AWC Day 10 "Smelling the Barn"

Day 10: Caribou Creek to Sheep Mountain Lodge 

“Smelling the Barn”

      “Looks like you are off-course,” she said. I read the text message from my wife before I got out of the tent  I had sent messages to Tamra on my Delorme "in-reach" at the end of each hiking day.  It is an amazing tool that allows me to send text messages from anywhere in the world. I have found it to be a useful tool mostly because it keeps loved ones from worrying.  She knew we were off-course because I had shown her our route on Google Earth before we left.  Each in-reach message contains a link to our GPS location on a map.  
     We quickly came to realize the harsh reality of our mistake from the day before;  Our final day just got several hours longer.  By this point in the trip we were smelling-the-barn and I’m not afraid to admit that it was a rather tough pill-to-swallow as the gravity of our situation soaked into our bones. Keeping to our positive attitudes and energy, we swallowed our pride and headed back up the trail that we had come down the night before. 
    In my mind I had envisioned us waltzing into Sheep Mountain lodge mid afternoon.  Although I’d never been there, I imagined a bar with several patrons gathered around yucking-it-up over cheeseburgers and beer.  The reality of the situation turned out to be much different but I snapped out of my dream-world and realized that I’d better start paying more attention to the map and less attention to fictional cheeseburgers. “We’re not out of the woods yet,” I thought to myself. 
      After back-tracking to the river we discovered that, contrary to our 1950’s printed map, there was no tractor trail leading further down Caribou Creek.  We scrambled up onto the ridge above the creek in search of a trail only to come up empty; We decided to work our way back along the ridge and then eventually back down to the creek; It was time to float. 
     Soon enough we made it to the creek, inflated our rafts, pulled on our dry-suits and set-off down stream.  The creek was moving fast but it was well within our capabilities and we had no problems; It was super fun!  We knew from studying the maps that there was a pinch-point a couple of miles below us and we made sure to pulled-over to scout it out.  
    The whole creek funneled into a slot no more than twenty feet wide. The  chute was only two hundred feet long before it opened back up but it looked pretty rowdy; We portaged around it. 

I'm having a snack overlooking "the chute".

      After putting back into Caribou creek we paddled a few more bends.  I called for a “pull-out” when I couldn’t see around a blind corner.  We got out of our packrafts and walked downstream to get a better look.  It looked okay but I had an idea.  "Let's check for the ATV trail," I said.  A short walk revealed a well traveled trail that would be only 1.5 miles to our next waypoint: Squaw Creek.  We could have rafted down to Squaw Creek but Art and I being a couple of old conservative dudes decided to pack-up and hike it out.  This trail would lead us around the corner up the Squaw Creek valley.  We would follow this trail for about 7 miles. A lone wolf with huge paws and a big brown bear had traveled down the length of this trail ahead of us; We encountered their tracks intermittently on all of the muddy sections. As the day wore on and the miles ticked off the thought crossed my mind that maybe, like Art and myself they were traveling buddies working together to complete some crazy race. "Look, there they are again," said Art. 
     I checked the gps on my phone (gaia app) and discovered that finally it was time to cross the valley.  We could see a trail cut into the mountainside far across the valley and soon we found the connecting trail that led us there.  We had to overcome a giant beaver pond that was obstructing the trail.  "Hey, check it out," I said.  In the middle of the trail was the business end of a kayak paddle. It turned out to be owned by a guy named Tom who was one of our competitors; We met him trail-side on day one.  Art tucked it into my pack and we continued our slog through the beaver marsh and beyond.  
     We were tired.  With eight miles to the finish we sat down next to a creek.  “Hey Steve, try some of this,”  Art handed me half of a big chocolate bar that he’d brought back from Patagonia.
     “Wow, Thanks.”  We sat there together eating great chocolate next to a stream and I couldn’t help but think of how grateful I was to be so close to completing this trip with such an amazing person as Art.  Maybe it was the chocolate talking but I don’t think so. 
     I grabbed my water filter and reached down to fill up.  I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw a cluster of a hundred or so green inch worms gathered together at the bottom of the creek.  Upon further inspection I noticed another similar group a little further down the creek.  "What is going on here?" I thought.  
    Back on day two of the trip, over coffee, I had asked Arthur a philosophical question.  "Hey Artie, as the trip progresses let's see if we can identify our kindred animal spirit that would be with us all along the way."
   "Hey, that sounds great," he said.  I was thinking that maybe we would see caribou every day and our kindred animal spirit would be the caribou, or maybe some bird like the Arctic Tern; Terns are cool.  It became apparently obvious after a couple more days on the trail that our kindred animal spirit would be none other than....the inchworm.  It was perfect; We were slow and methodical and made inchworm-like progress each day.  Each time we stopped one of us would have a tiny green inchworm on our sleeve or pack or boot.  We made sure to be careful with them.  Art would carefully relocate them to a nearby leaf of a bush or tree. At one lunch break, he had one on his hat.  I watched as it made a slinky move from the edge of the hat to the top of his ear lobe.  "Hey Art he just bridged to your ear,"  I told him.
      "Great," he said as we headed down the trail. I lost track of the little guy as he wiggled over the rim of Art's ear.
      So it was a little disheartening to see so many of our little buddies pooled up on the bottom of the creek.  I'd like to think that they were gathering to say goodbye to us. We were close to the end of our journey and they had been with us the whole time.
     We said our goodbyes to the last of the chocolate and the worms and hit the trail.  The last section of our trip was not our favorite.  It was on four wheeler trails that, in some sections, had been bogged-out due to extreme overuse.  Wherever the trail got muddy through a swamp, there were many other trails running adjacent to them that would completely destroy the area further.  We came across many of these sites on this last day and it was disconcerting to see such a blatant disregard for the wilderness destroyed in the name of “getting-there.”
     
