In order not to start completely from scratch I shamelessly borrowed the Python code from gpxplot project in Google code repository. The project itself seem a bit stale with little activity. However, the provided python code can be used as a great starting point. It has all the GPX reading functionality. All I have to do is to add one more parameter to convert the tracks to the encoded polylines and then post the results, of course. I hope this won’t violate the GNU licensing.

So, the final python code is here. I ran into a couple of problems with the algorithm during the development. However, thanks to a very good source I could solve them. My Python skills need some improvement also. I still think in C/C++ and thus miss out on many Python specific optimizations that can make the code much more elegant. One major issue was with the example provided by Google. The example doesn’t show what to do if the point value is small and doesn’t need to be encoded using all 6 characters. They do show this in the table, but somehow I couldn’t find the explanation how it was achieved.

Testing:

I took a track from my recent trip to Yosemite NP. The file contains one track. The first map is generated using GPSVisualizer. It is just an image.

The second is a static Google map. Note: Google static map is not perfect and at some number of points it will choke. It is a good idea to reduce the number of points to be plotted. It is not possible to see everything anyway. The image below was drawn with 1000 points.

Notes:

1. The code is written for Python 3.2. I haven’t tried to run it on Python 2.7.
2. It would be nice to make a GUI for it. Using an interpretor or an IDE is a bit tedious. Perhaps I’ll make it time permitting.
3. The next step would be to add filtering to the data. This is what I wanted to do for a very long time. Basically GPS signal is sometimes noisy and this noise is transferred to the recorded track. However, the device manufacturers don’t want to add this feature for some reason.

Right now I can add markers to the map, even of different color. Perhaps I can figure out how to convert a GPX file into a polyline and have the full track.That would be nice. The whole static map concept is very simple. Sure, the site looses that fancy editable full maps appeal, but there is still a map and it doesn’t require enormous resources.

The main purpose of the trip was to visit a SPA. A bit classier SPA than Harbin. There is nothing wrong with Harbin, but it may be cold this time of the year. I found a place called Osmosis in Freestone, CA. It had this interesting treatment called Cedar Enzyme Bath. I have ordered one for me and Rita. I could buy a package for her with some massage and other things, but she didn’t want it. Osmosis also has a partnership with a small hotel next door. One can buy a package of treatment and stay. But this package wasn’t available on Thanksgiving weekend. To stay I found a small resort a bit off on the shore of the Russian river called Highland Dell.

On the day we went up to Fort Ross State Historic Park. I wanted to see this place for a long time. However, it was a bit off the way to purposefully drive there. This trip presented a great opportunity to visit this park. Unfortunately it was all closed. We walked around the locked buildings, looked at the fort from the outside of its gates, and enjoyed the great ocean. The weather was great – sunny and windy. The drive was nice – beautiful views, great winding road. Perfect. After a bit of a stroll around that closed park we headed towards Monte Rio where the booked hotel was located. After the drive on the shore this was a great drive through redwood forest. CA-116. It was getting a bit dark and fog was rolling in. The town of Monte Rio was seem to be getting to celebrate Thanksgiving. You can smell the turkeys being cooked. With all that I’ve missed the Highland Dell hotel and had to stop and ask for directions.

The place turned out to be situated across the Russian river in Monte Rio. Beautiful setting, redwoods. The place, it seems, was run by some German people. It was fine. Looked like a regular hotel. There were even some guests this holiday. We went to walk around a bit then came back to get some food. That was a bit difficult. The restaurant next door was completely booked. Due to holiday most of the places were closed. We stumbled upon the open Northwood Golf club. They had a Thanksgiving buffet for $25 a pop. Should have known better – that sort of food can a golf club have? In all we payed almost $80 for a crappy food and a bit of vine. Oh well. Need to be prepared the next time.

Morning of Friday started early. The breakfast was supposed to start at 8AM and we had to be at Osmosis at 8:50AM. We’ve had a standard American industrial food – omelet, paper bacon, pancakes, and muffins. Really, I should have prepared better. The drive was short but pleasant and we made it to the SPA a bit after 9AM.

Then the experience started. First you change into this traditional Japanese robe. The lady who kind of took care of us gave us some weird tea and explained the chemistry of that enzyme bath. Essentially this is cedar powder with some enzymes added. The whole thing starts fermenting like mad giving off lots of heat. So you lay covered in that enzymed powder. On the picture it looks like just sand, but in reality it is very soft. Sort of like portable solid sauna. It was fine. The taking care lady was bringing cold towels to put on the head. But just as I was getting into it it was over. Sad.

After the enzyme bath getting rid of all the cedar shavings was a bit difficult. After the shower we had about half an hour of some relaxation with music that was designed to work or activate both hemispheres of the brain. And that was it. We walked around the nice meditation garden and eventually ended up in the gift shop. I’ve asked the workers for some recommendations on the places to visit in Sonoma, especially wine and cheese. They recommended Graton ridge cellars, actually gave us some old bottle of desert wine and referral notices for the wine tasting (pretty good). After the SPA we visited the busy bakery across the street – Wild Flour Bread. That was actually the highlight of the trip. Great bread, fresh.

The wine at Graton was good, especially the desert one. It was a tiny family run winery. They only produce a couple of hundred cases of their wine per year. The husband is actually the winemaker. He can tell you what he did with the wine and such. Very interesting. For some reason this was much better than that Beringer factory.

