[at-l] Spiriteagle in Alaska - trip report (Long)

[spiriteagle99 at hotmail.com (Jim and/or Ginny Owen)]

Some of you might remember (and a very few of you might even care) that we 
spent nearly three weeks in Alaska.  With one exception, the trip went 
pretty much as we planned it ? but we?ll get to the unplanned part later.  
This isn?t gonna be short ? and it?s not even close to the ?full Monty?.  If 
anyone wants the full journal, let us know and we?ll send it to you.  But 
you?ll have to wait a bit because it hasn?t been completely typed yet.  
Onward ---

We left Washington, DC on July 15, with a layover in Minneapolis, and got to 
Anchorage about 10 hours later.  For the last hour of the flight we were 
watching the coastal mountain ranges, icefields and glaciers of southeastern 
Alaska and southwestern Canada (the Chugach, Wrangell and St Elias ranges).  
That 30,000 ft view is jaw-dropping if you have any idea at all of the scale 
of what you?re looking at.

We stayed in Anchorage overnight, then drove 300+ miles to McCarthy and the 
Wrangell-St Elias National Park the next day.  We played ?flatland 
tourister? all the way (although we did stop to do a couple short loop 
hikes).  And we stopped at the National Park HQ in Copper Center to pick up 
a couple bear cans.  The Park supplies (loans) them free to those who intend 
to go into the backcountry.   And we certainly did intend to do that.

Wrangell-St Elias National Park is the largest National Park in the US ? 14 
million acres.  It has exactly 2 roads ? both of them long, rough, unpaved  
dead-ends with little or no redeeming social value.  The McCarthy Road is 
one of those two roads - and it?s 59 miles of ?bad road?.  Those who drive 
these roads are told to carry at least one and preferably two GOOD spare 
tires.  In spite of that, a lot of people seem to drive out there.

Next morning we walked the half-mile from the Glacier View Campground to the 
McCarthy Creek bridge.  It?s a footbridge ? and it?s the only public access 
to the town of McCarthy and the airstrip that services 14 million acres of  
backcountry.  After a good breakfast, we finally got the packs loaded into a 
bush plane about 11 am, took off and headed for the Horsfeld airstrip, which 
is the insertion point for the Nutzotin Traverse (can you say Newt-zoh-tin?) 
  The Nutzotin Traverse is ?sorta? what we intended to do.  It?s about a 
30-mile trailless ?route? of mixed Alaskan tundra, taiga and mountain goat 
country, starting at Horsfeld and ending at Solo Creek.  Nearly all of it is 
above treeline.

The bush plane left us at the Horsfeld airstrip about noon, after which we 
followed the advice of both the pilot and the horse packing entourage that 
showed up just after the pilot took off ? we changed our route to take a 
higher elevation and supposedly easier crossing of Klein Creek than the one 
we?d planned on.  Didn?t seem to matter though ? we still went for an 
unplanned, unwanted and unwelcome swim with our packs - and lost 2 of our 4 
water bottles in the process.  And this was in an area where previous hikers 
had complained about the lack of ?good? water ? and we were warned that we 
should carry as much water as possible.  But somehow we never had that 
problem.  The second creek crossing that day went a lot better, the third 
one was dry and we camped at the fourth creek (about 8 miles from Horsfeld).

This was when we discovered that our tent poles were missing.  Ooops!!!  
Initial speculation was that we?d lost them when we lost it and went 
swimming at the first creek.  But that didn?t fit somehow.  We finally 
decided that they?d fallen out of the pack in the bush plane.  Either way ? 
there was no way to get them back.  So you deal with it.  That first night 
we were lucky enough to be in trees and could use them to tie the tent up.  
Good thing we did cause it rained on us that night.  But that was the last 
time we had trees to use like that ? and it did rain every night.

Next morning, just as we were picking up the packs to start walking, we 
heard a plane. It was Don, our pilot.  He?d found the tent poles late the 
previous evening.  So the next morning he used his own plane, his own gas 
and his own time, dragged his wife along as a spotter ? and air dropped them 
to us.  Trail magic exists ? even in the wilds of Alaska.  He saved us a 
whole lot of misery because we had rain every night we were out there.