   Soon enough we dropped down off of the North side of Gunsight mountain and onto the decommissioned Old Glenn highway.  That’s right, the last four miles of this thing were on……pavement.  Needless to say we were pretty wasted at the end of what would turn out to be a 17 hour day.  The unforgiving surface of the asphalt pounded into our bones as we made our way to Sheep Mountain lodge. 
     At 12:23 AM we stepped into the parking completing our journey of over 140 miles.  We took a quick group selfie, set up our tent and crashed hard.  We wouldn’t find the ziplock back with the finishers sign-in list until the next morning; It was taped to a pole next to an RV.  On it were eleven finishers.  We signed in as number 12 and 13 and as it turned out would be the last to finish.

Happy finishers.  As it turned out we would get our cheeseburgers and beer the next day.
I recommend the blue cheese burger at Sheep Mountain Lodge; it's especially tasty after a
long hike.

AWC Day 9

Day 9: Little Nelchina to Divide Creek

Arthur scratching his way out of the Little Nechina canyon

     “Hey look I’m a newborn caribou!”  Art had just stepped out of the tent on the morning of our ninth day.  He was barefoot and stiff and was making slow wobbly progress over to his socks that were hanging from a nearby bush.  I laughed out loud.  
     A group of ten caribou moved across the hill behind us as we packed up camp. The immediate task ahead of us today was to ascend the Little Nelchina to a pass that would lead us into Billy Creek.  This would turn out more difficult that I had imagined at home from the comforts of my laptop. The creek was fordable as we made our way upstream.  Deep and steep canyon walls became more pronounced the further we went.  Up ahead we could see that the creek disappeared through a narrow slot in the canyon where the walls were almost vertical.  “That doesn’t look good.”  said Art.
     “Yeah, let’s pick our way-up over here.”  I pointed with my hiking pole to a crude caribou trail that switch-backed up a nearby slope of the canyon wall; It looked okay from below.  My thinking was that if caribou can skedaddle right up to the top of the canyon rim then we can too.
     Up we went planting our poles into the crumbly scree. Towards the top it got rather steep and I wished that I had an ice ax in my hand instead of this ridiculous hiking pole. There were two “crux” moves with at least a little exposure that made for an exciting climb.  The problem on this particular pitch was that nothing was solid;  The rocks, the bushes, and the dirt couldn’t be trusted and would crumble or pull-out or both.  
     After topping out on a dicey section, I found a ledge and waited.  I didn’t want to knock anything down on Artie.  Art was digging out each foot hold; loose clods of poorly bonded dirt tumbled below him crashing into the creek below.   
    After topping out of the canyon we took off our packs and took a break.  Just then something caught my eye high on the hill across the canyon.  “Hey Art, check out the bear.”  A big blond grizzly was across the valley and up a couple hundred vertical feet.  It was working on something and we weren’t quite sure what.  There was no sense of urgency in its movements; Maybe it was digging up some roots to eat.  We watched it from the relative safety of our canyon perch.  Art got a few photos albeit far away.  
     From there we would make our way up and around several tributaries that cut deep into the mountainside.  The last one involved a rather extensive detour up-and-around some steep cuts in hillside. We finally found a route down to the creek and even got to do a little glissading in some loose sediment on the way down.  We picked our way up the other side and topped out near a lake in the pass that overlooked the Billy Creek valley.  We ate some food and watched a few caribou mill-around on nearby ridge. 
     Billy Creek was wild country.  We made our way down the valley staying fairly close to the creek.  For a mile or so we were able to hike in the creek bottom and it was lovely terrain with caribou trails winding among sparse low-lying bushes.  Soon the creek began to spill around big rock outcroppings so we climbed back up onto a ridge on the Eastern bank.  
     This part of the valley was interesting.  High above us, to the East and spilling all the way down to the valley floor were a series of giant boulders ranging in size from washing-machines to small houses.  They were all charcoal-black and were covered with their own wigs of mosses and lichens.  Since a rolling stone gathers no moss (quite literally), I figured they'd been there a while, but I couldn't figure out the geologic event that would cause such a strange disbursement of large rocks. 
    Our route would keep us next to the creek for several more miles and that is where I found the fossil.  “Wow look at that”.  He said.  Art took several photos and got all excited as only he can do.  “See, this whole place was under water!” Art had been telling me about the giant prehistoric inland lake called Ahtna; it was approximately half the size of modern day’s lake Ontario.  When the glaciers receded at one point there was a giant flood and some parts of the Susitna Valley were thought to have been under 600 feet of water for over two weeks as the lake drained.  Our thoughts and discussions centered around this large fossil and its place in prehistoric Alaska as we continued down the valley.

Ammonite of some kind.

