18-year old kid from Michigan) and then met their client, who'd just shot a sheep two days ago but took a spill in the river, hence the guide and employee coming to help him carry out the meet. Anyway, nice guy, the hunter. Then we went up to the pass, down from the pass, crossed the Wood River without too much problem, and then followed it all day, either on the flood plain or in the brush beside it. Mostly the latter. Then we hit a feeder, Big Grizzly Creek, and it is very rapid. Like, crazy, surprisingly so. Damn! Any given creek in Alaska can pin you down/ruin your day/kill the best laid plans. We are camped right next to the spot we'll try and cross tomorrow morning. It's wider than the rest, and the surface is calmer. Still fast. 

The glacier thing ended fine. Just a bit more and we were very close to the source and were able to cross the flow no problem. It took a long time to bushwhack back down the glacier and up to a bench though. We're all slow with heavy packs. Hiked up to Buchanan Pass and down to the West Fork Little Delta. Saw a complete caribou skull, and picked up a small moose antler that is light enough I can carry home to George. (Giant moose antlers to heavy to pack out are up and down most brushy drainages.) Best of all, it didn't rain today! Well, barely, just a couple sprinkles. Mostly it was cloudy but we actually dried out gear in the half sun for a few minutes in the morning. Nice to be able to sleep in my clothes and not have to do a dreadful change into wet clothes tomorrow morning. 

West Hayes was easy. We followed  the creek down, passing dozens of moose antlers, until it got brushy. I went high and B&C stayed low, we met back up at Whistler Creek, which looked bad, but was split into enough pieces that it was doable. Then we went up the East Fork of the Little Delta to the glacier. We got greedy and thought there would be an easy way a road right at the toe. We wasted 30+ minutes walking halfway across on flat stuff below the moraine until we realized there was a rager flowing blocking us from getting on the glacier. So we backtracked, and stayed close to the front edge, but we couldn't find a way--the flow is strong and above ground. At least we found a level place to camp. We'll ascend higher in the morning. This flow has to go underground somewhere. 

Crossed Trident Glacier in good weather this morning. I didn't like the footing (I actually prefer the icier muddier stuff, this was older, sandier, bigger loose rocks) but it was fine. Weather slowly got worse and worse, and we crossed Hayes and circled around in bad weather, getting cold. We're camped in the moat, and hope the ford of west Hayes Creek will be such that we don't have to do much of anything on the glacier. 

Wowwowwow! Today started off with a bit of a fiasco, in that it took longer than necessary to get across the Delta River, even after the last person was 98.5% across. My boat almost blew away, our communication was garbage, etc. But it all worked out and we started the real hike and saw huge herds of caribou and the view from above the Trident Glacier was amazing. We're camped right next to it and will cross it in the morning.  Weather wasn't too bad today, just cloudy. Starting to rain now. 

Stressful day for Alaska Bumble Club (ABC). I spent Saturday at Black Rapids Lodge rafting across the Delta River and back with three Alaskans who did the same hike we had planned a few weeks ago. The river was big and fast, but the worst parts were easily avoided (at least, I avoided  them and I have limited boating experience, mostly having owned a sea kayak for a few months in the Bay Area. Two of the Alaskans managed to not avoid the big holes and instead hit them dead on. Whatever.) B&C (J&D) returned from Fairbanks with cheap rafts. These rafts have been used by friends on chill crossings of the Colorado River, so we thought they might have a chance against the Delta. We walked to where I thought one of the Alaskans (Steve, the one who owns a packraft and avoided the holes) had told me the easiest crossing of the Delta River was. Turns out it wasn't the right place, but it didn't really matter, the wind in the river valley was freaking nuts. Daisy and I checked ou...

Hey hey! Leg 1 done, and everybody is alive and reasonably happy! We woke early to more rain and cold, and the ATV track we took all the way from the cabin ~10 miles to the Richardson highway was almost 1/3 underwater, so it wasn't much fun, but we made it. We caught a hitch from Fish Creek right where we came out to Black Rapids Lodge to pick up our food drops. The woman who drove us said August in this area is always crappy, but this is the worst she's seen in the five years she's lived here. However, as soon as we crossed to the north side of the range, the weather got nice, and the forecast calls for two more nice days before 40's and rain returns. We spent the rest of the day acquiring more gear and food, or trying to salvage existing gear, namely one of the DIY rafts. In the end, two headed to Fairbanks to get something to safely get themselves across the Delta River. One stayed near Black Rapids Lodge, and talked to the owner who just completed much the same trip...

Very short day. We didn't pack up until 10, since we were all wet, cold, with colds, and it was raining. But we crossed a freezing glacial flow to start the morning, then crossed the Gakona glacier without having to cross much of any ice, and then pretty shortly after we got off it, we hit a decent road/trail that made what would have been awful bushwhacking quite easy. Then we walked through an old camp, and I had the door of the cabin pried open before J and D caught up. Do I know how to use one of these? Do you mean can I light a fire? Uh, yes. And that was all it took. Our gear is strung on lines by a roaring fire. Hot meals. A lantern with gas to spare. It's all good. We're only seven miles from the highway, but we'd be camping next to it in the rain if we'd continued on. I normally would feel dumb for doing only a 10-mile day, but, getting my ass kicked by glacier crossings and 40 degree rain for half the day (5th day in a row) then spending half the day roast...