The next couple days consisted of:  climb the mountain; look for wildlife; 
are we where we think we are?  (we were); it?s raining again; wow, did you 
see the size of that caribou?; let?s take this ridge and see where it goes; 
my feet hurt; holy mackerel, this is beautiful; I?m hungry; I?m sunburned; 
do we need to filter? (we didn?t); how much film do we have left? (enough); 
let?s hope the digital memory holds out; let?s camp down there; so where did 
we put the bear cans last night?; what?s for dinner?; Dang, this pack is 
heavy!?? etc.

We climbed over one un-named ridge after another, modifying our route as we 
went.  The following is an appropriate quote from ?Mountaineering: Freedom 
of the Hills? ?
The wilderness awaits those who have learned the skills of routefinding and 
navigation??In medieval times the greatest honor a visitor could receive was 
the rights of a citizen and the freedom of the city, sometimes even today 
symbolized by presenting a guest with the ?keys to the city.?  For the 
modern alpine traveler, routefinding is the key to wandering at will through 
valleys and meadows, up cliffs and over glaciers, earning the rights of a 
citizen in a magical land, a mountaineer with the freedom of the hills.

The country is beautiful ? green, rolling, un-named ridge after un-named 
ridge, with stark, jagged mountains in the background interspersed with 
glaciers, icefields and wild, raging glacier-fed rivers.  No roads, no 
people, not even any aircraft.  The wildlife was plentiful ? although VERY 
difficult to spot, the mountains are tough, the hiking is tougher (scrub 
alder and willow are hard, but tundra is even harder to walk on/through), 
the stream crossings are difficult, the climbs are long and hard, the views 
are fantastic, and the wildlife is REALLY wild.  It?s REAL wilderness - not 
the ersatz stuff most of you think of as ?wilderness.?

Most of the streams, mountains, and passes where we were hiking aren?t even 
named.  One pass stood out on the map because it was the only named feature 
on that whole ridge ? Fogenbera Pass.  So obviously we had to go there to 
see why - even though it was well off our original planned route.  We still 
don?t know --- but we were there.  OTOH, the only time we followed our 
?planned route? was on the 5th day ? other than that all the planning we?d 
done was just so much firestarter ? except that there was a fire ban and we 
couldn?t even get rid of it like that.

The fifth day was a long, easy, open ridge walk with wide open views ? at 
least when the clouds didn?t close down on us.  When they did, it was very 
cold ? and very windy.  But when it cleared a little, we could see a large 
part of where we?d been for the last 4-5 days, as well as where we were 
going, and into the raw jagged  ranges to the north and south of us.

We woke on the 6th day, having seen no human sign except one single boot 
print up on a ridge since the horse packers just after we?d been dropped at 
Horsfeld.  So - of course ? this was our day for ?resocialization?.  Sorta.  
We were supposed to be picked up at the Solo Creek airstrip at 3 pm so we 
were fed, packed and hiking early.  Lots of time to cover the 3 miles to the 
airstrip from our campsite ? right?  Well ? not really.  Dontcha know we 
just couldn?t resist going to see Solo Lake and then doing another ridge 
walk to get that fantastic view of Solo Lake to the East, the braided White 
River to the South --- and the un-named ridge we?d walked yesterday 
stretching off to the North.  Beautiful.  Unfortunately, it was also too big 
for the cameras to be able to capture it.  It also put us further from the 
airstrip than when we?d started that morning.   So at noon, we still had 
over 3 miles of bushwhacking through the taiga to get to the airstrip.  Talk 
about a scramble.

Somehow we made it with 45 minutes to spare.  And as the airstrip hove into 
view, so did the girls.  Yep ? I said ?girls?.  A group of 5 teenage girls 
from a YMCA camp in Minnesota who were out there for a 34 day trip in the 
wilderness.  They?d  started at Horsfeld and taken 18 days to do the same 30 
miles that we?d intended to do in 6 ? except that we?d stretched it out to 
about 50 miles by ?exploring? different routes and ridges. And they?d 
stretched out their ?time-on-trail? by carrying 19 days of food for the 
first leg of their trip.  They each had, not one, but TWO bear canisters.  
And very, VERY large packs.  We had lunch with them while we waited for the 
plane ? and then we advised them to go read Ray Jardine.