     A month ago in the early stages of our route finding efforts we went over to Brian Okonek’s house to pick his brain.  Brian and his wife Diane have trekked over much of the terrain we were planning on hiking through and was able to provide us valuable information on what to expect and where to go.  Brian had about ten maps laid out on his table.  “What does that say?” He was pointed to a small tributary that spilled into the Little Nelchina.  Art and I both looked and couldn’t read the small letters.  Later that night at home, I was able to zoom-in on a topo-overlay on Google earth and could clearly see “Cardioceras Creek” written in small letters.  The creek adjacent to it was called “Cadoceras Creek.” A little further up the valley was “Ammonite Creek.”; I looked them up.
     Without getting too far into the weeds I discovered that both cadoceras and cardioceras are examples of ammonites.  Wikapedia says this:  Ammonoids are a group of extinct marine mollusc animals in the subclass Ammonoidea of the class Cephalopoda. These molluscs, commonly referred to as ammonites, are closely related to living coleoids (i.e., octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish)

An Ammonite named asteroceras
Nobu Tamura (http://spinops.blogspot.com) 

     We were both excited about finding such a cool fossil and as we made our way down the creek I found myself looking for more without success.  The further we went the bigger the canyon walls got.  We could still ford the creek so we decided to ride-it-out and try our luck staying in the creek bottom.  The canyon walls on both sides had many deep cutting tributaries and we knew that it would be a complete thrash picking our way up and around each of them.  "Looks like we're committed now," Art looked at me after a particularly harrowing crossing of the creek. 
     "I guess so,"I said.
     Much like the upper Little Nelchina, we found ourselves getting canyoned-out again.  This would be our word-of-the-day.  There were still game trails and so we held out hope that our route would “go”.  At one point Art waded along the creek with his hand on the canyon wall and peered around the corner.  It didn’t look good to me from where I was and I was expecting him to retreat and come back to find another way.  He didn’t return so I followed him around the corner and was amazed to discover that in front of Arthur, the entire creek disappeared under a snowfield.  I watched as the water flowed underneath. “Hey check out the Aufeis,” He said.  Aufeis is a German word than means "ice on top."  This deep cut of the canyon was at the bottom run-out of an avalanche chute.  It looked like a snowfield and I thought that maybe it would hold our weight.  Art was already headed that way and I watched him step onto it near the canyon wall.  He didn’t appear to be sink-in at all.  I was fascinated to discover that it was a glaciated ice field over five feet thick in places.  Apparently repeated avalanches filling the shaded valley floor was a good recipe for building glacial ice. 

See Arthur on the right?

    We walked near the edge and could see the blue ice in established cracks running deep down.  It was a delightful few minutes of wonder and awe as we walked easily up and over the ice and then back down to the creek on the other side.
      On the very next bend of the creek I found an old Dall Sheep ram horn.  Two bends further down there was a big moose shed with both antlers laying on the gravel within 20 feet of each other.  Down the creek we went; "What would we discover next?" I wondered. 

Old ram horn

     As we walked on boulders around the next corner we could see the creek pinching into a ten foot wide channel only to disappear into what had turned into a slot canyon.  Hundred foot walls went straight up;  Together they snaked around the corner.  The water had gained volume and momentum and there was no beach or banks to speak of; It was wall-to-wall rapids.  Our only choice was up.
     Once again we found ourselves scratching our way out of a crumbly rotten canyon wall.  Soon enough we made it above the fracas and into the safety of the alders.  We followed solid moose trails to a ridge overlooking our next obstacle: Caribou Creek.  A sense of relief overcame me when we saw a four wheeler trail on the other side of Caribou Creek as we descended the ridge.  “Enough adventure for one day,” I thought. A cow moose nonchalantly trotted out of our way as we made our way down to the valley floor.  
     After unsuccessfully trying to ford Caribou, we decided to packraft across.  We agreed that it looked too aggressive for us to float so we found a suitable stretch with a good eddy on the other side.  Glad to have crossed safely we packed up and hit the ATV trail.  It was late in the day and we were in march-mode again.  After several miles of following the river, the trail headed up a small valley away from the river.  Without thinking, or bothering to check the map, we followed it.  I assumed that the trail would loop around to the river at some point.  I was wrong.  We continued down the trail another 2.5 miles until we decided to camp next to a small creek.  We wouldn’t realize our mistake until the next morning.  This would be Divide Creek camp.

AWC Day 8

Day 8: Oshetna River to the Little Nelchina.

 

The Little Oshetna valley

     This morning, like the rest of them, I awoke before Art. The sun was shining through the white fabric of the tent and beckoned me outside; I can't help it. I tried to sneak out of the tent undetected with the intention of allowing him to sleep-in a bit.  Inevitably he woke-up just as I was about to carefully zip the bug-fly back shut again. My clumsiness extracting myself from the tent probably had something to do with the fact that I was pretty stiff and sore. I realized that my tent-moves were less-than-graceful. Darn. 
      “Do you think we have enough fuel for two cups of coffee today?” He asked.  
     “Good Morning Artie,” I replied.  I stood up carefully on my tender feet and stretched tall. We had been carefully tallying our stove "burns."  We were using my jet-boil stove and one small canister is supposed to afford 22 two-cup boils.  Since we were filtering our water (mostly) we decided that we didn't need our coffee water to boil (it would be safe at any temp) so we were shutting the stove down early to conserve.  We brought two full canisters of isobutane/propane fuel and as it turned out it was more than enough and there was no reason to ration such a thing on this trip.  “Yes I think we can have two cups today,” I said.
     “Great.”  he said and with that we started our day 500 vertical feet above the Oshetna River valley, a place synonymous with big numbers of caribou from the Nelchina herd; I was excited.   We slowly packed up our things making sure to take our time to enjoy our coffee. Down the hill we went, each step taking us closer to the scar in the hillside, that we knew to be an ATV trail. 
     It had been over 60 miles since our feet had graced such a trail and I would be lying if I said that we weren’t looking forward to it.  We crossed a dirty brown-water tributary of the Oshetna and hastily stepped foot on the well traveled ATV trail that led would lead us straight to the main river.  Once we arrived at the river we would cross it and leave the trail behind. Our route would continue straight across the Oshetna drainage. I do not know where that trail originated or how the trailblazers got so far back to begin with.  Crossing the Oshetna on a wheeler seemed a bit daunting, but I know guys as adventurous as I am that pride themselves on their ATV skills and it doesn't surprise me to find their marks so deep in the wilderness. 
     We made our way up onto another amazing plateau that took us several miles up and over into the little Oshetna River valley.  From a rocky outcropping overlooking the whole expanse of the Little Oshetna drainage we could see another four wheeler trail carving it’s way down the valley. From our vantage point we could see several other towers of rocks along our ridge and the thought of the Great Wall of China came to my mind.  It was as if we were at a guard station along the wall peering down into the valley below.  
    We would discover that the ATV trail down in the valley  was more of a road and I couldn’t keep the thought out of my mind that maybe the toughest terrain was behind us on this journey, maybe we will be walking the rest of the way out on four wheeler trails;  I couldn’t have been more wrong. More on that later.

