Breaking the Trail

    

The crossing at Kahiltna

The two bulls stood next to a cow and they were all staring at me. I shut off my snow machine hoping they would stay for a while. Dad pulled up alongside and shut off his sled too. Both were two year old bulls. They resembled the goofy moose in the old Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon.  High thirties, maybe low forty inch antler spreads at best, these fellas were far from their potential as giants of the forest.  Eventually they spooked and took-off into the thicker woods away from us and our noisy engines.

     “Ready?”

    Dad gave me the thumbs-up and we were off.  Breaking the trail forty miles to our cabin had been a breeze so far.  In my mind’s-eye we had already surpassed one potentially daunting obstacle;  The Kahiltna River. It had been on my mind for several weeks:

    The Kahiltna River is a bit of an anomaly. It is a glacial river that shoots out of the Alaska Range from underneath the mighty glacier that bares the same name. At 44 miles long, the Kahiltna glacier is the longest glacier in the Alaska Range and with all the snow and ice that melts each summer, it produces a melt-off worthy of note.

 The glacier’s upper reaches see thousands of climbers each year all of them harboring dreams of high places but not many people know or care too much about the Kahiltna River itself that spills out from under it all; It has quite a nasty reputation.

There is a tale told in the age-old manuscript Conquest of Mckinley where five gold miners attempted to raft down the Kahiltna in a wooden skiff. As the story goes the boat got hung up and broke apart on a partially submerged boulder in the Kahiltna Canyon. Apparently four of the miners held-fast on the boulder for four whole days shivering and fretting,whilst the fifth figured: "Death by drowning was preferable to a living hell." Almost naked, he took to the water and by the aid of a portion of the boat which had struck the rock, he succeeded in reaching shore. In the end the daring swimmer survived, bushwacked downstream eventually discovering a trapper's cache that was his salvation. Imagine the others' incredible surprise when another miner, rowing a different skiff came barrelling down the canyon in their most dire hour. He couldn't believe his eyes upon discovering the four shivering miners clamoring to the rock. The lone miner managed to make it to shore somewhere downstream. He was able to make it back up to them and ultimately saved them by way of rope. They all survived. This was 1911.

    Flash forward 92 years. Yours truly was also involved in a failed rafting trip on said Kahiltna. We tried to negotiate these same turbulent boiling waters to no avail.  Although this is another story altogether I will say this:  After negotiating our way around house sized boulders in class five rapids with the wrong raft and virtually no experience, we flipped.  Go figure. After dragging our drowned-rat asses out of the raging torrent, we decided to hike out ten miles through the bushwhack instead.  Smart choice. Kahiltna River....one, Steve....zero.  

     Today was different, today all we wanted from the Kahiltna was a winter crossing.  Due to an unseasonably warm winter thus far it wasn’t entirely frozen yet.  A long band of swiftly running water gushed by us in a series of dancing waves; hardly the stuff of ideal snow machining. The open stretch continued downstream as far as the eye could see.  Initial thought....shit.

The Kahiltna 12/17/14

   Nonetheless, some other adventuresome soul, even antsier than myself to reach the other side,was gracious enough to do my dirty work for me.  I looked below the bank and beheld a lone snow machine track leading under the cut bank upstream to a carefully planned crossing some two hundred meters upstream.  I walked the bank to check it out.  Sure enough a few transplanted spruce branches flagged with survey tape marked the way straight across the river!

     Having overcome the crossing at Kahiltna, we were onto the the next potential problem, some ten miles down-trail;  Upper Indian.

     Upper Indian Creek (the U.I. to some) can be troublesome as well.  This slow moving frog water is cut deep into the marshes and is notorious for its unpredictable freezing patterns.  In years past it has taken a dicey jump-move to blast down and then up the other side. Luckily after some investigation, I found a suitable crossing.  After I scooted over top, Dad followed.  A few insignificant chunks of ice broke free but nothing that would undermine the integrity of the crossing for our safe return.

The U.I. gave itself to us this year
without much trouble.

An overwhelming thought overcame me; What a pleasure it is to travel in this wild country!

    Things were looking up for us but sometimes life is funny.  As it turned out the last five miles to the cabin were by-far the most difficult of the whole trip.

    We turned off the main section-line to commence trail breaking onto our very own short-cut to the cabin. This trail, cut-in three years ago allows us to avoid traveling the Yentna River altogether.  The Yentna, another major glacial river draining out of the south side of the Alaska range is loaded with potential for mishap, especially during early freeze-up. Unfortunately for us, when we brushed-out the trail originally three years ago, the snow was much deeper, so on this trip all of our prior cuts were exposed stubs of doom, jabbing at us, throwing us sideways, cursing us! Like a sea of frozen hammer handles, we surged over, around, and through them.

      After finally passing the trail of jabby sticks we made it to quite possibly the worst beaver marsh traverse ever.  Without enough snow to lay down the willows, we had to plow over and through them being careful to avoid open beaver ponds and overflow.  The terrain here was particularly demanding and rough and it was with great relief when, at last we reached Indian Creek itself. All that was left was a mile ride down the creek.

      Although each bend in the creek had open water and overflow, we decided to be nimble and swift in our movements effectively avoiding calamity or any other undue mishap.  It was nice to be moving so quickly after enduring all the dis-pleasantries of our dubious shortcut.

   We arrived at the cabin and as always we were in good cheer despite the struggle of the last few miles. We peeled off helmets and headgear revealing our sweaty heads which were throwing off considerable steam.  “Wow, that last part was rough.”  He was right, it was rough and in hindsight we should have pushed-on to the Yentna where a better trail had already been established.

    “If it were easy, then everyone would do it.”

Cabin fare:  Large, hot jalapenos stuffed with moose chorizo
and cream cheese, wrapped with moose bacon.  Pin together with
toothpics and bake until done.  Serve with a generous roll of toilet paper.

The dangers of the Yentna trail
 are mostly self-evident.

11:00 A.M. Dec 15th. Life is good.