Part 1- An Arrogant Man I Am

Ever been so confident in your own abilities that you didn’t put your full effort into something but you should of? Though I look at myself and see an overweight landscape photographer, I also see myself as someone who can hike 7 miles because I can. I will hurt but I can do it. So when facing the unknown challenges of hiking in Alaska I simply thought my abilities could carry me through it.

When my farther and I signed up for this guided hike in Alaska I figured I could handle some hill climbing and some hiking. The trail was only rated a “three boot,” meaning it was only mildly hard. As we got closer, I began to dive into the topo maps and look into estimated elevation gains. Day 1… maybe 400 feet. Day 2, I could not figure out for sure. Day three, about 1400 feet or in local terms an Angels Landing. Day four, another 1500 feet. Day five, maybe another 1500 feet. I can hike angels landing. I figured I could do it three days in a row. No big deal. So, I “trained.”

Now my training consisted of walking the hills in my neighborhood. But walking the hills in my neighborhood is painfully boring. No matter how good they are, they are not a good analog for trail hiking, and everyone knows not every mile is created equal in this world (Remember this, as I will return to this later on in this story). So, I “hiked” in the morning doing a few miles a week and went about my business as a father, husband and a person running a photography business. Safe to say I was busy and waking up early to walk when precious sleep was severely lacking due to a one-year-old in the house was difficult.

But I tried and did some walking and even put in a few miles on the trail on occasion.

Then tragedy struck.

Part 2- The Disaster

About six weeks before this hiking adventure my father got the bright idea to smoke a pork shoulder out on his smoker. He injected it with seasonings and covered it with spices. He woke up at 5am to get the smoke on. He then delicately wrapped the pork shoulder in tin foil to lock in the moisture. His masterpiece was underway and we would all be enjoying a pork shoulder dinner that night.

Twelve hours later and his work was complete. Slow cooked to perfection, fall apart tender and juicy, the perfect pork shoulder. Now there are a couple ways you can pull this chunk of flesh wrapped in foil off the smoker. You could bring the plate to the smoker and move the roast only a few inches onto the plate. The second option is to pick up the roast and move it to the plate. Much further but also doesn’t require a second set of hands. My father chose the latter and proceeded to lift the pork shoulder wrapped in tin foil over to the plate. This simple choice turned out to be the wrong choice… a painfully wrong choice.

As my father moved the pork shoulder all those juices trapped by the tin foil began to slosh around. Unfortunately, tin foil is not particularly good at being sturdy… or good at holding juices in a controlled manner. The juices of the pork shoulder began to leak out, then in a blink of an eye, spill out all over my father’s foot. A cocktail of water and fats spilled down the top of my father’s boot and onto his ancle and seeping its way into shoe.

In that moment my father’s hopes of hiking in Alaska were going up in metaphorical smoke, or more accurately spilled broth.

He rushed to the bathroom, pulled off his shoe and began to run it under cold water. Immediately we could see second degree burns. Popped blisters, dead skin and little to no pain.

He had essentially melted off the top of his ancle and a few spots along his foot. “I’m so sorry” he said on repeat because he knew he had ruined his chance of going to Alaska with me and potentially ruined the trip for me too. But we had six weeks, so I figured he could bounce back.

So recovery began…

Over the next six weeks the following occurred: five doctor visits, one wound care specialist visit, three hyperbaric chamber visits, sixty-eight bandage changes, and a lot of miserable nights. But as Alaska drew close his wounds mostly healed, and his hopes were rising along with his anxiety. He had lost a month of training. Maybe he could do this hike. I believed in him, but at the end of the day, it was up to him to make that call.

We did a four mile hike a week before and he did it. He huffed and puffed and slowly worked his way there. Maybe he could do this, and I encouraged him. So, on a Wednesday morning we loaded our gear into an old Subaru, drove to Las Vegas and began our journey to Alaska.

Part 3- The Decision

McCarthy is a small town at the foot of the Wrangles Mountain Range and in the Heart of Wrangles St. Elias National Park. It has… I think three real roads, two restaurants, one hotel, one museum, a small market, a weed shop and McCarthy Air, the plane charter that would fly us into the park... And I think that’s about it for business. There are a few residents that live in town full time but during the summer the town swells to a grand total of 300 or less. No better place to start an adventure.

Upon arriving we set up shop just outside the town at a little cabin. Here we packed officially for the last time before beginning the adventure. Our bear cans were completely full and our gear clean and ready to use.

Oh my gosh, my gear weighs so much!

This is officially the longest backpacking trip of my life and the first with bears; so, my weight is about ten pounds more than any previous trip I have done. On top of my regular camping and rain gear is my camera gear. Now I don’t actually have that heavy of camera equipment. For the past few years I have traded in almost everything I have for lighter better lenses and tripods. Unfortunately, when you add camping and camera gear all together it’s about 50+ pounds. Sorry GoPro you are not coming on this trip.