Taking five by the Little O.

    We walked the road down to the main tributary of the Little Oshetna and it was a wonderful walk.  The valley was broad with occasional groves of trees.  The “Little O” was clear as glass and during one crossing Art saw some trout darting out of his way.  Several miles down valley we left the trail to traverse the hillside, cutting our way up into Horsepasture Pass.  Before long we joined up with a great ATV trail and marched our way up and into this giant wide pass that was over two miles wide and five miles long. We were pretty tired at this time in the day but with such a good trail we decided to trudge on.  We crossed a few creeks and with tired legs we walked down a switchback bringing us to the Little Nelchina River.  As we descended to the creek we assessed the murky water and it looked like it might be a bit dicey.  When we got there we discovered that it wasn’t so bad.  “Let’s cross now so we won’t have to in the morning,” I said.  We crossed the dirty water easily and took off our packs.
     Just then I looked up and couldn’t believe my eyes.  “Hey Artie look!” Pouring off of the mountainside were hundreds of caribou.  They were dropping down and crossing a tributary of the Little Nelchina no more that 100 feet from us.  “Let’s set up the tent here.” Art said.

Arthur Mannix: Dances with Caribou.

     Over the course of that evening (as late as we could stay up) and the next morning we figured that we saw over 400 caribou pass before us. There were probably 70 baby calves that were as nimble and agile as the adults. They were the size of mid-sized labrador retrievers.  They would prance about going up and down the slopes, in between their mothers legs like it was all a game.  Artie and I, by contrast felt a little less-nimble and more like a couple of bushed old men; We had no trouble nodding-off to sleep even with all of the action going on outside the tent. 
     This would be Little Nelchina Camp.

AWC Day 7

Day 7: Upper George Creek to the Oshetna River

Oshetna river valley.  Behold a four wheeler trail!

 “Oh, I am climber from Manchester way
I get all me jolly’s the rock-climbing way.
I am a slave on Monday 
but I am a free-man on Sunday
You reach for a hold,
you seek for a hold
it’s a thousand foot drop if you fail.
but ten feet away, there’s a smashing belay
and it’s all for the want of an ale!” -British climber song

       Arthur’s enthusiasm for the mountains couldn’t be contained on this morning.  He sang the British climber’s song with the best English accent he could muster while simultaneously pulling his socks on over his beat-up feet.  We finished getting ready in all of the usual ways and headed around the end of the lake en-route to the pass.  Both of us were excited to be in the mountains. 
    Towards the top of the pass we encountered a dubious snow patch that covered the bottom of the ravine.  I jumped from rock to rock, not trusting the snow.  “Hey this snow is great.” Said Art, as he marched right up the middle.  Just then as he approached where the snow came close to the rocks he punched through up to his chest.  “Hey take a picture!”  He said with a smile on his face.  Art is not one for missing a photo-op.

Anyone see Artie?

     It was joyful to reach the pass and we stopped to take-in our new view.  The valley below appeared to be devoid of all vegetation and scattered with rocks and talus; It looked like a valley you might see on Mars. From there we had to traverse around the nearby high point to access a long sloping plateau that would take us to the Black River valley.  The barren plateau was interspersed with fields of talus.  We would walk around or over these ubiquitous rock gardens throughout our trip.
     According to our route on the map we would have to cross the Black River below Black lake.  We followed the easy ridge to a good spot high above the lake.  From there we would descend 1,200 vertical feet to the lake.  It was pretty steep and bushy; Art was in his element.  A lone cow caribou pranced past us having no problems at all with the bushwhack.  We made our way to the East end of the lake where there was a ramshackle cabin.  As we approached we could see that the door was wide open.  A bear had worked over the cabin for all it was worth.  There was food wrappers, gear, and garbage of all kinds strewn about inside and out.  It was an eyesore that didn’t fit in the pristine wilderness setting.  We didn’t break stride as we passed it and walked down the Eastern shore of Black lake.
     At the outlet it was clear to us that we would have to raft across the river;  It was too big to ford.  We hiked back up into the lake fifty yards or so and began the process of emptying our packs, inflating rafts, and ferrying to the other side.  As we crossed the lake we decided to paddle down at least a little bit into the river so that we could say that we pack rafted the Black River; It was fun.  
     from there we had a long hike up to another expansive plateau.  We would have to gain every bit of elevation that we’d just lost by dropping into the Black River valley.  By late afternoon we crested a ridge that led to a long gentle plateau that was just over 5 miles long.  The plateau was over 5000 vertical feet high and littered with small caribou antlers for us to tap with our hiking poles. 
      “Hey look at that!”  Art was stopped in his tracks and was pointing to the South.  “I think that’s Sheep Mountain!”  We stopped to get our bearing and he was right.  From our current position high above and between the Oshetna and Black river drainage's we could indeed see it in the far distance. Sheep Mountain lodge, the finish of the race is on the other side of Sheep Mountain.  We realized that we could also see the mountains surrounding the Jack River way back in Cantwell where we started.  We were about 70 miles into our trip and it was mind boggling to see how far we had come and where we were going all from one vantage point.  
   Just then I had epiphany;  We are going to finish this thing!  Suddenly the thought of completing it seemed tangible.  Although we were definitely not within striking distance of the finish, our steady progress was paying off and seemed within our grasp.
     When we got to the edge of the plateau overlooking the Oshetna river valley we were ready to call it a day.  We had collected enough water in our bottles to camp anywhere but it was windy on the ridge.  “Let’s pick our way down a little and see if there’s a better spot,” I said.  We ended up descended 10oo vertical feet or so settling on a camp spot on a pleasant knoll overlooking the valley.  Far below us scratched into the bottom of the valley was a curious sight indeed. “Hey look there’s a four wheeler trail.” I said
     This would be Oshetna Camp

