This is part of a series of posts
about a four week youth expedition to
Alaska that I led in during the summer of 2010.
Trek – Day
7
The alarm went of at 5am and it was raining (what a
surprise!). The good news was that the river was down slightly from the day
before (we couldn’t hear the rocks moving!). We quickly packed our things and
moved down to the crossing point where the path across was still marked with
the rock cairns from the day before.
The river felt cold but we safely got the whole group
across. We took no chances on the slightly deeper sections, making sure that
we huddled together to protect the smaller members of the group. The river
crossing was in about seven parts and we stopped at the other side to empty our
boots.
Next we traversed back up the side of the Kotsina
River until we crossed Roaring Creek and were able to start the first part of
our long climb up the hill in front of us.
The guidebook description read,
“At first you can weave a path through the worst of the
brush, but as you get higher, it eventually becomes a willow thicket of uniform consistency, so just plough
ahead. The secret of this sort of nastiness is persistence…”
The terrain was surreal and we climbed higher and
higher up the side of the Kotsina Valley in head height willow. A few of the
group got stung as we disturbed four hornets nests during our accent. Keeping a
close eye on the altimeter at 3, 500 feet we started to traverse back round to
the upper stages of Roaring Creek before dropping down to the creek itself.
The decent to the creek was horrible. The ground was
wet and much of the terrain was on mud and vegetation. We had to be really
carful with our footwork and I think we were all pleased when we finally made
it back down to the river where we ate a late lunch.
From here we followed Roaring Creek up into a
beautiful valley for about a mile before starting the steep climb up towards
our final pass of the trek. The route took us through an old mining area from
the gold and copper rushes of the early 1900’s – there were still a few
artifacts scattered around the hillside mostly in the form of tins and wooden
foundations.
It is funny, because in the UK I think these artifacts would be
considered litter but in this part of remote North America they were definitely
considered pieces of history!
The route went on and on and the ground got steeper
and steeper. As we climbed to nearly 6000ft the weather and the mist started to
close in on us. We kept telling ourselves that we must be near the top only to
find another hill to climb or set of old mine workings to climb over.
Finally, at the top of one particularly large hill we
thought we must be at the top as the ground leveled out. Visibility was
practically zero and it was difficult to see where to go. I turned the GPS on
as I waited for the others to catch up. As it was collecting satellites the
mist cleared a little bit revealing a massive rock amphitheatre – I could see
no way over the ridge in front of us and it looked vertical (perhaps even over
hanging in places). The area became quickly nicknamed as 'Mordor'.
We had been keen to get up and over the ridge on day
7 but we had already had a massive day and the group was tired (and so was I!). It
was also going to take a bit of time to investigate how to get over the huge
obstacle in front of us. We made the decision to camp. Although there was no
fresh water there were plenty of patches of snow around to melt and provide
water to cook our dinner.
We left the group collecting water and Mark and I
went off to investigate the route ahead. We eventually found a route over the
ridge – it was steep (and not as obvious as the guidebook suggested!) but it
would definitely ‘go’.
By the time we got back to camp everyone else was in
bed apart from Clive who was busy cooking our dinner. The sun had dropped
behind the rock wall and the temperature quickly dropped and we retreated
quickly to the protection of our tent.
Sleep was difficult during the night as the wind
picked up and battered us from every angle.
Trek – Day
8
It was raining and windy when the alarm went off. A
quick glance out of the tent revealed that the other tents had been battered by
the wind during the night. We decided to stay inside for another hour until the
air temperature increased slightly.
At 6am I got out of our tent thinking the rain had
stopped (I couldn’t hear it on the tent anymore) only to find out that it was
snowing. It was time to get out of there – we packed our stuff away in record
time and headed towards the ridge.
As the sun started to peer through the mist the snow
storm stopped and we started our steep climb up towards the pass. This was the
steepest of all of our climbs so far – but at least we new it was the last one.
Despite the weather the views at the top were
spectacular and we re-grouped on the narrow ledge before starting our decent
that followed some old sheep tracks down towards Nugget Creek. I have to admit
that seeing Nugget Creek was a real boost in confidence as it meant that the
worst of the terrain was over.
Considering the steepness of the terrain we made
fairly fast progress down towards Nugget Creek and we stopped there for our
breakfast. From here we had to follow the creek for another mile before we
would try and pick up the remains of an old mining path. We had the GPS
co-ordinates for the start of the path and although we had been very sparing
with our use of the GPS (I’m a bit of a traditionalist!) this was one time that
we were definitely going to use it. Otherwise finding the start of the path
would be like finding a needle in a haystack (only harder!).
Getting to the start of the path was a bit harder than
we thought – we had to do some more deep river crossings across Nugget Creek
but eventually we made it.
The GPS took me to where it thought the start of the
path was – but the actual path was not that clear (only a few people would have
walked on it over the last 80 years!). So, using a bit of judgment, I started
to pick a route through the willow and the brush where I would have built a
path. Luckily we soon picked up the track and as we walked towards the Kuskulana River the
path got more and more obvious until it eventually led us to an old mining road
that was still littered with lots of interesting artifacts from when the area
was mined.
After what we had walked on during the last eight
days the old mining road felt like a motorway and for the first time we were
able to walk at over one mile per hour. We stopped for a rest at Nugget Creek
Cabin at about 6pm.
This was officially the end of the trek but we still
had another 14 miles to walk along an ATV track until we reached out pick up
point. We were being picked up at 8am the next morning! Even though the end was
in sight we still had a little way to go!
After leaving the cabin and crossing the Nugget Creek for the last time we
bumped into a family from Anchorage who were camping at the trail head – these
were the first people that we had come across in eight days. We were very
happy to see them and I think they thought we were mad after we showed them
where they had come from on the map. They told us about a camping spot seven
miles down the ATV trail (halfway camp) and we headed off along the muddy
trail.
It was getting dark when we arrived and camped. As we
were cooking dinner it seemed a million years ago since we had woken up in
Mordor in the snow that morning!
We had seven more miles to go to our pick up point
which we figured would take us between 3–4 hours. We set the alarm for 3am
and headed to bed in a fairly cramped campsite.
Trek – Day
9
Rain!
The group was obviously keen to get to the end and I
was the last to leave the campsite that morning. I slowly caught everyone up
one-by-one as we walked towards our pick up.
The track was easy to walk along and for the first
time in days I didn’t have to think about where I was putting my feet.
I arrived at the trail head at 07.30h and washed in
the Strelna River and changed into my (slightly) cleaner clothing.
The group arrived one at a time and completed the
final river crossing before getting to the trail head. There was a lot of
laughter and a few tears (of joy!).
But we did have one problem, no pick up! Mark
volunteered to carry on walking along to the McCarthy Road and returned about
45 minutes later with Edward our shuttle driver.
We loaded the van and started out eight our drive to
Fairbanks.
I turned round to speak to the group – but realized
they must have been a little sleepy! The picture below says it all...
In my next Alaska Reflections post I’ll talk about what we got up to
before we flew north of the Arctic Circle to prepare for our canoeing journey.
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