Of course, after our scramble to be on time for our pickup, the plane got 
there 3 hours late.  All of us sat there having visions of having to walk 
the 70 miles out of there ? and between the seven of us, we couldn?t have 
scraped together enough food for a single day.  But the plane did finally 
show up ? the girls got their resupply, we got back to McCarthy, and we got 
to thank Don (our pilot) for airdropping our tent poles.  And then we got to 
devour hamburgers and cokes back at the Glacier View Campground.

The next several days were ?different? - we were back in ?flatland 
tourister? mode.  We drove back out the 59 miles of ?bad road?, returned the 
bear cans to the Park HQ, and spent a couple days exploring Alaska.  We 
drove to Tok  (pronounced ?Toke?), then to Fairbanks, stopping along the way 
to explore the country and  some of the local attractions.  Like the 
University of Alaska ?Museum of the North? and the town of North Pole, AK.  
We even got a couple showers ? and more than a few meals.  <G>

Eventually we started to close the circle and headed for Denali.  It was 
?almost? funny ? as we drove south from Fairbanks, we could see Denali 
clearly, but it was too far away to get a good picture.  By the time we got 
within range for a good picture, the haze had closed in and there was no 
?good picture? (of Denali) to be taken.

We stayed at Riley Campground at Denali for a couple nights, taking the 
?tourist? bus out to Eielson one day.  It was a wonderful trip ? 8 hours 
long, but well worthwhile..  The tourist bus stops for wildlife ? and we saw 
moose, caribou, wolves, gyrfalcons and grizzly ? among others.  As well as a 
LOT of great scenery.  And we got pictures.   Lots of pictures.  But still 
no ?good? pictures of Denali itself  because the weather had closed in.

The next morning we were back on a bus ? but this time it was the camper bus 
and we had a permit for two days in the backcountry.  The camper bus also 
stops for wildlife, but only if it?s really worthwhile.  The bears, caribou, 
and fox must have classified as worthwhile because we spent some time 
watching them.  And taking more pictures.  We got off the bus at the 
Polychrome Overlook ? and hauled our packs away from the road. Freedom ? 
again.  But we had a lot of trailless territory to cover.  The usual 
(recommended) overnite hike from Polychrome is to circle East and get back 
to the road near the East Fork of the Toklat (about a 9 mile hike).  So we 
headed West for a lot more miles and a lot more difficult hike.  We were 
told there were 8 people in that particular sector.  We only saw 2 ? and we 
let them watch our taillights as we went over the far ridge headed for Cabin 
Creek and the Toklat.  We made a very windy and somewhat rainy camp that 
night on an un-named river bar after a long day of climbing around and over 
a rockslide followed by some really rough bushwhacking.  A short walk after 
dinner provided us with a long look at a herd of about 40 Dall sheep.  Of 
course, neither of us had thought to bring a camera with us.   But we got 
pictures of them the next morning after we climbed the ridge where they were 
feeding.

Next day started reasonably well, then turned cloudy and intermittently 
rainy about noon.  Our only wildlife sighting was the Dall sheep at the top 
of the first ridge ? until we got to the Toklat River and were working our 
way upstream toward the road. That?s when Ginny saw Mama Griz and her little 
one ? close to the trees at the edge of the river bar - and between us and 
the road.  We couldn?t pass her on the mountain side because that?s where 
she was most likely to run if she decided to leave where they were feeding 
and playing.  Yep ? I said playing ? they were chasing each other around 
like a couple large (VERY LARGE) puppies.  Passing them on the river side 
was chancy ? the river bar is about two hundred yards wide where we were ? 
but if she chased us the only way out was into the water ? and the water 
runs fast and deep through there.  So we really didn?t want to try to cross 
that river.  Even waiting where we were for her to leave wasn?t a good 
option because we were upwind of her and it wouldn?t be long before she knew 
we were there and came to investigate.   So ? as that old saying goes ? 
?L?audace, l?audace, toujours l?audace?  -- we got as close to the water as 
possible and marched ? and sang.   Loudly.  Junior had moved about halfway 
out from the trees toward the water, probably looking for something good to 
eat. And as we marched upriver serenading our furry friends, Momma moved out 
closer to us to join Junior and enjoy the unexpected and very ragged concert 
? and, incidentally, to protect Junior.  Which left less than a hundred yard 
gap between her and the river through which we somewhat (largely?) nervously 
slid ? all the while watching her watch us.  And watch us she did ? until we 
were a good half-mile upstream.  Not a CLOSE encounter ? but close enough.