AWC Day 6

Day 6:  Terrace Lake to Upper George Creek

Artie crossing John Creek with style, grace, and quiet confidence.

     In the morning we packed-up and took off down the barren ridge high above the Terrace Creek valley.  The gentle down slope made for an easy morning stroll.  Soon enough we picked our way down to the creek and erased my navigational error from the day before; I forgave myself. We crossed the creek without fanfare and headed over a bench that would cut the corner into the Kosina Creek valley.  
     The Kosina flows through a large broad valley that is over two miles wide.  On our way down to the creek we ran into another stand of miniature and perfectly formed spruce trees that once again tricked us into thinking that they were not only much bigger but further away.  
     We found the hiking to be most pleasant right next to the creek.  Slowly we made our way up the Kosina Valley on our way to our next destination: George Creek.   The creek which started out braided and shallow, came together and became deep and fast; it looked tricky to cross.  Luckily as we ascended its western bank it split into three; John Creek, Kosina itself, and George Creek.  Fording these tributaries one at a time wasn’t so bad because it cut the volume of rushing water greatly and we crossed all three with no problems. By late-afternoon we were headed up the George Creek valley.
     There is a special place in my heart for the George Creek valley.  If there was one place that I would like to re-visit this was it.  It was wild, beautiful country with surprises around every corner.  Also, it was fantastic hiking and reminded me a lot of where we moose hunt off of the Denali Highway.  We followed the creek up and around the corner where we discovered a couple of waterfalls spilling hundreds of feet off of the mountainside.  One such waterfall spills out from a mountain lake high above.  We could hear the roar of the water as we hike passed them.  
        Further up the valley the creek slowed down and we were amazed to find several bends of the creek slowly flowing over a gravely bottom.  The water was crystal clear and no less than six feet deep.  “Hey Steve you should go swimming”  I considered it for a hot minute before declining; we were on a mission. If I have one regret on this trip it’s that I didn’t take time to swim that hole.  
       And then we came into granite country.  From afar we thought it was snow.  When we got closer we could see that there were entire landslide debris piles of solid white granite of all sizes including sand. The further we advanced up the valley the more granite we saw.  Higher up in the valley we could see big white granite boulders.   Many of the caribou trails in this area were on white granite sand. 
     “Hey Art, check it out.” the cow caribou was the first of the trip.  She was curious and hung around us long enough to get lots of pictures and videos.  Eventually she had enough of us and trotted down the valley.  We would see 5 or 6 more as we made our way to the end of the valley.  

Click to see video of caribou.

     Our route led us around the corner up a steep tributary of George Creek that was littered with giant talus that we had to climb up and around.  The Creek blasted down next to us flushing between and over the giant rocks; Some were bigger than cars.  The volume of water crashing down the mountain was super loud and would have required shouting to each other if we wanted to communicate. We chose instead to take-in the moment and climb around the corner incommunicado; The violence of the falling creek roaring next to us.   
     The white granite boulders stuck out like sore-thumbs among all of the other charcoal colored rocks.  A few caribou appeared above us, paused to check us out, then fled.  Before long we topped out and decided to set up camp on the edge of a pristine alpine lake.  I walked down to the lake to fill our water bottles.  I hopped on boulders out to deeper water and could see that the bottom of the lake was a rock garden of wheel-barrow sized boulders.  
     From here we could see the 6,000 foot pass we would have to conquer the next day.  We had a lovely evening in a very special place.  I had chicken fajita bowl mountain house and Artie had chicken and rice.  As we ate dinner we watched a mature bull caribou walk around the lake.  We were quiet and motionless and he walked to within 75 feet of our tent before trotting-off down the valley.  This was Mountain Camp.