Remember that comment above how I didn’t take this seriously? Well, I was regretting my lack of training already and we hadn’t left the town yet.

The morning of our plane flight into the park, we walked into town (you can’t drive). My shoulders were aching as I walked the one mile into town. As we traveled my father fell further and further behind, not a good sign. After finishing the walk into tow we sat down for breakfast at the local food join “The Potato” for our last hot fresh meal in civilization. I ate enjoying the morning, my father ate simply to keep up appearances. As we finished our meals, my father pulled me aside and said he was backing out.

That burn had put him physically behind by a month or more and he was slow… Really slow. He couldn’t keep pace with his backpack on and he knew he would not be able to make this hike. He would be too tired, too unsteady and in combination with his other health issues that had also crept up, he was not ready. He made the call for safety, now I had to make a decision to go or not.

To be honest, I cried. If I went, I would be leaving my dad. That sure felt like a crappy son decision. If I stayed, I would be missing a once in a lifetime opportunity for me. The money had been spent. I bit the bullet and decided to go on with the adventure.

Part 4- I Am Alone

I have never been on a bush plane before. I didn’t know what to expect, but smooth wasn’t one of them. As the plane began to take off down the runway, I was surprised how the plane quickly transfers from bumpy to smooth to wonderful! Off we went into the air and for the first time I got a look at the Alaskan landscape from a bird’s eye view, and it was amazing.

The jagged peaks were hidden by rain and clouds, but slithering out from under them felt like mythical wonders. Glaciers the size of cities, lakes filled with ice bergs, and mountain sides that melted like pudding. As the plane banked and turned, we were treated with more glaciers, waterfalls and wonders that I attempted to photograph.

Come to find out it is a completely different skill set to photograph from a plane. The shutter speeds need to be high and the motion of the plane in combination with the vibration of the motor turns out to be very difficult to manage. I did my best but safe to say I struggled.

The plane ride came to a surprisingly quick end and soon we were at the Skolai Airfield in the wilds of Alaska. The plane made a pass at the airfield to make sure the strip was clear and then it made a wide banking turn and lined up with the airstrip. In a moment the plane landed and scooted out of the way, making room for the other aircraft coming in behind us with the other half of the crew. Then the engine cut off, the doors popped open, and the adventure was to begin.

Luckily for me, I did get to ride with my dad on this adventure. He was permitted to ride along with us. We both hopped out of the plane and I unloaded my gear and then we said our final goodbye. He climbed back into one of the planes and waved him farewell. In just a few moments the plane took off and I watched my last easy connection with civilization and my family fly away.

And just like that I was alone in the wilds of Alaska with four people I didn’t know on an adventure I was supposed to be having with my father. This was not what I had envisioned this to be. I took a deep breath and set about setting up a tent.

Part 5- Mother Savior

This trip was beginning to kind of suck. I was not in a great emotional state. I was thinking I had left my dad behind. Maybe I should have stayed, maybe not. I was torn up on the inside and I was not feeling the adventure.

Even though I was a weeks walk from the nearest civilization, modern technology does allow for a few comforts. Though not a particularly fast mode of communication, Garmin opens the door for simple communication via satellite text messaging.

I had informed my wife to tell my mother that my dad was not going. That was before we took off on the plane. After a few hours of stewing on leaving my dad behind I got a message that truly signifies how wonderful my mother is.

“Gale is flying to Alaska and driving to Mt McKinley (McCarthy was what she meant to say) to save your dad. She leaves Sunday morning. So you’ll get to see her when you return.”

And just like that my mother saved the day. She made a last minute reservation on a plane to then fly to Alaska, rent a car and drive eight hours into the middle of Alaskan wilderness with little to no cell service, a paper print off of the directions and hope that all would go well. This was not little thing for her to undertake, and she nearly got lost along the way, but she did it. She saved my dad and she saved me. Once I learned what my mother was going to do, I realized my dad was going to have a good time, and this trip wasn’t going to be a total loss to him and to me.

God bless Garmin’s and Mom’s.

The Adventure

Day 1- Hole In The Wall

I was still trying to get my emotional bearing as we walked up towards Hole in the Wall Glacier. This megalithic monster is composed of five glaciers that feed into one monster glacier. Of those five glaciers, a few had become disconnected from the main glacier and had turned into serac’s high on the cliffside. As we climbed mother nature pressed down on us. The clouds settled in, releasing a light rain accompanied by wind.

The landscape and weather seemed to mimic my mood. Bleak, lifeless, cold. In fact, it was like walking through Mordor, inhospitable. As mentioned above I was not feeling much when it came to photography, and this adventure, so I kind of went through the motions of the first part of this hike. I took a few images and struggled to figure out how to work with this landscape. Soon, I fell behind moping about what had happened. After a bit of hiking, I kind of wanted to just stop. So, after catching up with the group I told them to go ahead. I had bear spray I was content with the views and was going to photograph here until they got back.

