Sept 14, 2001 Update: The Arctic and Denali
Written By Matt
The Arctic
Simply put, this area is an emptiness so unreal, it's almost frightening. We drove up the Dalton Highway to the Arctic Ocean a couple weeks ago now. Traffic along the road at this time of the year is truckers or hunters. Tourists have long since departed. On our way up we camped one night at the Arctic Circle, then finished the trip to Prudhoe with a 10 hour drive straight north the next day. This road was why we bought a 4-wheel drive vehicle for this trip, and it was worth it. Several times the ruts were so deep that I feared we would be bottoming out and the slippery dust and mud nearly captured us several times. The road is getting better by the year though. We were suprised to find long stretches of it actually paved, so while we were going only 25 mph in parts, in others we were able to go 50 or 60. On our way up, a veteran Dalton traveller, looked at our truck and asked us "How many spare tires you carryin'?" I proudly responded "Two.", he came back with "Went through five on my last trip." Well, we made it all the way up there and back without having to change even one tire. I'm a Michelin man for life! The only Rover damage was a nice "star" in the windshield thanks to a shower of gravel from a passing truck.
Prudhoe and Deadhorse can be described only as interesting. We paid $120 for a hotel that was no more than a string of trailer homes somehow attached into makeshift group living quarters with a restaurant and quite a few rooms. Everybody that is up there is there for the oil. Only a few tourists were there when we were. We were the only two that took an oil field tour the day we did. The area is industrial, environmental, desolate, and bustling with activity, all at the same time. It is a surreal experience that can only be appreciated with a visit, and a quick exit - Prudhoe is no place to dawdle. Oil is a huge business. Tourism is not.
On our way back, we had our sights into hiking in Gates of the Arctic National Park. We planned on hiking for four days, but there is something unsettling about being the only two people hiking in an area this large (the park headquarters said we we had the only bear barrel checked out for that time). We hiked out after the first night, so our hike ended up only being two days. Hiking here was tough. Without trails, travelling across the land requires a lot of bushwacking and travelling along river valleys requires many icy stream crossings. We must have done 7-10 our first day, which was a major reason why we decided to turn around and hike out the next day. We didn't see any wildlife those two days besides arctic hares, but saw planty of bear and lynx tracks, and other "evidence".
Denali
Denali National Park is amazing. We spent 3 days in the backcountry there, camped out at the base of the mountain in section 35 for those of you familiar with the park. We were actually many miles from the mountain, but it is so huge that it seemed like we were right at the bottom. We had a fabulous, cloudless view of the mountain all 3 days that we were there. I took many, many pictures of it and the surrounding country. During our Denali time we saw a grizzly, several moose and caribou, a wolf, and a fox. Our first night, a short-eared owl swooped low over us scanning the tundra for food. The last night we were in the backcountry the northern lights display was fantastic, I tried to take some pictures, but in my excitement, I shot 90% of the pics without the lens focused correctly, so I have little hope that any will turn out. I ended up sitting up until 2AM watching the sky. The next morning we had to break camp at 5AM to be able to hike out and catch a shuttle back to the park entrance. We hiked for 30 minutes across the tundra in pitch black - sunrise was not until 7:30AM. Fortunately we did not run into any nasty animals or terrain during that hike. We had one day where we set off on what we thought was going to be a short 5 mile hike. Due to some navigational errors (ie I screwed up some map reading) we ended up finally returning to our camp 14 miles later. Normally, 14 miles would be just a "tough" hike. But in these cross-country, tundra, conditions, where the park personnel advise to expect one to be able only to hike 5 miles/day, 14 miles was just simply tiring. There are a couple good stories from that day, but no time to share them now.
Where From Here? Seward then Homer
I only have 3 minutes left on my computer here at the Anchorage Library, so quickly... we are heading to Seward tomorrow to do a little fishing, shopping, and sightseeing, then to Homer for some of the same. We have 7 rolls of film in to ClubPhoto right now, so those will be the next thing posted, but considering all that's going on right now in the US, ClubPhoto turnaround time may be delayed.