AWC Day 5

Day 5: Upper Fog Creek to Terrace Lake

      On this morning we afforded ourselves two cups of coffee! I broke down the tent and Artie tended to his feet.  “Art, look there’s some hikers!”  Suddenly the mood in camp changed.  One at a time we watched six hikers crest a nearby ridge.  They were about a half of a mile away.  We quickly packed up and took-off down into the valley.
     “When we get below the rise, I’ll drape my raincoat over my pack so they don’t see us.”  The competitor in Art was rising to the surface and it was funny because up until then we had both forgotten about the race part of this thing.  We had no way of knowing whether any of them saw us or not. 
     After about 20 minutes of hiking I looked back and could see that they were setting up a tent.  This blew our minds.  “What are they doing?” I said.
     “Maybe they are going on a night schedule too.” said Art.  All of the possibilities swirled in our heads as we hiked towards a far distant pass. The idea that we were ahead of at least 6 competitors was invigorating.  We congratulated ourselves on our smart route finding decisions and wondered why they didn’t just do what we did. It was quite funny all of the thoughts that surfaced.  

      After crossing Fog Creek we had a 100 foot snowfield to climb.  “Hey, let’s make giant steps in the snow to throw them off.” said Art.  “They’ll think we’re really tall.”
     “Or they’ll think we’re really fast.” I said.  We must have looked pretty goofy leaping up this snowfield.  I stepped in Arties footprints to further throw off our competition into thinking that there was just one of us.  
     From the pass above the head waters of Fog Creek we descended into the Tsisi Creek valley.  The hiking was almost entirely above treeline.  From up high we plotted our course down to the creek.  “Let’s make it down to those serpentine benches.”  Art pointed across to a series of benches that linked in a curvy pattern all the way to the creek.
     We cut across a brushy valley to access the first bench.  The benches were huge (much bigger than they appeared from across the valley) and we wound our way around and down to the last bench that overlooked Tsisi Creek itself.  After crossing the creek we made our way up onto a gentle rolling plateau.  We were into the magical 4000 foot elevation where the brush gives way to low lying tundra, lichens, and fields of talus.  This great hiking would take us all the way to Terrace Creek.
     A gentle afternoon breeze had begun and grey clouds gathered in pockets around us.  Lightening flashed in the far distance.  We began counting between the flash and the thunder.  “Every 5 seconds between lightning and thunder is one mile” said Art.  There were several distinct thunderheads around us and it was hard to see all of the flashes.  The rain began and we stopped to put on our raincoats.  From the corner of my eye,  I saw a flash to our West and began counting. 
    “One…” BOOOOM! The Thunder shook us to the core.  We decided to sit down and chill out for a while.  Soon we could see that the wind was blowing the thunderheads across Tsisi valley and we continued along the rolling plateau no worse-for-wear.  
     In the far distance to our Northeast, on the other side of the Susitna River we could see what looked like a small fire started from the lightening.  A small narrow smoke stack rose into the air.  We hoped that the accompanying rain would mitigate the situation.   
     It was late in the day now and we were in what I call marching-mode.  Our feet and legs would start to ache, we were getting tired and so we did what Dick Griffith told us to do; “Just put one foot in front of the other.” he said.  We must have been zoning-out because we neglected to check our bearings with map and compass or my GPS.  By the time we came upon the steep canyon leading down to Terrace Creek we were three miles off of our route.  It was at the end of the day and we decided to camp overlooking Terrace lake.  It was an amazing view.  There were several high alpine lakes at the end of the valley that spilled into lower ones finally gathering at Terrace Lake at the bottome of the valley.  From there Terrace Creek drained out of the North side of the lake and made its way towards the Susitna.
     We took out the map, figured out our mistake and plotted our correction route for the next morning. “Oh well, at least we get to check out Terrace Lake,” said Art.  It was an amazing view right in front of us, something from a postcard;  This would be our Terrace Lake camp.

Terrace Lake camp.  The plateau in the upper right of the photo contains several high alpine lakes.
They all spill down into Terrace Lake

AWC Day 4

Day 4:  Susitna River to Upper Fog Creek

What a find!

     "You ready?" I asked.
      "Tally-Ho." He said, and with that we were off.  At the start of our fourth day of 11 plus hours of continuous hiking we were starting to hit our stride.  Our pacing was well matched and we would trade the lead often.  When one of us  was leading the follower could relax a bit and just follow.  Sometimes leading through bushy country can be mentally draining; You are always searching for the “right” way.  
   Within a mile of leaving Deadman camp we spotted a giant caribou rack.  Both antlers were still attached to the skull.  It was obvious that this ol' boy died not long after the rut.  We were seeing a lot of caribou sheds now most of which were very small and reminded me of the one the Grinch tied onto his dog and then cut down-to-size with a saw.  We established a habit of tapping each one we passed-by.  By the time this journey was through we had tapped hundreds of antlers.  
    Before descending into the Susitna Canyon we crossed a huge flat area carpeted with low lying tundra. It was a joy to walk on and as it angled towards the Susitna and we knew that our easy walking was probably coming to an end.
     

Rocky outcropping before dropping into the Susitna
drainage; lovely hiking by anyone's standards.

Imagine our surprise when we discovered that the descent to the river was not only easy but amazingly beautify. We snaked our way down through stands of spruce and fields of ferns. We climbed over rocky outcroppings laden with wildflowers of white and purple and yellow.  The aromatics of the summer's full plumage were intoxicating and familiar as we picked our way down, down, and down until finally we popped out onto the Susitna that was glowing in the sunshine below us.  

Descending to the Susitna.

    We were happy to discover that the river was very mellow at this point.  It was hard to believe that just 15 miles below us was the beginning of Devil’s Canyon, a class V juggernaut.  We leisurely inflated our rafts, took off our shirts, and hiked up a little way upstream.  From there we ferried across the mighty Su.  The other side of the river looked steep and thick with foliage and we knew that it would be a battle to overcome.
   

