Gillette Pass Traverse

Dan splashes through one of the many creeks on the way up to Gillette Pass in the Alaska Range

Dan, Sky and I spent the weekend exploring the eastern Alaska Range south of Tok. Neither one of us had ever done any hiking down in this area so we were eager to blaze a trail through this unfamiliar country. We were fortunate to see an abundance of wildlife including moose, bear, porcupine, caribou, and bald eagles.

Our 85 mile traverse took us up the the Tok and Dry Tok Rivers toward Gillette Pass. From the pass we descended into the Slana River drainage and eventually back to the highway where we ditched our bikes in the woods. The plan was to make a complete loop which included three modes of transportation: foot, packraft, and bike.

Walking along the gravel bars was great at times but involved hundreds of stream crossings which kept our feet soaked. The heavily silt laden glacial water was cold and continually filled our shoes with course debris which chewed away at our feet.

The riverbanks were generally brush free and provided easy walking - they were obviously corridors for animals of all sorts by the number of prints we stumbled across. Grizzly bear tracks of all sizes were abundant.

This couple lives in a remote location about 20 miles away from the highway. When the water in the river is low they can drive a monstrous army truck right up the riverbed to reach their home. In the winter they can snowmachine out to civilization. They told us we were the first hikers they had seen in several years and were excited to feed us coffee cake and tell us about the wolves they have adopted.

Orchids in Alaska - this is a delicate ladies slipper standing alone in the woods.

Dan and I were trying to travel relatively light so we didn't bring a traditional camping stove and accompanying bottle of fossil fuel. Instead we carried the wood burning "bush buddy" stove. It only takes a small pile of sticks and about 10 minutes patience to boil a liter of water.

We also decided to bring the ultralight tee pee shelter sans tent pole - instead we improvised and used one of our packrafting paddles to support the structure.

Gillette Pass is underlain by the Denali fault and was rocked hard during the November 2002 magnitude 7.9 earthquake. The area was scarred with numerous rock slides as the earthquake ripped gaping holes into the mountain sides. This red pile of rubble originated high up on the flanks of the precipice in the background.

A porcupine spreads its quills in self defense.

Dan spots a bear across the river valley foraging in the tundra.

Dan hikes up his shorts to cross the chilly Slana River.


The plan was to hike down the Slana River until it was deep enough to drop our packrafts in the water. Unfortunately the level was a bit low and the river was quite braided - so we continued to walk until we reached consistently deep water for floating.

After 60 miles of pounding our feet against the rocks we finally reach a point where the braids end and the river narrows into one deep channel. Dan quickly fills his raft so we can get in the river and effortlessly travel forward.

10 pm and we finally get to set sail and rest our feet.

Sailor Dan poses in front of his boat.

The relatively gently braided waters of the Slana River quickly transitioned into solid Class II rapids with occasional Class III waves and holes right after we dropped our boats into the silty water. We were completely drenched as waves broke over our heads and water washed through the gaps in our spray skirts. The river was a great rush...

The lower section of the Slana was much more mellow as the gradient decreased. Sky unwilling hitched a ride for a little while....she much preferred running along the riverbank and swimming.

As we went to retrieve the bikes from the woods I realized I left the key to the bike lock in the truck - dope! So we hiked several miles up the road like vagabonds to the nearest store and ended up getting a ride back to the truck.

Mount Prindle - Rocks!

Flying high above Mt Prindle on an early summer afternoon

Ann and I headed into the uplands north of Fairbanks today. The terrain is rather dramatic for these ancient, highly weathered and rounded hills which divide the Tanana River drainage from that of the mighty Yukon.

Our hike began with 9 miles of easy going on the nicely groomed track of the Quartz Creek trail before diverting east through a break in the hillside. We then ascended a high and exposed spur ridge which leads to the summit of Mt Prindle before returning down the Nome Creek drainage to our starting point. The entire route was 24 miles and made for a fantastic day trip within an hours drive from Fairbanks.

Ann contemplates something philosophically deep as she gazes out from a craggy ridge leading up to Mount Prindle

Splashes of pink woolly lousewort dotted the tundra. The endless daylight and warm temperatures have jump started summer in the far north.

The hiking was superb on the dry and crunchy lichens and rock.

Many pinnacles with precariously placed rocks jutted out from the landscape.

Casting shadows on a few remnant snow fields.

The approach to Mt Prindle is strewn with granite spires jutting up into the skyline.

The granite monuments which define the ridgeline are absolutely spectacular.

As we were winding our way through the graveyard of tors - we came upon a newborn sheep and mother. The abrupt and unexpected encounter startled all four of us and for a moment we just stared at each other in silence. The sheep eventually scurried away...

Ann and I balancing on the summit of Mt Prindle

A spotlight of sun illuminates a chorus of granitic tors.

Weekend on the Emerald Isle

Blades of sea grass are silhouetted against the calm waters of Monashka Bay on Kodiak Island

I traveled down to Alaska's emerald isle with 8 friends for the annual Kodiak Island Crab Festival. Kodiak Island is famous for huge brown bears, world-class sport fishing, and one of the largest commercial fishing ports in the nation. Its also notorious for having long stretches of wet and windy weather since it is situated in the unprotected waters of the north Pacific.

An endless supply of crab legs feed hungry locals and tourists...

The bright blue onion dome of the Holy Resurrection Russian Orthodox Church

The start of the Kodiak Island marathon. Tina , Ted and I made up more than half of the race entrants. Ann was the only competitor in the 43 mile ultramarathon so she started several hours earlier and met up with us to run the marathon course after a 17 mile warm up.

Beach art on Kodiak Island's north shore.

Kodiak is home to the largest US Coast Guard base in the states - they demonstrated an open sea rescue in the harbor.