So, there I sat alone in the wilds of Alaska with the rain falling and the wind blowing at the edge of Mordor. Sorrow, frustration, sadness swirling in my soul, and I just didn’t feel the adventure.

Then the mountains spoke.

The sound of thunder exploded through the canyon, loud enough to shake the soul. I leapt to my feet eyes going to the serac above my head as a huge ice cavitation came crashing down the mountain. Ice exploded across the cliffs and for a brief moment the thought that I might die from a glacier calving went through my head. Luckily my brain still worked clear enough to see the path of the ice and it was going to miss me. The ice bounced down the mountain disappearing behind a hill about 200 yards up the canyon from me.

Then I laughed. A wild hysterical laugh of a man who for a brief moment thought he might die. It was amazing. Suddenly I found myself back in the mood of adventure. This had the potential to be really amazing. I just needed to see it.

Day 2- Exhaustion

I generally consider myself fit, but Alaska is a different kind of monster I wasn’t really prepared for.

Challenge #1 Bear Canisters- I have never hiked with bear canisters before. They are awkward, bulky, heavy and a pain as they change how weight is distributed. This was a weight I was expecting, as I fiddled with a bear canister with the food before I left on the trip, but it’s different hiking with the thing verse just seeing how it fits in the backpack and walking around the house.

Challenge # 2 The Tundra- Walking in Alaska is kind of like walking with six inches of sponges on your feet. The tundra up in the mountains is composed of four to six inches of lichens, bryophytes and fungus. How this practically translates into existence is that the ground squishes with every step zapping you of energy. If you have ever walked in deep sand, its kind of akin to that… just wetter.

Challenge #3 No Trails- Now off trail hiking is not new to me. If you have ever hiked the Escalante for any extended period of time, you have to do off trail hiking. Wrangell St. Elias is simply off trail. Animal trails are a blessing if they show up but more often than not, you have to pick your way across the landscape. This includes side hilling, bush whacking, stream crossings and wandering up and down the hillsides picking your way to your next destination.

Day two was really a day of endurance. The plan was to hike about seven miles across the Alaskan Wilderness and after a few hours it became painfully obvious I was not quite ready for this. My shoes were struggling which translated to my feet in pain (I did have foot surgery only nine months earlier which does play a factor in all of this too). My shoulders hurt and frankly everything hurt. Then we hit the willows.

Now if you have never hiked through willows, you do not know the amount of pain and annoyance they bring. Willows are generally short (4-15 feet) and spindly but they do have a tendency to grow together in thick brambles. Hiking through them is a lesson in patience and madness. As you push through them, they are swinging back and hitting you or the person behind you. They often have pockets of hidden water around their base as they are a riparian plant. Sometimes they get so dense you have to fight your way through them with an extensive amount of effort. And to top it off there is never a clear path through them. Sometimes it works out, other times it ends in disaster.

Did I mention bears can hide in willows?

For two to three hours of our day we got trapped in willows. Back and forth we wandered through rain-soaked trees looking for the best route. We eventually made our way out towards the edge of the ridge where the tree’s thinned out and progress picked up.

It was about this point we saw the first bear.

Mama bear kind of looked like a furry mountain. I was the first to spot her, but it was Rob who had the binoculars that confirmed the furry mountain was in fact a bear and that it was toting along a cub. Mama bear was aware of us and was keeping an eye on us from a distance before taking off across the valley. We got one more glimpse of her later on as she skirted away.

Soon after that Rob spotted another bear while we were resting with the binoculars. By the time the rest of us looked the bear did what bears do best, disappear.

Some Alaskans say bear’s teleport. Though on face value this is ridiculous, in practical terms… bear teleport. For being creates the size of minivans they show up and disappear surprisingly quickly. On a few occasions over the years, I have seen bears appear for a minute and then watched them vanish into landscape in the matter of seconds.

Mama bear was fun and exciting, bear two sat right in the direction we needed to go. So with bear sprays at the ready we turned and headed up the hill towards our days destination, the Russel Glacier. This megalithic mountain eater of a glacier slithers off the footsteps of the tallest mountains in the region, Mount Bona and the groups of peaks that surround it. As we climbed we got better views of the beast until we reached our final campsite right along the murrain of the glacier. And to our surprise we were sharing camp with another group out there. Luckily, they were cool with us being there so we set up tents nearby and hunkered down for the evening.

Photography Lesson # 1- Your physical, emotional and creative states are all interlinked. If you are too tired to create meaningful images, then you simply won’t.

