Oh boy. I woke up early after a fitful night of trucks going by on the highway. We made great time heading back up to our route, the out and back resupply section went much faster, as we stumbled on a game trail high above the north side of the creek we had to cross 10 or so times yesterday on the way in. The climb up from there and the descent down the other side were also easier--we stayed out of the creek and luckily the terrain wasn't too brushy or boggy.
When we got to Kuyuktuvuk Creek that all changed. The crossing were all above the knees on me, fairly swift, and uncountably large in number. We'd occasionally go around but it was quite brushy. Finally around lunch time after the umpteenth sketchy crossing we bushwhacked our way to an unnamed tributary, and then bushwhacked we'll above it for a couple miles since it was a narrow rager. There were occasional game trails, but I only gave them a C- grade. It was actually kind of hot, but thankfully there weren't many bugs. Eventually we came down to the creek and crossed it a few times, but where we had to turn off was yet another narrow canyon with side to side whitewater so we backtracked to climb up and around.
After a long stretch of jagged, flooded gravel bars we finally got above 3500' elevation or so and the walking started being nice again. Bear! There's a bear! Get the monocular! (I found a nice 10x monocular in the bush on the first day and have been carrying it since.) The cinnamon colored brown bear was on the other side of the creek so he could neither see, hear, nor smell us. We watched him for a while as he turned over rocks and climbed higher and higher up the slopes (away from us).
We definitely cooked (and read some Robert Frost and Robert Service poems) and then hiked further before setting up camp. We made it up to the pass, which had spectacular views. We walked just a little further, and caribou! There's a caribou! Just a young one by itself, but caribou nonetheless, and we have spectacular views in three directions. Best camping spot so far. We earned it after such a hard day.
(Oh, and we also saw a mother grouse with baby chicks this morning, and on previous days a porcupine and several ptarmigan. A cute red fox visited us at the pit toilet on the highway.)
 |
A little narrow so we went up and around
|
 |
It's brushier south of the Divide
|
 |
| Bear |
Comments
Post a Comment