Sea shells frozen in time break free from the bluffs above Fossil Beach

Driftwood and young vegetation litter the sand on the shores of Ugak Bay

Buffalo roam freely through the grassy terrain of Kodiak Island

The pad at the Kodiak Rocket Launch Facility looms above the horizon

Endless Twilight on Beaver Creek

The late evening sunlight reflects off of the steel grey surface of Beaver Creek

Summer has arrived in the north. A winters worth of snow and ice has flushed downstream and has been replaced by never ending daylight, serenading songbirds, afternoon thunderstorms, bloodthirsty mosquitoes, the sweet smell of the boreal forest, and warm sunshine. I finally packed the skis away for the winter and pulled out the packraft for the first float of the season.

Trevor, Ann and I decided to welcome the endless summer daylight with an all night float down Beaver Cr followed by hike across the countryside north of Fairbanks. We dropped our rafts in the creek around 8 pm Friday night and staggered into the parking lot at the Wickersham Dome trail head around 7 pm the following evening. We traveled the 50 miles non-stop for nearly 24 hours with the excitement of the wilderness keeping us awake - supplemented by loads of sugar, chocolate covered espresso beans, and caffeine injected extra strength Excedrin.

Trevor inflates his Alpacka raft. These unbelievably cool boats tip the scale at less than 5 lbs. We used a specially designed bag to "scoop" up air and squeeze it into the boat. Its a clever idea which eliminates the need to carry a pump. A seasoned professional can inflate the boat in a couple of minutes.

830 pm - Ann is ready to start the first leg of our 50 mile excursion through the White Mountains

Ann and I are looking forward to a night on the river.

There was still a little bit of remnant river ice left along the banks of Beaver Cr.

The evening was quite chilly and the water was cold. The local wildlife was not deterred by this though. We observed (and were observed) by more moose than I can count, beavers, bald eagles, owls, and waterfowl. The nightlife on Beaver Creek was vibrant.

2 am - We were teetering on the edge of mild hypothermia and decided to stop for a few hours to warm up by a raging bonfire. The high water from the spring snowmelt had left the gravel bars littered with driftwood so there was plenty of amunition to ward off the cold.

The "bushbuddy" in action. This is a very small and light (5 oz) wood burning stove. It boiled a liter of water in about 8 minutes - no fossil fuels required!

630 am - The transition...we pack up the boats after 30 miles on Beaver Creek and prepare to hike 20 miles out the Steese Hwy via Wickersham Dome.

Crap! We had to cross Wickersham Creek about a mile after we started hiking. The only way to avoid a cold swim was to yank out a boat and ferry across.

We followed a trail which traverses the ridgeline between several drainages - this way we avoided the boggy/wet areas down low. We were treated to some nice views in all directions. Beaver Creek makes a sharp 45 degree turn to the north around the nose of this limestone ridge and this area is aptly named the "big bend"

A view of the White Mtns and the Beaver Creek valley.

Up and up...the ridge route kept us out of the lower wet areas but it required us to make multiple steep ascents.

When we climbed above treeline we could see many distant mountains but the weather quickly deteriorated and obscured all of our potential views.
Snow and rain pelted us for hours and we were completely soaked. Sleep deprivation also started to kick in and Trevor began to see people on every ridge as he stumbled down the trail.

We reached a shelter cabin just as the sun broke out of the clouds and the sloppy precipitation ceased.

Trevor and I dry off in the warm sunshine at the shelter cabin. We ended up making it to the trail head around 7 pm - about 23 hours after we set out on the creek. We were met by Dea and Lisa's smiling faces - even though we were overdue by more than 5 hours and they waited patiently the entire time.

Transitions...

8 pm May 11, 2008 - Green-up arrived today as the leaves burst forth into the warm sunlight and the hills suddenly turned a bright lime green in a matter of hours.

11 pm April 30, 2008 - Taking my final ski of the season in the late evening light at Smith Lake on the University campus. The transition from winter into summer this year was shockingly fast. In less than 2 weeks the winter snowpack melted away and was replaced by green leaves and mosquitoes.

Asian Particulates

The late evening sun is on fire above the northwestern horizon.

The skies over northern Alaska have been unusually hazy the past few days. It has looked more like the smoggy LA basin as the haze has obscured the mountains. Our more typical bright blue atmosphere was replaced with a "dirty" airmass as a gigantic high pressure center built in over the state this week. The fine particulates which are clogging up our skies are apparently originating from fires burning in Russia and dust storms raging across Mongolia. The only benefit of the haze that I can see are the intense red sunrises/sunsets.

There is an article about the haze in the Daily News Miner.

Tour De Alaska Range

An ice fall plummets thousands of feet down the east face of Mt Hess.

I flew around the Alaska Range south of Fairbanks for a few hours today with some NOAA pilots that have been in AK for the past 2 weeks. They are here with an aircraft that is equipped with instrumentation that uses gamma radiation to measure the amount of water in the snowpack. There are a few hundred flight lines around the state that are roughly 10 miles long. They fly these lines at an altitude of 500 feet above ground level and obtain an average snow water equivalent for each flight line. This data provides insight into how much water is stored in the winter snowpack and is used to estimate the amount snowmelt runoff that will enter the river systems.

We flew over some absolutely awesome terrain and and countless glaciers.

The Black Rapids downhill ski area - I have heard about this ski hill south of Delta Junction for years but I have never actually seen it before. There was a lift and a few short runs.

One of the flight lines took us within a few miles of Bus 142 where Chris McCandless died back in the summer of 1992. The pilots were psyched to see the rusting hunk of steel so we made a low pass over this "sacred" location. For more photos of my ski to the bus click here.