You would think me sitting at the edge of one of the biggest glacier I have ever seen up close and personal would cause me to pull out the camera and do whatever was possible to get a great shot. The reality was that I was too tired. I didn’t have it in me to explore extensively. I didn’t have the strength to climb high and low. My feet were in agony (foot surgery you monster) and I just didn’t have the strength to zip around and do great photographic work, and frankly you can see it in my images. I wish I had the strength to be more creative, I just couldn’t. Luckily the low hanging fruit was pretty good, but that’s about all I could muster. I regret not putting in the additional steps to get my strength up and I regret not getting new shoes for this trip. My shoes were beginning to wear out and my feet just hurt.

I was in so much pain and had to keep eating ibuprofen just to keep functioning.

Day 3- Let The Wind Blow

Day three started off with what should have been the best sunrise of my entire life. I just couldn’t convince myself to wake up at 4 am to get out of bed and see it. All that pain and exhaustion had crushed me physically and emotionally so when I first started stirring at 4am to the pitter patter of rain, I just couldn’t do it. When I finally crawled out of bed at 5:30am I was too late for the light show, but was still treated with dramatic conditions.

The morning progressed and we packed camp and said our farewell to the other hiking group. Then we immediately began climbing straight up a mountain. We had about 1200 feet of elevation climb ahead of us and a potentially hazardous river crossing. So, getting a move on was important to our daily tasks. Luckily mother nature threw us a few bones and dropped rainbows for us to enjoy all along the way.

Today’s journey was to take us through the Chitistone Pass (image below) and officially onto what is known as the Goat Trail. Now don’t get the Goat Trail confused with the G.O.A.T trail. This trail is not the greatest of all time, but is actually a trail built and maintained by the local mountain sheep of Alaska, the Dall Sheep. The trail takes brave (stupid) hikers through the Chitistone Gorge high up on the scree cliffs avoiding the deadly river and gorge down below. Trail of course is a generous term. For a majority of this part we simply walked down the canyon on no trail towards the inevitable scree hillsides.

Somewhere along this journey mother nature took back her proverbial bones and gifted us wind. Hard hitting, relentless wind directly into our faces as we climbed once again up and over the Chitistone pass. The howling wind cut deep and made most communication difficult, but the views were spectacular! Large glacial capped peaks around us poured waterfalls down into our valley. Small wildflowers whipped in the wind and occasional bear paw prints guided us up and over the pass.

Finally at the top we were greeted with the view of the Chitistone gorge, the Chitistone lake and about 40 Dall Sheep up on the mountainside hiding in the cliffs from the wind. Overall a spectacular view. Unfortunately, I didn’t pull out the camera but did enjoy the views. From here we took a short cut over the Chitistone river as it exited the lake and continued on our journey.

Part 6- The Wildlife

Day three turned into an adventurous day when it came to wildlife. As we worked our way down towards our campsite, we stopped for a bathroom break. Rob suddenly calls out “there is something in the river!” Looking down on the thing, my immediate thought was “is that a wolverine?” because it was prancing in the river like a wolverine moves but the chances were so small. Rob confirmed with the binoculars that it was indeed a wolverine. Now when I say prancing, I mean prancing. For whatever reason the large carnivore was doing a series of laps in the river below. It made about three circles in the river before tearing up the cliff side and disappearing behind a large boulder. Maybe the thing was chasing a bird maybe it was crazy, but non the less, it was prancing in the river. And with that moment, I saw an animal so elusive many people, even those who study them, never get to see. It might be my one and only opportunity to see one in the wild, and I find that amazing.

Now here comes the kicker. No more than ten minutes later someone else stops for a bathroom break and Rob once again shouts “Bear!” but this time it was more like “bear, Bear! BEAR!” We all turned and looked up the hill and we see this huge grizzly barreling down the hill towards us. It was blond as blond can get in a bear and its muscles were rippling below it fur. The guide with us corrals us, and had us pull out the bear spray. So, we watch this bear barrel down the hill in our direction and it disappears behind a sand bank. For a brief moment there’s silence then a ptarmigan flies out from behind the hill and all of the mountain squirrels begin to warning call like crazy.

“Chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, CHIRP, CHIRP, chirp!!!”

Then the squirrel calm down and the bear never reappears. We take a collective breather, put our backpacks down and I take a glance around a hill looking up canyon. There crossing the landscape from the direction we just came I see our bear hoofing it up the hillside away from us. It had moved on luckily and we avoided an encounter.

Now if push had come to shove, we would have had to use our bear spray. But we would have ended up being sprayed too joining in the misery of the bear. The wind was blasting directly into our faces, so whatever we sprayed out of that can, we were going to get a face full of it too. That would have been a crappy way to end our day. Instead, we ended with some rain and more wind. I’ll take wind and rain over bear spray though.

Day 4- From The Pyramids to Goats.