Nice work Artie!

“Okay Steve, lead the way.” Art said.  We were all packed up and ready to tackle this hill.  I made my way off the beach and grabbed the first alder to move it out of the way.  I couldn’t believe my eyes when I noticed that right in front of me was a caribou super-highway leading straight up the hill.  We followed it up the first pitch and could see that it kept going. As luck-would-have-it we were able to ride it out right to the top.  It was an amazing windfall and we couldn’t believe our luck.  I imagined that if our trail was so easy to find there were probably many such trails all along the area that the Nelchina caribou herd use each year.  It was a wonderful climb up and off of the Susitna River. 

Topping out of the Susitna Canyon.

     “You know that we would be under water right now if the Susitna Watana Dam was in place.”  I looked below at Arthur and to the river below and couldn’t imagine such a thing.  The dam project, one of the worst ideas to ever come out of Juneau would decimate the salmon runs.  I know this because every other dam of this magnitude has done exactly so.   As we crested the top of the canyon I couldn’t help but ponder the future of the Susitna River. 
     After topping out of the canyon our route led us through some less favorable terrain.  We made our way through spongy swamps scattered with dwarf spruce.  It was miserably hot and by the time we got to the Fog Lakes we were bushed (no pun intended.)  We decided to pitch the tent in the shade, sleep for a while and possibly take-up a night schedule.  We had both done this on Denali and if this weather pattern held, it would be a smart move. We slept for a few hours, packed up and headed up the hill.
     We made steady progress up to a high point several hundred vertical feet above the Fog lakes.  Finally we topped out and could identify the next pass that would keep us on our route.  From there we would pick our way up the valley through the headwaters of upper Fog Creek. 
      Near the pass we encountered a small stand of perfectly formed dwarf spruce; They were like Christmas trees.  Their shape was perfectly formed triangles and made them appear like full sized spruce trees that were much further away.  It was weird when we got close to discover that they weren’t far away, they were just really small. For some reason I couldn’t get the Wizard of Oz’s Munchkin classic “We represent the lollipop guild” jingle out of my mind; I’m weird, I know.
     We set up camp in a wide saddle of the upper Fog Creek drainage.  From here we could clearly see our route and it was glorious.   This would be considered Upper Fog Creek camp. 
     

AWC Day 3

Day 3:  Tsusena Butte to lower Deadman

High point overlooking Tsusena Butte and lake.

     We awoke the next morning feeling a little stiff.  I nixed my long standing policy of avoiding ibuprofen and before long I was pain-free; amazing stuff!  Arthur had developed blisters on his heels and would have to deal with them as they worsened throughout the trip.  It was a glorious new day and the sun was shining.  We slowly packed up camp, drank our Starbucks french roast coffee and ate some delicious dehydrated bananas that Art made at home.  Before long we were off through the thicket searching for good ground to advance our efforts.  
     The day’s hiking started out pretty rough.  Game trails were scattered and all led downhill to the bogs.  We had no choice but to suck-it-up and do what the good lord put Arthur on this Earth to do: Bushwack.  
     Reflecting back on this trip I can say that for the most part we were very well matched as far as hiking speed.  We would often trade off leading and there weren't many times when the other would get too far ahead.  The one exception was when Art was in the lead through the tangle.  18 years my senior, he turned 65 on our trip and he is a sight to behold in the bushes.  The true Alder Whisperer, he would blow through the thrash like a gentle breeze.  Often I was stumbling behind with my pack caught on a low-hanging alder struggling and sweating and Arthur would be gliding onto the next grove of gnarly entanglement with a hop in his step and a song in his heart.  
     We considered a classification system for bushwhacking alders: Mild scrambling and walking around most of the alders would be “A1”  Some crawling over/under would be “A2”.  Sustained climbing/crawling is “A3”  Long uninterrupted sections of A3 over uneven terrain including creek crossings with no end in sight would be “A4.”  
     After negotiating several sections of A3+ we finally climbed out of it to a beautiful high spot overlooking Tsusena Butte, and Tsusena Butte lake.  From this vantage point we could see where we had come from and where we were going.   “Hey there’s a lodge down there,” I said. Sure enough, on the Northwest end of the lake was a large cabin with several outbuildings, floating dock, and some sort of antiquated track vehicle.
      It took us a couple of hours to make our way down to the lake that included descending a steep ravine and crossing a large swamp.  Swamp crossings can be dubious affairs.  It’s never clear what is beneath as you commit to a step.  I’m especially leery when a step causes a jello-like ripple in the surrounding bog.  It’s all fun and games until someone slides down into the swamp of sadness like the horse in “The Never Ending Story.” (look it up)

A bog of eternal despair

      After successfully traversing the bog we had a nice walk down-to and along the lake.  Some small trout or grayling were rising off-shore making me pine for my fly rod.  Fresh fish in camp would have been a welcome addition to any of our freeze dried meals.  We came to the end of the lake where it necked down to a couple hundred feet before opening back up into another lobe of the lake.  We decided to raft across this section instead of walking all the way around the other side of the lake.  I inflated my raft and made three trips ferrying our whole kit to the other side.  On my first return trip I slipped on a rock getting back into the boat and fell in the lake.  It was a nice day and it felt good.  It must have been hilarious to watch it happen.  I wish Art would have got it on video!  From there we ascended a series of knobs that overlooked the Deadman Creek drainage.  We picked our way down into the valley below where we scared up two young bull moose that were probably twins.  Their dark velvet antlers were no bigger than frying pans; Surprisingly these were the first moose we’d seen on the trip.  
     We picked our way towards the creek and soon enough we could hear the roar of the water.  Much like Tsusena, Deadman Creek was a raging torrent.  from Google Earth we couldn’t tell whether or not it was ford-able, raft-able, or altogether impassable.  We decided to hike downstream to see if it settled down.  A half a mile or so downriver we discovered a great section to cross in our rafts.  It was a hundred yard mellow stretch sandwiched between a couple of rowdy sections above and below.  Our task was to inflate our rafts and paddle across to the other side before being flushed into the rapids below.  

