Day One; Jack River to Caribou Pass
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| Jack River valley. |
From the Denali Highway, the trail cut straight across the valley to the Jack River drainage. Cut-in by years of four wheelers use, the trail pushed over benches laden with buck birch and other low-lying tundra scrub. I was suppressing my giddiness as we hiked along. After months of planning and speculation, at last the damn thing was finally playing out right before my eyes; sweet baby Jesus!
Before long It was obvious that we settled into last place. The “gunners” were long gone and suddenly as if it were planned, we were pretty much on our own.
Gunners are the fast guys that try to win. Our packs weighed in at 44 pounds at the start.
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| My whole kit. |
“Hey this is going to be like the tortoise and the hare!” I told Art as we headed up the valley. “Slow and steady wins the race.” I declared. We chuckled about the the idea of winning. We recognized early on that we were among elite endurance athletes. Among the field were decorated collegiate athletes, NorthFace sponsored explorers, and other young whippersnappers that had things to prove.
Our motivations were different. For me the Alaska Wilderness Classic was a great excuse to check-out the wild country in my back yard. Neither Arthur or myself ever harbored any illusions of winning or placing. In fact we weren’t even sure we could finish the thing so we took time to identify several “bail-out” locations along-the-way where fixed wing planes could pick us up.
After eight miles or so it was time to cross the river. We could see the trail continued on the other side. The volume of water was high and it was moving along swiftly. I went first and made it past the deepest part but slipped and fell in, banging my knee on a rock. Art struggled against the pushy current, but made it across unscathed “That was the hardest river crossing I’ve ever done,” Art said.
A few miles further up the valley and we were surprised to find some horses. A grove of cottonwood trees near the river was an idyllic setting and provided shade for eight beautiful horses of various sizes and colors. They were all meticulously groomed, saddled and tethered to trees. There was no one around and we figured that maybe the owners had gone for a hike.
“Don’t even think about it Art.” I joked. The thought of saddling up and riding up-valley in style put a smile on our faces but it was out of the question; we didn’t have our cowboy hats.
Eventually the ATV trail ran its course and we were on our own to find our way up the valley. As the day progressed the river was was squeezed into a canyon and we found ourselves weaving back and forth across the river. As the canyon walls became more pronounced we decided to climb out and sidehill our way around the corner into Caribou Pass. “Hey look down there?” I said. Art took out his camera that was equipped with a small telephoto lens. Upon inspection we could clearly see that down in the canyon below was a late 80’s Arctic Cat snowmachine nestled into the bushes. There was a story there but we were on a mission and could only surmise the misadventure that led to an abandoned sled so remote.
We were well above tree line by now and although it had started raining, the view was amazing. We could clearly see all of Caribou Pass to our North and the pass that would lead us into the headwaters of the Tsusena River to our South. After 11 hours of hiking we agreed to stop and make camp. Here we would establish camp routines that we would continue throughout our journey
“I can't believe we are doing this” Art said.
“Yeah, it's good to get day one under our belt.” I said.
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| Camp One. |
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| Art, Nora, and Clair. |