Camp happened to be a pleasant spot that reminded me of something from Lord of the Rings. The guide called this area “The Pyramids” because of the rock structures around us. The day at the Pyramids started like almost every day in Alaska, with rain. From about 4am to 9am it rained. A hard steady rain. Taking that queue we ended up sitting in the cook tent munching on food and chatting about what was ahead of us. Now if the rain had continued, we may have just sat there most of the day, but soon the tent lit up with sunlight and the rain stopped and the conditions turned beautiful. A wonderful time to hike actually.

With the breaking of the weather we quickly packed camp and set out to conquer the Goat Trail. Of course, we had a river to cross first but in my mind that seemed like a small problem.

It was about this time on this trip I began to really feel quite good. My shoulders had stopped hurting and I was feeling like my endurance was catching up and I didn’t hurt so much. My steps felt sure and the views were enjoyable. Overall, I just felt great and was ready for the day. Today was the day we conquered the goat trail!

The hike started off pleasant enough. There were hoodoos and rivers and swirling clouds. All the things a guy from southern Utah likes.

And then there was a wall of rain.

Coming up canyon was this wall of rain that frankly looked really epic. In fact, it was so pretty I stopped and took a cellphone image (seen above). After taking the image, I was off again feeling pretty happy. I had my rain gear on anyways so it was no big deal. This wall of rain would turn into the seeds of my near destruction.

The rain hit and changed the atmosphere of the hike all together. First it was a sprinkle, then a downpour then a torrential rain. This created what I might call the atmosphere of destruction. As we hiked along the mountainside, we began to hear boulders moving in the river below. Deep rolling gurgling monsters within the water. If a human fell in there, they would not come back out. That made the upcoming river crossing have more consequence.

The river crossing that I mention has been a point of discussion amongst the group for a few days now. River crossings are apparently some of the most dangerous things you can do in Alaska. Often the boulders are uneven, and the water is swifter and colder than most places. The water level also has a tendency to fluctuate throughout the day. Since most of the rivers are fed by glaciers, that means that when the temperature rises more water melts and the rivers get bigger. Our goal was to get to our river as early in the day as possible. Luckily for us, when we got there the storm that was raining on us was snowing on the glaciers above, meaning that our river crossing was fairly mild. In previous trips, guides had seen that same river waist deep. A waist deep river would have likely meant we would have to wait till nighttime or the following day.

The river crossing turned out great, but the rain problem was beginning to set in and become dangerous. No matter how good your rain gear is, it would not stand up to this much rain. On top of that, since we were hiking, we were sweating, meaning our under clothing was getting wet from both above and below. I was beginning to be soaked to the bone. Janice, the one and only lady and the smallest amongst us, was beginning to get cold. In these conditions hypothermia was a real danger. Luckily hiking kept us warm, but if we ever slowed down for more than ten minutes the cold would set in and began to gnaw at our body warmth. From that point forward the guide began checking with everyone to see how they were feeling warmth wise to make sure no-one was beginning to experience hypothermia. Luckily, Janice didn’t continue down the cold route.

By this point in the adventure, I had slipped a few times and had a few close calls with potentially bad falls. I was soaking wet, and my shoes seemed to not be gripping as well as I needed them to be. With each passing step we were getting closer to the goat trail, and I was getting worried.

As we got closer to the goat trail the conditions in the canyon deteriorated more. Across the valley the thundering sound of rockfalls began to accelerate. A small drainage had picked up quite a bit of water from the rainfall and was causing rocks to tumble down the mountain. At some point one of the boulders that hit the hill side exploded leaving a giant white scar. The river churned into a roar of crashing water and churning boulders and the rain continued to fall heavily. Visibility dropped to a few hundred feet, and we were surrounded by clouds.

And then the rain stopped and the goat trail appeared… sort of. We could only see a few hundred feet due to swirling clouds but we had finally arrived.

Now I have done a lot of hiking. Hiking in good weather and bad weather, on muddy ground and slippery ground and stuff that doesn’t look too awful but is. When I saw that trail, I saw that it would be immediately awful. The top layer was a thin layer of dirt, but directly below it was mud. Slippery and terrible mud. Down below the trail was about 50 to 100 feet of scree slop and beyond that was a cliff to the gorge below.

I am going to die I thought and took my first steps.

Part 7- “Think Light Steps”

The first 100 feet didn’t go well. In fact, I made it about fifty feet, and I slipped. I dropped down onto my knees and rammed my hands and feet into the hillside, hoping I wasn’t about to slide off the mountain. I was hyperventilating and panicking thinking I am beginning to slide off the mountain. I crawled my way back onto the trail and tried scrambling which made things worse. I was slipping more and more. It was at this moment the guide came up to me and told me to stop, slow my breathing and slow down. I was on track to full on panic and was beginning to move recklessly.

