Packraft Adventure - The Maidenish Voyage

Over Labor Day weekend, Beth and I went on our first major packrafting adventure. Along with Chris, Bryn and Louis we headed out of Anchorage on Friday around noon and drove about 6 hours northeast to the town of Paxson (with some stops along the way). From Paxson we shuttled one car north to the finish and then drove east most of the way to the start before camping for the night. On Saturday morning we broke camp, drove the last 10 miles to the trailhead and started our trip.

Here's a map of our route. You'll want to click on it to get the full-sized version. Basically, the plan was to hike in the near the headwaters of Eureka Creek, then raft out (with one 4-mile portage) and onto the Delta River before reaching the car. This roughly followed the route of another group that we had read about online.

We were in the foothills of the Eastern Alaska Range, where Labor Day weekend comes as fall colors are at their peak and where winter is beginning to set in at the higher elevations. The first couple miles featured the only trail of the trip - an ATV trail which made for very easy walking...

...in places. But in other places the trail was alternately a pond, a stream and a beaver pond.

However, because of the planned packrafting Beth and I were both wearing sneakers instead of boots with waterproof socks underneath. The idea being that our feet were bound to get wet at some point, so the best thing was to wear shoes that wouldn't weigh 19 pounds once wet.

This proved to be a good choice, since shortly after we left the ATV trail we found ourselves crossing a fair-sized creek. For some reason, I got a major kick out of this - I guess because I felt like this was a real sign of how far off the beaten path we were going.

After we crossed the creek, we bashed our way uphill through a thick tangle of willow, alder, dwarf birch and more before things thinned out to scattered bushes and abundant blueberries. When things thinned out and we turned around we saw a pair of moose, including a big bull, that must have been just off of our path.

Unfortunately I didn't take any good pictures as we hiked over the top of a high plateau. We must've seen two dozen caribou over the next several miles, several of which Bella got to chase (fortunately they're so much faster than she is, especially with her pack on, so she couldn't chase them too far or bother them too much). We also saw a fat old porcupine, and I am happy to report that Bella did not get to chase it.

We also hiked nearly high enough to reach the snowline. It was drizzling on-and-off throughout the day and snow probably fell as low as 4700 feet. We topped out at around 4100, so although it was quite chilly it seemed like a moral victory to not get snowed on.

Anyway, we eventually descended and went around a couple of lakes before setting up camp for the night. Dinner consisted of freeze-dried food mixed with a half stick of butter as a calorie-booster, which actually made things pretty delicious.

Although it rained much of the night, it stopped in the morning as we were getting up and breaking camp, which was a welcome relief. As we set off hiking I took this picture back in the direction we had come from. We camped next to the shore of the lake in the background (left center of the picture), after having hiked down from the ridge in the far background from left-to-right on a route that is pretty much framed in this picture by the ridge in the intermediate ground.

We were up higher on day 2, which was reflected in the lack of major vegetation. This made the hiking easier, but cut down on the foliage. As you can see, it was a pretty drab day.

More rain set in as we came into view of the foot of the Eureka Glacier. I though this was going to be a beautiful picture of (L to R) Chris, Beth and Bryn hiking with the glacier in the background, but instead I think it does a good job of reflecting just how foreboding the weather was.

The doggos didn't seem to mind, though. They just raced around chasing ground squirrels and occasionally bigger game. I'll bet they covered twice the mileage we did during the hike.

After about an hour's hike we reached Eureka Creek. It was a fairly small stream, but the packrafts really don't take that much water to float. Still, there was a bit of butt-scraping in places, especially early on...

But before long some other streams joined Eureka Creek and with the steady current we were making fast time. The dogs chased along the banks as we averaged about 5 miles an hour downstream. The paddling was mostly pretty easy, and picking routes was largely about finding the deepest water as opposed to avoiding danger. Still, we did have one instance of swimming - unfortunately by the lone member of the group who doesn't own a drysuit. I will take Chris' word for it that the water was cold.

After a few hours of paddling, we reached our portage and hiked straight up from the river to higher ground as if the 25 degree slopes, thick brush and slippery mud were no big deal.

See. Is that the face of someone who minds a little bushwhacking? No way. Also, looking in the background by Chris' elbow you can see part of the reason for the portage. That rapid consisted of a drop that stretched from one bank to the other and would have easily flipped every one of our rafts.

In the end, though, the brush got really thick and the ground got really boggy and the sun started to set. Instead of making it back to the creek before camping we set up on a ridge for the night in the one piece of flat, clear, dry ground we could find. We were all pretty exhausted and within just a bit over an hour we were all in bed. It rained again overnight and then cleared. The temperature dropped enough that there was frost on the ground when we got up, but we were also rewarded with brilliant sunshine.