After the bad spill in the Chistochina we hung with the miners all day. They were very nice to talk to and they happily shared their supplies with us which was greatly appreciated. We slept in the old Post Office--they said 18,000 people used to mine up there. Not anymore! Today we packed up and headed in the Chistochina glacier. We found a large lake at the mouth and took turns paddling my boat across the mouth. The current looked essentially still, but it definitely was not once you were in it. Which basically makes me think all the f*&$cking ragers we have forded that I maybe thought I'd rather paddle would be not so great an idea. Anyway, we crossed the Chistochina glacier mouth lake by boat, then walked over a pass and down to the West Chistochina glacier and crossed that on moraine and flat glacial ice. Slick as heck, but no falling in crevasses. We did some nice ridge walking, and are very close to the Gakona river and it's glacier. Hopefully this is the last glacier...

Shit, shit, shit. Shit. The Chistochina River. All it takes is one bad ford. It rained all yesterday, and much of the night. So the water hadn't receeded. We were already freezing after a miserable night, so I said that if I'd been alone I would have just stayed in my tent all day. But together we thought it was worth a shot. In John's eddy I was ok, I think, but Daisy took a bad step, I lost John's eddy, and Daisy and I went down. I went back to the mining camp we'd just crossed for help, because John and Daisy got across, but I swam back. We lost some gear: one boat, one large tarp, and four trekking poles. Maybe if we stay high on glaciers we can make it out to Richardson Monument on foot? There's an airstrip here, that's always an option. Glad to be alive and warm. Arizona trail sounds nice right around now. 

Yesterday went up the Dry Too to Gillette Pass in the rain. So cold. Toes. Thank God for neoprene socks. They made a big difference. Down the pass, on a road! There's a surprising amount of road here, though every creek worth a damn washes them out for a while. Mining and hunting, I guess. Instead of going down (up?) Dry Canyon Creek we went over some pass, but that required crossing the glacier that feeds the Slana which was too big. So we camped. In the morning it wasn't no thang! Glad it didn't rain all night. Cross the glacial flow, then cross several more glacial flows, one glacier itself more for fun than out of necessity--it was mostly rock but some super hard ice, one tiny tiny crevasse, over Chisna Pass on a road, through a mine, and down to the Chistochina River. Too high to cross tonight, and it's been raining all day and we're all cold so we're camping early (still 18 miles for the day) and will cross or float tomorrow. Wonderful views when the cloud...

Camped where the highway crosses the Tok River last night. Many thanks to Daisy's dad and grandma for an amazing shuttle to the start and help with errands. Started late after doing last minute sealing on the packrafts, then walked an ATV road. Then forded the Tok a bunch. Then found the road again. Avoided fords on game trails. Pack is heavy. Fords are deep. I thought I was having the hardest time with the fords but Daisy got swept and lost gaiters on the last one. Now we're headed up the Dry Tok which is much smaller. Passed a hunter shocked to see us. He gave us some info on what's coming up. Also passed a big compound with a plane and a runway and a Ford Bronco and a Duece and a half, etc on the Dry Tok. Saw two wolf or coyote cubs. This is everything I expected. 

I made it to Fairbanks. The question is whether, or when, I'll make it out.  Saturday: run Canadian Death Race. Got all worried about my crew being dead in a car accident, when of course they just left a few hours late, etc. and weren't able to find me at aid stations. Race was mediocre other than that. Some awful (boring road, nothing substantive food-wise at aid stations), some great (super steep and muddy sections). Sunday: drive the Icefields Parkway to get Amy a taste of the Canadian Rockies and back to Edmonton. Monday: find out my pack is too small, order replacement. Be dumb, try to renew drivers license online, even though you can't change address online, and I need to change address. Buy $600 (Canadian) worth of gear at MEC. Tuesday: be dumb, break phone. Order replacement phone. Find friend in US to go into my email and click a freaking link, since Internet can tell I'm in Canada (and Berkeley VPN no longer works) and link doesn't work in Canada. Wednesda...

Grand Cache I'm done. Last day was a doozy. The trail became a road as soon as I left the cabin. I woke early after a great night's sleep and made coffee and hot beans. (I heated water is all that means. Not carrying a stove makes that a big deal.) Then the trail was nice. Either an old road, now closed, or just a horsepacker super highway. The ford (stop it phone! Don't autocorrect ford to Ford or fords to Ford's! Especially with an apostrophe! Stop it!) of Sheep Creek was easy. Then up and over to the Muddywater River. I stared at it a long time. I was almost set to go, then I found the place the caribou and moose cross. Then I swam it. First ford I just swam from the get-go. Artistic score very low, but technical score at least not a zero, since I'm alive. Then around a boring low mountain in the trees and down to another crossing that showed a gravel bed on the map. So maybe it was braided? Nope, not really. I studied it for an hour before I found trees in the r...

What a glorious cabin! The route to GC is definitely for horses. Lots of fords. A big burn. And it's raining buckets. I almost stopped several times. The last time I was only a few hundred yards from the unlocked ranger cabin. With food! And a stove and a propane heater! I really should have checked the chimney first, but once I took the giant pot off it, I think I will neither asphyxiate or burn the place down.  Here's hoping for followable trail and doable fords tomorrow. Should have 50km left.

Done. Finished the GDT around 7:30pm today, July 31. Stayed at Kakwa Lake for an hour or so talking to a Swiss couple who had hiked a few sections, ate beans (with hot water!) and chocolate. Turned around. Made about 6.5km back up the muddy trail. 25km back to where I cached my extra food at Sheep Creek, then 55km down to Grand Cache. I really hope the rivers are all fordable on the way down! I asked the FB group for info on that route, but nobody had any. Here's hoping. Did the high route over Wapiti Mountain today. Excellent.