Remember those comment earlier about my shoes beginning to fail. Well by this point they seemed to have failed all together. My tread was not gripping the way I needed too. I had been experiencing this throughout the day having moments of slippage. Now I was in the thick of it and my shoes were not cutting it anymore.

So I was panicking.

Grabbing me, the guide gave me a bit of a talk. “Slow down, use your left walking stick and ram that into the ground ahead of you. Use that as an anchor and step onto the edge of that so your foot can’t slide downhill. Use your right stick and jam that into the hillside and use that as an anchor as you take the next step. Maintain three points of contact at all times like we talked about. Slow your steps and make sure your breath slowly.”

Luckily, I am a good listener and can generally perform well under stress but that still doesn’t mean I was in the right headspace. I had gone that first 100 feet and I certainly couldn’t turn around. With each passing person it had gotten worse and the trail was full on slick mud now.

It was forward or bust.

So forward and I went with my thoughts and my slow methodical steps. In my mind I was thinking about a little 8-year-old daughter that I made a promise to that I would return home to her safely and hug her again and now I was in a particularly dangerous situation where I could break that promise. The more I thought about her and what I was doing the more I could feel panic rise within me. So, I reverted mentally to days when I worked on rivers, walking in them for miles and catching fish.

Once upon a time I worked as a wildlife technician for the state of Utah. For a few of those years I worked within rivers, spending my days walking in them and catching fish. The byproduct of spending all days in rivers, is that you get very good and hopping across rocks and moving uneven ground. One of my mental methods I would use to keep me light on my feet as I walked across streams was to take light steps so that I was not putting my full weight on any stone. This mindset kept me nimble and light so that I could walk across most streams without any issue. Now during my time as a technician, I just did this and never gave two thoughts to it, but at this point on the side of a mountain I turned to this philosophy.

“Think light steps. Think light steps. Think light steps. Think light steps”

Nathan's Mountain Mantra 

This became my mantra so I would not focus on the worse case outcome and for me to focus on taking light steps, so I never stepped hard or carelessly. So, there I was on the side of a scree cliff following a trail made by sheep with swirling clouds all around me. The sounds of rocks tumbling off the hillsides echoed through the canyon and the sound of boulders rolling in the river below. Only one path and that was forward into the unknown.

Now what was the goat trail like?

The goat trail itself is a thin little trail that cuts its way across the scree slopes. Practically this means that a majority of the trail is about as wide as maybe your two feet placed together. More often then not, there is actually only enough trail for one foot in front of the other. There were many portions where the trail simply consisted of a footprint that you would step on, which would begin to slide down the hill, and then you would step to the next print. Pretty much every step you took, the ground would move under you.

Thinking on this experience now, I don’t think this trail would have been as bad for me had it not been for the fact that my shoes were wearing out, and I slipped right at the beginning of the trail. Heights, and moving ground actually doesn’t bother me that much, but I didn’t come with the right gear. If I had just bit the bullet and bought the new shoes like my father had suggested, I would have been in a much better state. I probably would not have slipped and probably would have kept my crap together. This was a mess of my own doing.

Moral of the story replace, your gear before it wears out, by the time it wears out you might be in a dangerous situation and need it to function at its peak, not its lowest.

As the goat trail continued it also continued to rise. Since Dall Sheep have never taken courses on how to build trails they have a tendency to just go nearly straight up the side of the mountain. This means the trail had plenty of moments that was more like walking up a steep staircase for 200 feet rather than actually acting like a trail. As we crested one of these steep climbs we were greeted with a slightly ominous and slightly odd sight, a tent sitting on the edge of a cliff on top of a ridge.

As far as we could tell there was no one outside the tent and we didn’t see any movement. As we got up to the tent I called out “Hello! Is anyone home?” and then there was silence. Ok… Of course in my dark mind I was thinking “oh great the person fell off the mountain and died and their stuff is just up here.”

About a minute later as we were trying to figure out if we needed to go up the ridge into the mist or go downhill, the tent unzipped, and a head popped out. Enter from stage right Richard the coder from Chicago area. Now to be honest, this was a huge surprise. In all my days of hiking, the amount of times I see coders out backpacking I might be able to count on one hand. Then come to find out later on that he has only been doing this for about a year, puts him in an entirely new category of crazy that I was not expecting.

The reason why Richard had put his tent on the precipice of death was because he was on the goat trail when the rain began and got to a point where he couldn’t go any further because the trail had gotten too muddy. He also couldn’t see any alternate routes due the mist swirling around us so he made a safety judgment to wait out the rain and let things dry a bit. Then out of the clouds came a group of hikers (us) and said we were going to push our way through. We had a little discussion with him and told him that the route he was trying to go was the wrong way (we could see his foot prints of him slipping in the mud). We directed him which way we were going and set off into the mist.