After breakfast (oatmeal with butter!) we set off towards the creek again, this time under much less ominous conditions than we'd had the previous day.

The bushwhacking was still pretty bad, though. I actually took the picture here because there was a bit less brush than other places, so you could see better.

We ended up following a pretty well established game trail out a ridge that looked as if it was going to plunge off of a cliff. But we kept following it under the assumption that caribou hadn't made this trail by repeatedly plunging to their deaths and were eventually rewarded with a steep but straightforward slope down to the water.

We put back in, and although the creek was no more treacherous to paddlers (still class 1 and 2 rapids) than the day before, it had become much more treacherous for the dogs to follow along the banks. Whereas the upper reaches had been fairly wide open, we were now in a canyon, with cliffs that frequently came right down to the waters' edge. This meant the dogs had to either run way uphill and go over the tops of the outcrops or swim around them. Bella hates swimming and will normally do her best to avoid it, but there were places on this route where she had no choice, which she clearly hated.

When we reached the Delta River, things opened up again and we took a bit of a lunch break. Bella was cold from the glacial waters and miserable from being afraid we would leave her and being forced to swim. And from falling off of a cliff. But at least she wasn't injured. She gladly took a huge chunk of swiss cheese and half a stick of butter (pretty standard fare for this trip, as you can see) as we held her in the sun and helped her to warm up.

The last part of the paddle - about 7 miles on the Delta River - was much more open and forgiving for the dog to run along the banks. It was quite pleasant for the paddlers, as well, with abundant sunshine and beautiful scenery.

There were no more rapids of note in this part of the paddle. Just a swift and steady of current carrying us back to our car. Amazingly, we didn't see another person the entire trip (with the exception of a couple of helicopters). With the sun out the shivers of the first two days seemed irrelevant. I was eager to get home at that point, but I also felt lucky to get out into such a beautiful place on a trip like this.

Update II

Word is, my sister may be somewhat distracted at the moment (Hi, Granger!), so I decided to help her out by finishing her earlier work. You're welcome.

Bike Trip (finally!)

Remember long, long ago when I went on a bike trip in Oregon with my dad, as he finished his ride across the country, but I didn't have any pictures because I smashed my camera on day 1? Well I recently recovered the pictures I had taken that morning, at least, so here they are:

There's my pa, pedaling his way out of Redmond, OR.

Some of the Three Sisters (probably), outside of Sisters, OR.

Me and the old man posing for a picture on just about

the perfect morning for a bike ride.

More of the Cascades, from outside Sisters.

The Three Sisters, again.

Three-Fingered Jack mountain, with what I think are 1,500 year-old

lava flows in the foreground.

Hmmm... this looks more like Three-Fingered Jack to me than the

last one. Maybe there are two mountains with the same name.

My dad, biking past some of the lava flows near the top of the climb.

A pretty barren slot of road near the summit.

Nothing but lava on both sides.

McKenzie Pass: just a bit over a mile high, and almost 4,000

feet above our campsite for the evening!

The biker boys at the pass.

Still at the pass, with the Three Sisters (or at least two of them) in the background.

It was right after this that I tried to use a triangular monument as a tripod for my camera and had the pleasure of watching it bounce 173 times as it fell the 4 feet to the ground. That was the end of the road for my camera, so unfortunately I missed a bunch more great photo opportunities over the next couple of days. But mostly I was just so glad to be there for the trip. I felt totally welcomed by the group and had a great time on the road in camp. And of course it was the best to get to spend a couple days biking with my dad!

Bella and the drink

About a week ago, Bella went into the drink. We were out walking in the woods by home when I decided to cross the creek which had been frozen solid a few days earlier to get to a spot where I could let her roam off-leash. It turned out the creek was completely melted, but only about 6 feet wide. I kicked the snow to find a sturdy take-off spot and jumped across and as I landed I heard a big "Spa-loooosh!"

I turned around to see Bella in the water, which was about 2 feet deep. She tried to scramble out on the side I was on, but the bank was about 2 feet high and she couldn't make it. She tried the other side and couldn't make it out there either. So she came back to my side and clung to the bank, staring up at me as if to say "you're going to solve this, right?" It was all pretty pathetic, and definitely satisfied my love of seeing animals do uncoordinated things.

