Brooks Range Day One

Flying from Fairbanks to the village
ATV hunting trail out the big river to a wide, icy crossing
Home in the village: ATVs and a trampoline
 
Thank goodness my new tent is easy to set up, because I'm generally out of practice at this. It started raining pretty heavily about two minutes after I finally relented and we stopped for the day at 8:15pm or so. Still bright as noon, and we did 20 miles in 9 hours, which has got to be pretty good time for the Brooks Range, except we were on an ATV trail basically the entire day.

Woke up around 5 or 6, repacked my bag, and got an Uber to the local side of the airport (Wrights Air Service) by 7:30. Our flight left around 9, clear skies the whole way.

Upon arrival we got our stuff, talked to the NPS Ranger for a bit, and he told us how to get out of town, and that the ATV trail was on the north side of the river (otherwise we probably wouldn't have bothered crossing since we don't need to, but the walking in definitely better).

Walked all day. It's boggy, but not awful. No mosquitoes to speak of. I do still have a cold but it wasn't awful. Losing my voice a little from chatting with Nano all day.

The stuff that could go bad is that cat food can stoves suck and I couldn't get mine to work. I used Nano's and it did the job. Canister stove (I think they sold fuel in the store in Anaktuvuk Pass, but I need to double check) would have been so much better.

Also the shoes hurt my right ankle when I scrunch towards the left. Going to be a problem. 

It's raining. The sun is up and still bright. I'm warm and dry.

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