From there the trail climbed up and up and we eventually popped out on to the top of a grassy ridge, the end of the goat trail! When we reached this point I screamed “WE’RE ALIVE!” then kind of broke down in tears for a minute. This by far was one of the most dangerous things I have done due to the combination of poor shoes and muddy trails and I had lived to tell the tale. Then of course our guide dropped this bit of knowledge-

“So we don’t tell guests this until after we finish the goat trail, but that last section of it is called the Gully of Death.”

After my emotional break down and composure moment I set up my tent and send a message to my wife on the Garmin “I’m Alive!” She of course had no idea what we had just done, but I could not have been more happy.

Now mother nature had thrown us a curve ball after curve ball of high winds, ridiculous amounts of rain, a close call with a bear and me nearly falling off a mountain. In return for handling all of that we were gifted with a view and a cloud show of the ages. The clouds settled into the valley below while the mountains across from us were being shrouded with them. Great jagged peaks were appearing and disappearing behind walls of swirling clouds. Finally, as the day went along the clouds broke and we were gifted the best sunset and best view of the entire trip.

Day 5- The Long Journey

By day five I was beginning to look at my meals, what I had left and what was ahead. I had been saving my favorite meal for the final day, but in reality I was beginning to run low on some of my food options. I would have enough for this day and for the following, but after that the food options would turn into three meals of oatmeal and one energy bar. If we had another day like we just had and the plane couldn’t arrive, I was going to be in a world of hurt. But that was a problem for another day, not today. Today was the long journey.

Like everything else in Alaska, big hills were involved. The day was to go as followed: drop about 500 feet in elevation, climb up 700 or 800 feet in elevation (That is seen in the above image to the left side of this view). Then drop another 800 feet in elevation then climb back up 700 feet to our camp site. Luckily this day went according to plan. We had bright blue skies and a gentle breeze to guide us.

Part 8- Uncut Gems

Many of the mountains we were walking on were the byproducts of volcanic activity. The result of that was prevalent all over the surface of the mountain, huge crystals. The crystals and geodes were the size of your fist or your head. Some of these were the type you might see at a gem show due to their quality and size. And it was everywhere up here. Normally, something like this sitting in a national park in the lower 48 would have been picked clean and the ground would have had only a few little crystals sitting around. Since the nearest landing strip was two days of walking away no one was going to come up here and load an additional 30 pounds of rocks on their back and carry it out. So it remained protected and beautiful for us to see and appreciate.

Also, amongst the gemstones was knee deep mud. The ever-present layer of permafrost across much of Alaska creates a funky problem across much of the state. The top layer of the permafrost melts every year but the lower layer doesn’t. That frozen layer prevents the water from being able to drain out resulting in much of Alaska having mushy muddy ground, something you can see driving across the state. Well, we landed in a huge bog of it.

To get across the permafrost induced mud valley, we ended up taking the long way around the mountain pass and rock hopped across the areas we couldn’t avoid. I think I only sunk six inches a few times, but I for sure could have gone deeper if I stopped and let the mud consume me. Somewhere in this rock hopping mud skipping adventure I found some grizzly bear fur stuck on the tundra, so that’s how I touched a grizzly.

Though the sun shone happily down from above, my feet screamed at me from below. After 5 days of hiking my knees began to join the chorus. I found my right knee beginning to tighten up making my progress slow down more. I was just in pain and no amount of ibuprofen was cutting it. Luckily getting lost or left behind wasn’t really possible as we simply had to walk down a hill akin to the grassy slopes of the Swiss alps and back up the other side.

Though that hill was like 1000 feet tall.

At the bottom of said grassy hill was a lovely little stream and our guide, Garret, and the other unnamed male, Andy, of our group decided that they wanted to take an icy dip in the stream. So down into their undies they went and leapt into a stream fed by glacial water. I should have gone, but wasn’t quite feeling it this day. After a few chilly pictures we loaded up our backpacks and climbed the final hill to our campsite.

If you have noticed I have not much talked about our campsites for much of this writing. I will for this one as it was exceptionally lovely. Camp was at the base of a scree slope in a grassy meadow. Next to camp was a tiny stream that was fed by a glacial ice cap at the top of the mountain, which meant we had a soft babble of a stream as our acoustic background noise. In addition to being wonderfully flat and grassy, it was sheltered from any wind making it a safe haven in the mountains that we had not really enjoyed on any of our days. The only real worry were rocks falling off the mountains and hitting us in the middle of the night. You know, a mild risk to an overall wonderful campsite.

Part 9- The Photographic Lesson of Alaska

Exhaustion is the destroyer of creativity. Unlike most other creative pursuits, landscape photography has a tendency to require some walking. After having put in something like 7 miles this day, I just couldn’t really hike any more for a photo. My feet were in extensive pain, my knee was giving me grief and I had used everything I had to get to camp. I didn’t have anything left to create, and of all our nights in the backcountry this evening reflected the reality of my exhaustion. I do not have a single photo that reflects the beauty of this area. All of them are simply lacking.

