Walking on

Day 2

We ate a nice hearty oatmeal breakfast made by me. It was a lot of oatmeal! My excuse was that I had never made it for 3 people and I would rather have too much than too little. As I forced down the last couple bites we watched the grizzly graze lower down in the valley than the night before. The grizzly was making his way in our direction. We watched him and waited, as he of course has the right of way.

The last we saw of him he had come across the river and was heading up the Weyahok drainage. He had disappeared into the willows.

Well, we weren’t going to wait forever so we gave it sometime while we packed up. We headed down into those same willows making lots of human noise. We assumed that the bear must have somewhere better to be than right along the river in our path. And he must have, because we didn’t see him again.

We made good mileage walking along the gravel bars. Every once and a while we were forced up into the tundra. Even more dreadful was when we were forced through the willows.

These willows are generally around 8 feet tall and branch out profusely. They definitely fight back as you karate chop your way through. The willows provide an excellent resistance workout (as if 75 pounds on my back wasn’t already). Since paddles are long and stick over the top of my pack, the willows found ways to get caught, pulling me backwards and downward in an unpleasant surprise. Fighting the willows is necessary, but certainly unpleasant.

As the day wore on, we thought we might like to try floating in our boats. Some channels seemed deep enough, but there was quite a bit of white water. We blew up our packrafts and got in for a wild ride. It was difficult to stay in line of site of each other and channels were narrow, shallow, and choppy. After about 0.5 mile we decided it was probably safer to walk.

We deflated our boats. I went to the bathroom while I waited for everyone to be ready and I ripped my long underwear. I really was falling apart. So far I had left my trekking poles on the plane, dropped and lost my knife, and now I ripped my long underwear. “What’s next!?” I asked myself laughing. The small problems are just what happen out here.

I made sure my coworkers knew I had ripped my pants. A good laugh is helpful to everyone. I could only imagine what our guest, E, thought of me at this point. He was still following my direction though, so it couldn’t be that bad.

We power cleaned our backpacks on and got to trudging. Walking was not too bad, we rotated between gravel bars, tundra, and willows. Morale was good as we had no choice but to go up a steep bank onto the higher tundra. Ahh, there really is nothing like scrambling up a hill with a heavy pack on.

As we got up on the grassy tundra, we sat and rested. We couldn’t camp here, but the next ridge looked promising. “One more whoosh?” E asked.

“One more whoosh,” I confirmed, as B crested to our resting spot.

We rested until we felt like we had the gusto to make it down into the small creek valley and back up onto the knoll.

E lead the way down the steep bank into the creek valley. As I made my way behind him, I felt an uncomfortable and unpleasant feeling. “Oh sh*t,” I thought. “That was most definitely my toenail.”

Now this toenail story takes us back to April.

In early April, my boyfriend and I landed a permit to climb Mt St Helens in Washington. As the Cascades had finally received a good snowpack this year, Mt St Helens was really only climbable with snowshoes or skis (though I did see someone about half way up that had neither of those things). As my boyfriend and I descended after summiting, the hard ice shell on the snow made it so I couldn’t dig the heel of my snowshoes in. So As I showshoed down the mountain my foot in my boot was forced forward by gravity, crushing my toe into the end of my boot. I was sure at that time on the mountain that I had lost my big toe and possibly a few others. But that actually didn’t happen. My toe came out a lovely purple color, but nothing more came of it.

Back in the Brooks Range, I continued down the first half of the last whoosh. Having my feet wet all day in my boots softened my feet enough. As we got up on the next knoll we looked for a good spot to camp. It was mostly sloped, but we ended up in a good spot.

Well, it wasn’t exactly a good spot. It was an absolutely gorgeous spot. The high terrace provided us with sweeping views of the valley. The mountains towered above us and the river raged below. The valley was alive and we had the balcony seats to view it.

I took off my boots in a rush of relief. I was curious to see the damage that that one last whoosh had done. As I pulled my sock off I noticed that not only my big toenail was loose, but my middle toenail as well. They both got pulled off as I twisted my face in disgust. I then had an ethical question about my toenails. If I left them there would that still be considered leave no trace? I wasn’t planning on leaving them, but we did come to the conclusion that it wouldn’t fall under leave no trace if I left them. I suppose I did pack them in.

I went down to the stream we whooshed over to gather water for dinner. B was preparing us Thai peanut noodles. I was completely alone at that creek. I embraced the solitude and sang a song to any bear who might be nearby. The pristine quiet of the area was overwhelmed by the sound of water cascading freely from its source down to the Alatna. We were both free, unbounded by society.

I thanked the stream for its donation to keep us fed and hydrated. The first serving of dinner was ready in our small pot. I ate it enthusiastically as it was delicious. After dinner and dishes, B and I went to explore the small valley that the creek I had gotten water from flowed down. We hiked up along the cascade until there was no longer an easy route up.

I drank the pure water from the stream and we enjoyed each other’s company before heading down to our camp. The valley glowed as the sun lowered beneath the horizon.