Safely across Deadman, Art looks below where
the creek was less forgiving. 

     The move was well within our wheelhouse and before long we were high- fiving each other safely on the other side.  “Hey Art, can we say we pack rafted Deadman?”
     “Absolutely.” He said.  
     We packed up our stuff and continued what would be an easy ramble downhill towards our next obstacle, the Susitna River.  We made it to within four miles of the Big Su and decided to stop for the day; 12 hours was enough for today. 
     I have an intimate connection with the Susitna River and I was excited to check out a part of it I'd never seen.  We made camp on a high spot with a few nice spruce trees near what Art called a "babbling brook."  I had Chili mac Mountain House and Artie had beef stroganoff; Life couldn't be better.  We sat together on the soft moss overlooking the creek.  Art was fishing his next bite out of his dinner pouch. 
     "I can't believe we still haven't seen any caribou." I said. Although we'd spent 75% of our time walking on their trails and had discovered tons of their antler sheds it was puzzling to me as well.  We surmised that during the summer the Nelchina Herd must be closer to the Glenn highway side of their range.  
     It was another great day of sustained hiking through untouched country.  This would become known as Deadman camp.

AWC Day 2

Day 2:  The Tsusena

Art at "Woods camp"

      The anticipation of walking over the next mountain pass to discover a new valley is the stuff of Christmas morning. Although I had scouted this valley extensively from the comforts of my living room with coffee and laptop (Google Earth,) the reality of discovering it on foot pales in comparison. Most notably, the scale of how big these valleys, mountains and rivers is really hard to gauge from home.  
      The low angle pass was an easy ridge walk along meandering benches.  The caribou trails we were on could have been single track mountain bike trails.  There was a small lake at the pass with four harlequin ducks swimming, diving, and carrying-on.  We stopped for lunch and watched the ducks do their thing. 
     “Hey Artie, try some of this.”  I handed him some moose jerky that I had made for the trip.  It was a recipe I got from my buddy Bryan.  We shared food everyday; the variety was nice.
     We made our way down and out of the pass into the headwaters of Tsusena Creek. We had hoped to be able to packraft some of it and take-out before Tsusena Butte eleven miles downstream.  Below the Butte is a 120 foot water fall.  Roman Dial and Forrest McCarthy, a couple of pros by anyone’s standards floated it several years ago and classified the Tsusena as sustained class 2+ with sections of class 3 with some “spicy” sections.  As we made our way along the Tsusena it was easy to see that we would not be pack rafting unless it settled down considerably.  Long wave trains of five foot waves took turns with a few holes and haystacks sprinkled in for fun. 
     On our rookie application we declared that we were both comfortable with class 3 whitewater but unwilling to take unnecessary chances in such a remote setting. We brought drysuits but did not bring life jackets or helmets.   All sections that we saw were within our capabilities and looked like fun but we both agreed that it would be prudent to hike out.  
      After one particularly harrowing stream crossing, we made our way down to the valley below.  From here we would work our way on-top-of and around some high knobs, picking our way through the brush to areas of better hiking.  We found several moose sheds in this area including a full set from a large mid 50’s inch bull.  We checked in on the Tsusena several more times and agreed that we made the right decision.  
     The bushwhacking was getting real at this point and I wondered if it were indicative of what was to come lower in the valley.  I found a game trail that ran along the bottom of the last knob and as we followed it the trail got better and better.  Soon the trail swung towards the river and for three solid miles we walked on the most beautiful game trail that I’ve ever seen.  We tried not to jinx ourselves by talking about it too much, but I couldn’t help it.  “This is like a trail in a National Park!”  The path meandered through a healthy spruce forest along the clear and fast Tsusena.  It was a beautiful sunny day and the hiking was excellent.  
       All good thing must come to an end and sure enough our dream trail eventually led us into what we would come-to-know-as the bog of eternal despair.  At one point after sloshing through beaver choked lowlands we encountered a rather lively stream rushing before us.  The water was thigh deep and the volume and speed of it combined with the fact the the bowling bowl sized boulders were slimy. The banks were packed with gnarly bushes and it was the first time that we found ourselves fording a stream and bushwacking at the same time.  
     Finally we made it to higher ground but it was slow going again.  We followed a game trail to the top of a hill.  “Whoa, look at this.”  The entire hilltop was ripped apart and littered with bones.  It was as if a bulldozer had worked over the area.  I had seen this before and knew that it was where a bear buried a moose carcass.  Art took the jaw and jabbed it into the dirt straight up-and-down to serve as a marker.  We were ahead of at least 2 people at this point and anyone passing this spot would surely notice it.  It was our little way of saying Hi.
      We zigzagged our way down the valley searching for game trails for another hour or so before calling it a day.  It was another 11 hour day of hiking and we were tired.  Our camp wasn’t ideal but we made it as homey as we could.  This would be what we would call our “Woods Camp.”