So here is the lesson of landscape photography- get fit as it will help you create better art. Hike more, walk more, exercise more. Even if you only plan on hiking a mile or two, if you are too tired to photograph at the end of the day, you can’t create great art. I failed my test.

Day 6- The Final Journey

The night was uneventful, though the silence was broken a few times by rocks falling down the mountain next to us. At dawn I photographed then broke camp to make the final journey to the air strip. The sun was relatively pleasant, and the journey was strait forward. Hike up and around one more scree mountainside following the trails created by Dall Sheep with cliffs all around and cross what seemed like an endless amount of gullies until we arrive at the grassy mountain where our airstrip was. Not hard.

Once again the journey played out exactly like we would have hoped, fairly clear skies, a light breeze and a strait forward game plan. Somewhere along the journey I had decided to save my final snickers for the victory arrival at the air strip. I made the promise to myself that I would not eat that wonderfully calorie dense meal until I was standing on the patch of earth where the plane would pick us up from the following day.

So that was the goal- Get to the air strip and eat a Snickers.

As we rounded one of our gullies we noticed in the valley below a small tent that appeared to have the same shape and color as our friend Richard who we had met on the goat trail. He had passed us the day we had finished the goat trail. He said hi and went off to go find his own campsite and we hadn’t seen him since. Since there were not a lot of options for other hikers out here, we figured it was probably him. Soon enough our suspicions were confirmed and Richard popped out from somewhere (I don’t remember seeing him come out of his tent, he was just there).

We had finally arrived to our final camp site and our airstrip. Our adventure was over and did as I had promised. Putting down my backpack I dug out my buried Snickers deep in my bear vault and ascended the hill for the victory snack. At the top was what most might barely call an airstrip. The patch of earth that the planes were supposed to land on was a slightly sloped hill that was flat enough and long enough for a plane to land on. It was here where I ate my snickers signifying the end of the adventure in the wilds of Alaska. I was kind of ready.

The night was pleasant, and the skies were interesting. Richard left his tent where he had pitched it. He ended up hanging out with us for the evening and eventually the morning as well. After taking an hour or two to rest I set out one more time to photograph and discovered something called cotton grass. These funny little fluff balls like hanging out amongst the riparian zone and made for a decent image.

Day 7- The End

Something I have not talked about for much of this writing is how the mountains of Alaska are noisy. Now if you have been in mountains you might think I am talking about birds or wind but that is not what I am talking about. As I sat in the silence of dawn, periodically I would hear deep rumbling booms that echo throughout the mountains. Because the mountains here are filled with glaciers that are always moving, there is something always happening somewhere. Rocks are falling and ice is collapsing. If the things falling are big enough they echo throughout the mountains. So on the final morning as I watched the sunrise try to blow up the stillness of the morning was periodically broken by the sound of rumbles, booms and falling rocks.

The voice of Alaska is the thunder of ice and earth.

Our plane was scheduled to arrive at 9am, so we were packed up and ready to go fairly early this day. As we sat around waiting and chatting with Richard the beautiful sound of plane engine began to echo through the mountains. Then the little red and mustard yellow planes became visible amongst the peaks signaling the end of our adventure.

Loading my gear onto the plane I took shotgun on this flight back to McCarthy. Now for the first flight we took off and landed from what I might define as a proper airstrip. The Wolvarine Airstrip, as mentioned, is more like a slightly flattish piece of earth on the top of a ledge in the mountains. By definition this means that on three of the four sides of this mountainous ledge are huge cliffs. So instead of taking off and pulling up and away from the ground like other air strips, this air strip you actually drive the airplane off the cliff.

Have you ever been driving with someone who is approaching a stop sign or light too quickly so you begin putting your foot down on the imaginary break petal on your side of the car to slow it down? As the plane began to accelerate towards the cliff I began to press my foot down on my imaginary break pedal out of pure reflex. Then the plane went off the cliff.

Luckily for us the ground dropped out from under us and we just kept going straight. Flying in bush planes is probably the most fun thing I did in Alaska and is worth the pain of getting there alone. It is simply amazing. After hiking for six days and I think 37 miles we returned to civilization in a mere twenty minute plane ride.

And just like that, it was over but the memories and the images will be with me for the rest of my life.

Now after having done this trip, I would go back to Alaska and do something like this again, but I would change it for photographic purposes. I loved how we explored so much, but the reality is that this method of photography is actually really bad. The best photography requires a bit more patience and the ability to sit and explore a bit more. I wish I had that, but that was not this adventure. The day I return to Alaska, I plan on doing things very different. Lighter gear, newer shoes, and less miles per day. I want to soak in Alaska and feel the adventure without feeling the pain nearly as much. I will return one day.