At first, I couldn't get a good angle to lift her out, so she had to wait for a couple minutes while I kicked away at the snow and ice to get as low as I could. Eventually I had to just haul on her collar and drag her up the bank. She thanked me by moving 3 inches away from me before shaking ice-cold muddy creek water on me. Amazingly, she never looked cold when she was in the water or out. And once rescued she was excited to out on a walk! I kind of wish I'd gotten a picture of her in the creek, but I think its good that I didn't delay getting her out. Still she looks kind of pathetic in these pictures, taken about a minute after getting back onto dry land.

Buckle Up

Technically, Beth and I were part of a car accident this morning. In reality, we were the third car in a two-car collision. But one of the cars was a pickup truck with a toolbox in the bed. When it got hit the toolbox went flying, hit the pavement, cracked open and sent a variety of different sized wrenches and sockets skittering in our direction, several of which may have bounced into our front wheels and bumper. So really, in every sense but the police report, we were not actually in the accident.

We were at an intersection, waiting in the left-turn lane for the light to change. The way the light cycle goes, all the cross-street traffic has a green light, then the cars on the left get a red light so the cars on the right can turn left towards Beth and I, and then the light changes and we get our green light. Well, the light went red for the cars coming from the left and the cars from the right, where there are two left turn lanes, got their green turn arrow. Beth and I always pay attention to this because it’s a really long light but this means that it’s almost our turn. Anyway, a Subaru coming from the left never stopped. Maybe it never even hit the brakes, because the first sign of danger from my perspective wasn’t skidding or screeching tires but a loud crunch. Then my attention was on the debris coming our way, so by the time I looked at the cars themselves they were totally stopped and it was almost like we had happened upon an accident that had already occurred, not like one took place right in front of us.

Anyway, it feels strange that my first reaction wasn’t to check on the drivers but to clear enough space for other cars to get by. I guess I looked at the two drivers in their cars and saw that they were looking around and didn’t seem to be in agony, but I did a 10 second sweep of the lane before it even occurred to me that I should worry about the drivers first. By that time, the driver of the truck (who got hit) was getting out of his vehicle, apparently unhurt. I walked over to the Subaru, where another passer-by was talking to the driver and opened the passenger door to ask if she was okay, which she was, although she was badly shaken. Then the driver of the pickup and I cleared more of his things from the road while Beth called 911 and pulled our car across the intersection to park it as far out of the way as possible. I was only thinking of us as witnesses until the 911 dispatcher told Beth that since our car was hit by debris we were involved in the accident and should stick around.

I waited in our car with Beth until a police officer arrived. It took twenty minutes, which seemed pretty ridiculous for an accident at a busy intersection near downtown right at the beginning of rush hour. At that point Beth and I walked back over, spoke briefly to the officer to tell him why we were even there, and then waited while he rechecked the two drivers. And then waited while he was on the radio. And then waited while he started his paperwork. And waited. And waited. Not very pleasant in 8 degree weather, although it’s been below zero almost every other day for the past couple of weeks. Finally a second officer arrived and eventually he made his way over to us, got our contact information, asked a couple of questions and told us we could go.

So that’s the story of my commute this morning, but here are some random thoughts that go along with it:

• We were driving because Beth was up most of the night last night for work, communicating with a drilling team on the North Slope that’s putting in a new well.
  
• The driver of the pickup was remarkably nice for having been put in such an unpleasant situation. After the initial shock and surprise, during which he may have asked me why I didn’t stop, he was most interested in making sure the other driver was okay and thanking Beth and I for our help.
  
• I’m really glad nobody was seriously hurt, and it’s almost completely for a whole host of selfish reasons, and that makes me feel bad.
  
• I wonder if daylight savings time could be partly to blame for this. When the accident happened the sky was just beginning to pick up shades of blue, but it was definitely still dark out. An hour later it was full daylight and visibility was obviously much better.
  
• Actually, the driver of the Subaru probably needed something other than better lighting. It’s not like she didn’t see a moose at the side of the road until it darted out at the last second. She missed 3-4 stoplights at that one intersection and two lines of cars, that’s 4 lines of headlights, turning in front of her.
  
• No airbags went off. I’m not surprised about the truck since it was hit in the rear wheel and the main impact went into the bed, not the cab. But the Subaru hit the truck head on and had pretty serious damage to its front end. Maybe because the back of the truck was lighter the Subaru was partly spared by spinning the truck? Maybe the driver of the Subaru had disabled her airbags, since she appeared to have a pretty small stature? Maybe she hit the brakes enough that she had already slowed down more than it appeared before she hit the truck?
  
• The police officer wanted to know if Beth and I were wearing seatbelts when the ratchet wrench socket hit our bumper as we travelled at zero miles per hour. We were.
  
