OT - My trip to Gates of the Arctic National Park

Realizing it will be a much slower go with what we had to deal with now, and knowing we would be taking out portaging around many of the runs because of the inability quickly maneuver, we only went down a couple miles. Then we pulled over and we had a difficult discussion
This is where we pulled over. 

Right away we saw more signs of life. 

We end up calling our float plane operator to see if they could do a paddle drop. We knew the likelihood was low, but it was still worth asking. After all, with the cost of this trip to get to where we were, and this situation we were in, what is a $3000 paddle drop? 

The answer was no. Not because they didn’t have a paddle they could give us or that they would not be willing to fly out to us, but the forcast was not good for flying that far for them and they would have to fit the trip into their booked schedule  We could not risk waiting that long and have it either be longer before they could get something to us, or what would happen if they threw it out the plane and and it broke? After lengthy discussions, it came down to two options. Either continue down and get to our downstream lake where we were to be picked up, or hike back to where we started with all our equipment. 

We opted for the second.  A 15 mile hike back upstream with about 90 pounds of gear each was a better option than continuing on for another 75 miles. Our outfitter pretty much guaranteed that we would be fine after the big rapids which we knew were in another 13 or so miles, but we decided not to take that risk. The thought of getting 40 miles in and having something else happen and not having a paddle for a raft was just to risky for us. So we set up camp in that location or go any further. 

Campsite:
It was a perfect location. We were up on the bank about 12 or 15 feet above the water level. It was obvious that the water had not gone over this bank in a long, long, long time, if ever. The scenery, of course was spectacular.


As we were setting up camp, we were definitely keeping an eye out more so than when we were on the open tundra. Further north, it was all low bush blueberries, gooseberries, cranberries and other plants no taller than 15 or 18 inches and full of tussocks. Here you can see that there were a lot more shrubs consisting of alters and willows. Many were 12 to 15 feet tall. 

As we were taking a break, I saw a little movement across the river. Told Keith to get down and I pulled out my phone. 

There was a lone wolf on the other side. He was unaware of our presence at first. He was digging here and there flipping over rocks on the edge of the river licking and eating some things. We watched him for about two minutes as he slowly worked his way upstream. We slowly stood up from a crouched position and he saw our movement. He looked for a half a second and took off. What a wonderful and magical experience that was. We both simultaneously double checked our bear spray.  

The rest of the evening we caught and released fish and relaxed. We knew the next day we were going to be physically challenged like we’ve never been before.

The next day we woke up and were quickly packing up to get started. We knew that it was going to  be a long hard day. But this time things were different. We were going to have to carry every single piece of equipment we had and bush whack through the Willows and Alder and  cross over streams. This was the one thing we definitely did not want to do. Our rafting trip where our raft would carry our gear now became a back country backpacking trip. Our raft was not a time and effort saving tool, it became dead useless weight. We did not have the lightest of gear, and we had everything with us for rafting which we no longer needed. I had my paddle, pfd, raft, wading boots and waders, semi-dry paddling shirt etc…We had to pack entirely differently. After figuring out what we thought would work best we were slowly getting ready to embark on our hike. As we are finishing up packing, Keith and I were talking and making lots of noise as we normally would. He looked up at me with the river at my back and his eyes went wide open. I quickly turned and as I got halfway turned around, I heard something, then a splash, and I saw a grizzly bear running away from us in an all out sprint. Keith said he  came up and peeked over the bank and stopped as soon as he saw us - that is when he turned and ran.

The bear ran across that river in a matter of seconds. He bounded across the water as if it was 2 inches deep. Another unforgettable experience. We hypothesize that he smelled our food since we just ate 30 mins earlier and was coming up the bank and then perhaps got a whiff of us. He came up over the bank, saw us there and took off. If you were going to have a close bear encounter this  is exactly the type you want.
After composing our thoughts and getting all packed up and triple checking our bear spray to make sure it was secure but was still immediately accessible we started hiking upstream. The goal that day was to get as far as we could.
Lets go……

Sorry for the delay…. Here is the next chapter. 

We exhausted every option before turning back. We looked at our map and looked specifically at the water and what we may be up against. We could see why this was not an option. Here is one example zoomed out then zooming in.  The dotted blue line was a rough line for rafting. You can see as you zoom in at the highest detail you had to stay on the inside of the curve. On the outside, the water would be moving fastest and is also therefore the roughest. If he can’t maneuver and there is an obstruction, you risk capsizing, or running into a tree. Never a good thing. This was a section that was just down about half mile from where we camped the night before.

So the decision was clear, hike back up. 

They say they every journey begins with a single step. We knew that after our second step that morning this was going to be one tough journey. There is also another saying “when you can’t go by the plan, that is when the adventure begins.” Our adventure for this part of the journey was starting with that step. 

In preparation for this trip, for months I was walking almost daily with my pack. It did not matter if it was 85F or a downpour, I did training hikes. I would go to a local community park that had changes in elevation and rustic paths and I would do the 2 mile loop anywhere between one and three times depending on how much time I had. I would load my pack as it was going to be on this trip. 

Here is a map of the path we needed to take to get back to the lake where we could get picked up. 

The alternating green and yellow line was the path down the river. Each color change was about 5 river miles. 

 The plan was to get to the lake as quickly as possible, but we knew this was not going to be a sprint. We had 5 days to go about 15 miles. This was going to be a marathon. We each had a backpack that weighed approximately 50-55 pounds and another dry bag that weighed approximately 35  pounds. This was very different than my training. Since there was no good way to strap or carry the dry bag in front of us, we decided to drag it. We used tiedowns from our rafts and created a dragging harness going across our chest. I now realize I do not have many pictures of the set up. But here are a couple.

So we had our backpack and our “Anchor” as we called it.  That was the best way to describe it. Nothing more than something to slow you down and when it caught something it totally stopped you. But you needed everything in it. This was by far the best set up of all the ones we tried. On flat hard ground it was not a problem. It was when we were bushwhacking through the willows and alders that was the toughest,  and just below that was going through the blueberry bushes and other low shrubs. It was also tough when we were on the side of the hill. The bag would want to roll down and try to pull us down with it. There were times where we had to pick it up in carry it. 

Then there was the tundra moss. You could be walking a nice firm ground and then it would start to get softer. It would get softer and softer until it felt you were walking on 16-8” deep, soft pillows. Sometimes it was floating on a puddle of water a few inches deep. Here is a picture showing exactly how deep it was. 1 foot was on the top and the other one had all the weight on it and you can see you sunk. 

The worst were the tussocks. What is a tussock?  It was made by the hands of the devil himself. 

Picture a frozen ball. Any sized ball from a lacrosse size ball up to a basketball. Now wrap 2 to 4 inches of really soft material around that ball. On top of that put some moss and other plants. Next sprinkle tussocks all over the place.  Some right next to each other so you would have 10 in a 3 ft.² area and then put a random one out in the middle of nowhere. About 80% of our journey was walking through these. Here is a perfect picture of a single tussock followed by how they were grouped.  Every single one tried to sprain your ankle. 

We walked over tussocks,  through Willows and Alders and hundreds of yards of blueberry bushes over the next 7 hours. We hiked 1.62 miles in a straight line.  It was probably more like 2 miles total. It was so hard to make any progress because we were not leveraging the current of the water and rafts, and our anchor was trying to stop us every chance it got. 

There must be an easier, better way….. we just had to find it.