We caught a bus out of the Park that afternoon, and drove south to Talkeetna 
that evening.  Talkeetna is reputedly the town that inspired the TV program 
?Northern Exposure? even though the show was actually filmed in Washington.  
  It?s a nice town ? but really tourist oriented.

Then it was south again the next day through Houston, Wasilla and Anchorage 
and out to the long and very scenic drive around Turnagain Arm.  We were 
doin? well until the rain started about 85 miles south of Anchorage.  It was 
the first rain there in quite a while ? which made the road slick.  And when 
it started raining hard enough to make driving difficult, the driving got 
REALLY difficult, because three of the tires started to hydroplane, the car 
swapped ends and we ended up sliding backwards across the oncoming traffic 
lanes, off the road and down over the embankment until, still backwards, we 
came to a very gentle stop, cradled by the willows.  Over the years I?ve had 
many a reason to curse the western willows.  But that day I thanked God for 
them because they saved us from a lot harder and nastier landing than we?d 
have otherwise experienced.  Ginny and I both walked away from the car ? 
shaken but not hurt.  And then spent the rest of the day dealing with the 
police, the wrecker, the rental car agency, the insurance company ? and 
replanning the next few days of our trip.  And being thankful that we were 
alive to do so.  I barely thought about it at the time, but I?ve since had 
visions of the results of that 30 second slide if it had happened 60 seconds 
earlier or later when one of the thousands of massive RV?s that travel that 
highway had been in the right (or is that ?wrong??) place.

We spent that night back in Anchorage ? not far from the rental car agency 
(which, incidentally, actually gave us another car).  The next morning, 
after a short talk with the rental car agency manager about the bald tires 
on the wrecked car, we were back on the road, headed for Seward.  We got 
there in time to do a walking tour of the town, spend some time in the 
Seward Sea-Life Center, get Ginny the Alaska salmon dinner she?d been 
looking for ever since we got off the plane ? and then get a good night?s 
sleep.

We needed the sleep because I hadn?t slept at all the night before (after 
the accident).  And because we had an early date with a cruise boat that 
took us on a long leisurely 9-hour cruise to the Northwestern Glacier, with 
stops along the way to watch seals, several different species of whale, sea 
lions, sea otters, mountain goats, and the rookeries for a number of 
different types of birds.  It was about 100 mile trip ? and very tiring.  
And very much worthwhile.

The next day was ?free? ? we had nothing particular planned, so we headed 
for Soldotna, Ninilchik and Homer with a whole lot of ?tourist-type stops? 
along the way, as well as some hiking on the Lost lake Trail.  The Homer 
Spit is as far west as one can drive on the Continental US road system.  
Homer is also famous for its Bald Eagles.  The salmon weren?t running while 
we were there, so most of the eagles weren?t in evidence, but there was one 
that, as we drove slowly out the Spit, flew alongside us for a while, 
crossed over the road right in front of the car and then flew on.  We spent 
that night back in Soldotna.

The next morning was our last day to play so we again spent the day being 
tourists all the way back to Anchorage where we returned the car, talked to 
the rental car agency owner again ? and -- he offered me a job.  Hmmm - 
maybe I should take it?

We repacked that night and were on a plane headed home early the next 
morning.  Bummer.

In 18 days, we saw a lot of beautiful country (and a lot of wildlife), did a 
little hiking (about 75 miles total), got reminded that blazes are 
superfluous and that trailless hiking is both challenging and interesting, 
met a lot of nice people, found some places we could live (and a few places 
we wouldn?t want to live), took a lot of pictures, ate too much, spent too 
much, had a LOT of fun - and once again exhausted ourselves playing touron.  
And it was worth every bit of it.  Now all we have to do is get back into 
what some people think of as ?real life? ? although we think of it as ?that 
other world? because we know where ?real life? lives.