• 4 people, 4 seatbelts, zero injuries. Even if you take Beth and I out of that equation, 2-2-0 are pretty good numbers. Buckle up!

Back to Alaska

I got back to Alaska yesterday afternoon after an extended weekend in Detroit. First order of business: fix a washing machine that has stopped draining. Solution: pull a whole bunch of crap out of the drain pump filter. Final tally: 45 cents (one quarter, two dimes), one golf tee, tweezers, a necklace, old candy wrappers and a whole bunch of general muck, most of which was dog hair.

Did you make it past that gross first picture? If so, here are some awesome pictures from the flight back to Alaska. The water on the left side of the photo is College Fjord in Prince William Sound, with Harvard Glacier at the head of the fjord and numerous other collegiately-named glaciers all around. Unfortunately it's hard to make out in this picture, but Mount Marcus Baker (the highest point in the Chugach Mountains at over 13,000 feet) is almost directly above the toe of Harvard Glacier.

Hmmm.... Looks like it didn't quite show up in this picture, but Mt. Denali is on the horizon,

almost 200 miles away. The mountains in the foreground are just outside of Anchorage, 20 miles as the crow flies.

The Knik River Valley is in the center of this picture. During my second or third week of work I got to ride an ATV out to the point where the valley turns back to the left and disappears behind mountains in order to burn down an illegal cabin. Seriously. That was the best day of work ever.

I think that the glacier in the top-center of these mountains is where my friend Louis is doing the fieldwork for his masters. I love the fact that this scene basically shows the backside of the mountains that I can see from my house and it couldn't be any more wild.

Backcountry Snowboarding - 12/23/2010

On Thursday Beth and I went out backcountry snowboarding with our friends Bryn and Louis. We were ready for some cold weather, but when we drove through a valley and the temperature suddenly dropped to -14 I was thinking of calling it quits. Fortunately, the temperature rose just as quickly as we climbed up the other side of the valley, and did so before I had the chance to give voice to my cowardice.

It was still right around zero when we left the cars, and I was more worried about Bella and Dash getting cold than I was about myself, mostly because Bella has been a sissy about having cold feet recently. But they were both fine all day until the very end, when I think they were so tired that keeping warm was more of a struggle. But thats getting ahead of myself. In the morning, it was easy to stay warm, since as soon as we left the car we started skinning our way straight uphill. In fact, we'd already stopped to take off some layers before we found ourselves bathed in sunshine, and it was probably for the best that the sun wasn't really adding any heat to the mix. This time of year its so great to get out in the sun, though, so we might as well have been on a beach somewhere.

With clear skies and bright sun, the highlight of the day was probably the amazing scenery. The snowboarding was a lot of fun, of course, but the surrounding mountains were just beautiful, and I kept stopping to snap more and more photos of the same peaks and ridges all day. Of course, all day is a pretty short time frame, so with the sun setting as we started back to the cars at the end of the day there was time for one last shot and then the camera had to get put away.

But I guess I shouldn't sell the snowboarding short. After reaching the top of our ridge around noon, we took a quick lunch break before making some turns down the back side of the ridge. Despite almost 3 weeks without snow there wasn't another ski or snowboard track in sight, although moose had made a mess of the powder at the very bottom of the run. We skinned back up to the top of the ridge and took our second run down the front side, where there were a good deal of tracks but the snow was probably still as good as anything in bounds after noon on a powder day. Of all things we ran into Beth's and Bryn's boss' boss at the top of the second run. Someone in his group was impressed with the fact that we'd made a run down the back side, but I think both of the ladies were a bit disappointed to have work catch up to them in the backcountry.

On a final note, it felt really good to get out and make some turns for the first time in a year and only the second time in 2 years. I had a ton of fun with the fact that I can go out and charge pretty hard right off the bat. I also loved the fact that my split board handled the chopped up snow on the last run like a champion. It brought back the feeling of riding my first Never Summer through that sort of snow for the first time - just great control and super steady underfoot.

Anyway, I can't wait to get back out again, even though I do hope its a bit warmer the next time. And a bit of fresh snow wouldn't hurt, either. Now here's the photos:

came really close to suggesting we turn around at 10:06, but seven

minutes later it wasn't so bad.

setting out from the car before the sun rises

above the surrounding peaks

the crew breaks into the sun for the first time of the day

happy to have some sunshine on our way up

Beth drops in at the top of run #1

heading back to the top for run #2

snow-covered mountains

beautiful scenery, all day

the sun was starting to set as we got back to the top

before our second run.

and a closing shot of Bella looking dignified...