Brooks Range Travel Day: All Done

Coastal Mountains from the flight to Seattle

Huh. Well, I'm on a plane to Seattle looking down on some spectacular Yukon and SE Alaskan glaciers. Now *those* are mountains! (I kid, I kid, all mountains are glorious in the sight of (non-existent) God.) But seriously, how on Earth do you do any sort of human-powered travel down there?

Anyway, my first trip to the Brooks is over. I carried as much food as I could fit in two bear cans (well, one Ursack and one can) and I pretty much ate it all, so I'm going home. 

I woke up, walked the 4 miles of ATV track and gravel road to the village. Walking by the village dump was a bit of a downer, but I checked in with Amy about hopping on a Wright Air flight home, and then had a nice chat with Ranger Al about the park, the village, federal employment, etc. He's a wealth of knowledge, having been a seasonal NPS employee (the only one in Anaktuvuk Pass) for 18 years. He answered all the questions I posed in my previous post--basically yes, oil money pays for everything in the village--Anaktuvak is in the North Slope Borough and they/the Corporation (Arctic Slope R?? Corporation) tax the oil companies. So that's why there's indoor plumbing and diesel generators, etc., etc. 

There are two nearby caribou herds, and they are in decline. They are now only around the village in winter, post-rut, which apparently makes bulls' meat nearly inedible, so the natives are hunting does, which isn't great for population numbers. Nano and I didn't see any Dall Sheep because they are basically all gone. NPS is trying to encourage hunting male sheep instead of females.

The locals call themselves Nunumiat, the "Inland Eskimos" which used to be a broader group of nomadic people with multiple bands, but they settled in Anaktuvuk Pass in the early 1960's (maybe some of the last in the US to do so?) Inland, because fishing and whaling aren't part of the lifestyle, as they are with the coastal natives.

In practical terms for hikers, it's probably not the most scenic idea to walk west from Anaktuvuk to Chandler Lake south of the Divide along the Kollutarak, because there's an ATV track the entire way. NPS and the Corporation did a land swap a few years ago that everybody agreed to, I think because the Nunumiat wanted more hunting access (and the ability to drill for oil near the village, though that hasn't happened yet) and NPS wanted conservation easements other places. Right near the village, non-natives/Corporation-members are only allowed to camp one night at a time while transiting to the Park, and I think this would also apply the entire way to Chandler Lake.

Enough Alaska politics. I had to leave Ranger Al to see if I could go standby on the morning flight to Fairbanks. I got a spot, which meant I was able to get home sooner, but unfortunately meant I wouldn't have time to go to the museum to hear about all the history from the natives themselves (next time!)

The Brooks Range was very impressive. It's not as insane as the Alaska Range, or the above-mentioned Yukon and SE Alaska coast mountains. (Why are there only teeny tiny glaciers in the Brooks? It's further north! I don't know.) There are literally no trees north of the Divide and things are generally less brushy. Boggy in the extreme in places, and the remaining snow doesn't consolidate worth beans, but less brushy. So you can get the Alaska wilderness experience but with less insane bushwhacking and less insane river crossings. In June there aren't many mosquitoes (essentially zero for our first nine days.) 

It's good walking.

For comparison, when I did a few weeks in the Alaska Range in 2018, the rivers were huge and swept us off our feet multiple times, necessitating long trips up onto enormous maze-like glaciers to get above the river outlet, since the river started at full rocket blast right out of the glacier's mouth. In the Brooks, the creeks were cold and annoying, and sometimes slippery, and yeah, we had to scramble up a 1,000 foot steep slate slope to avoid a narrow canyony section of creek, and yeah, we bushwhacked for 10+ miles along the North Fork of the Koyukuk and lost our minds trying to follow gametrail we dubbed "the moose-bear love trail" but basically any creek can cliff you out if you're walking *in* it, and the brush was only barely taller than us, and there were only a few trees, and that was only on one half of one day, and nobody got swept or nothing.

So basically, it was epic *and* delightful. I saw three wolf pups!

By design, we didn't pick the most remote location--we picked the only two locations I am aware of that don't cost multiple thousands of dollars to get to--after you've paid to get to Fairbanks--and are close to the Divide (where the aforementioned "good walking" is). Flights go from Fairbanks to Anaktuvuk Pass twice daily and are $190 each way. Buses go up the pipeline highway and it only cost us $25 total to get two bearcans full of food dropped near a pit-toilet a mile from where we popped out on the highway. Cheap!

That does mean we saw other people: two groups of two en route, and five more in the village. I especially enjoyed running into them in the village, because (1) we instantly became friends and (2) we shared a lot of useful route information. (Online info is hard to come by, and there are no real guidebooks. Some might even say what I've written above is too revealing.) But we were out there for 11 nights, and didn't see a soul from the highway back to AP until the bird-counters a couple miles out. Covering the miles we did every day, that's pretty special. (I can't remember how many days it was seeing nobody but my Alaska Bumble Club companions from the Delta River to Healey on my 2018 trip. Except maybe that was where we saw a pilot land and a guided hunt?)

So maybe it's not polar-expedition level remote, but it is all-encompassing. I may end up taking less than two weeks' worth of paid leave, but I feel like I can barely remember my colleagues' names. I was carrying a heavy pack for 11 days, making constant navigation decisions from micro (which slippery rock was less likely to kill me, which tussock was less likely to roll my ankle/devolve into a mirage of freezing water/turn into muck and try and steal my shoe) to macro (which route to the pass would require the least postholing? Which branch of the creek drainage is the least canyony?), and pushing to get close to 20 miles most days (or, come on man, we've got all the light in the world and there's plenty of spots to camp, so at least 17, can we at least do 17?)

It felt like I was out there for two months.

I think I'll definitely be coming back to the Brooks. People say the walking is better in ANWR, and I think I have a route idea. How much food can I carry?