On the way back we stopped at Marin French Cheese company. It was also a bit industrial. They didn’t really care for the customers. It seems that they could sell their cheese anyways. But a smaller place – Nicasio Valley cheese company – was much more inviting. They had different cheeses to sample. Sort of cheese tasting. Though the type of cheese was different from Marin French. Interestingly that being an essentially a milk farm they won’t let us buy milk.

Overall I liked Sonoma. We should come here again to sample some more cheese, maybe different wine and even some olive oil. In a different season it may be more interesting to just camp – a lot better air than in a hotel.

There were 18 people total with the guide. Quite a diverse group of folks from different places. They were mostly white, however. Girish and Manali were the only non-white participants. Perhaps the Sierra Club should reach out more.

I was chopping wood for two days. The other work involved some masonry, painting, carrying water and chopped wood, window fixing. Due to the winter storms there were a lot of trees down, so there was a lot of wood to chop.The idea was to store the cut pieces for this and next year.

It was a fine weekend with great weather. I finally found where that damn Benson Hut was. It was also great to work outside. Perhaps a bit difficult due to high altitude. Surprisingly it was very warm at night. I’ve slept outside with no tent and was quite comfortable. There was no wind on that ridge at all.

A couple of months ago I was looking for a small light book of stories to take to Alaska. So I decided to try this Year’s Best SF14. What a great choice! The authors did a great job of selecting very interesting collection of short SF stories. I was not disappointed at all. On top of this, they preface each story with a short information about the author and his other works. In this case if I like a particular author’s style I can read more of his fiction, longer ones.

Great job, guys, thanks a lot.

Yellowstone. Our first national park. One of the places that every self respecting outdoorsman must visit. Well, technically there are many places on this planet that deserve to be seen. There is no need to discriminate. But Yellowstone still well worth a visit.

This trip, as many other before, developed into its final form gradually. I wanted to do something over the Labor Day weekend, something that would not annoy V after the recent long Alaska trip. Also something that can be done with Rita (since I felt a bit guilty after going off for two weeks to Alaska). The initial plan was to hike Teton Crest Trail. However, I’ve missed the deadline to get permits. The only option left was first come which was a bit like gambling. Somehow I’ve stumbled on that Bechler river trail description. For some reason Yellowstone has a trail system not very suitable for short circular backpacking trips. There are good routes there for something longer than a week or to and fro things. But 5 days was a bit difficult to find, at least for me. The original Bechler river trail goes from Old Faithful, approximately, to the Bechler ranger station along the same Bechler river. However, getting to the trailhead from Yellowstone South entrance requires a very long  loop on a dirt road. If the group had only one vehicle it would be expensive in time and money. To get around that I added one more hiking day and exit at Grassy lake (9K6) instead. This cut down the gravel driving time to just 10 miles. After I set the trip I though that I could have just added one more day and exit right at the South entrance. Oh, well, this idea came a bit late.

August 31, Wednesday

Get up very early to get to the plane. There was only one train that could fit the schedule so that in a way set the schedule. However, it also forced us to get to the airport on time, just without much food. Since we were all flying on the same flight it was very easy to organize. The flight was uneventful except for the funny flight attendant who made a performance out of that same old boring preflight check. It would be funny if we had to fly just one leg. But our flight was more like a bus (or train). It stopped in Reno, NV. More than half of the people deplaned. Then the new bunch came in and before departure he made the same performance again.

In Salt Lake City Rita found some company that can rent mini vans cheap – Affordable Rent-a-car. They were just not located even remotely close to the airport. I’ve called them and they sent a van to get us all (not sure if it was the plan, but it worked fine). It is always good to support local businesses. The van was fine – Kia Sedona. They even had a bear spray to lend us. I guess some other customer left it. We just stopped by one REI store (to get more bear sprays, some bells, and white gas) had lunch in a Safeway and were off to the Yellowstone. Good timing.

The drive wasn’t very exciting. Since I didn’t know either way I thought that it would be interesting to drive through Idaho and enter Yellowstone from the West. I booked this Forest Service campground called Upper Coffee Pot. But it was fine.

Idaho was mostly flat allowing for easy driving. The weather was good too. In the evening we got food at The College Avenue Deli sandwich place. They had decent sandwiches with some Mediterranean leaning (their desserts were totally American – oil fried cheesecake). For some reason Idaho didn’t have their usual highway thoroughfare of chain malls. There wasn’t much there at all. Somehow I found this college avenue place on Yelp. Well, we have gotten into the campground after dark, ate the cold sandwiches and went to sleep.

September 1, Thursday

With the daylight the campground looked really nice – small, beautiful river nearby, the highway was far enough not to be noisy. The campground hot went out to meet us. And it all cost just $10. The night was a bit chilly. It was clear and the elevation of 6000 ft we have had a little bit of frost on the fly in the morning.

The first stop was in West Yellowstone. It was just a toilet/souvenir stop. West Yellowstone is that place which is very close to some popular destination but where the NPS restrictions don’t apply. Sort of like that town Healy in Alaska. Thus West Yellowstone had all sorts of souvenir shops, an IMAX theater, restaurants, etc. Good thing was that it also had a very good visitor center for all the areas around Yellowstone and the three states it is situated in.

We have reached the Mammoth campground before lunch. I was a bit worried if we can get it because it wasn’t reserved, but there wasn’t any problem. It was a pretty good-looking campground located on a slope overlooking the Gardiner river. It was part of the large Mammoth village, sort of speak. There was a post office, visitor center, some shops, a restaurant, fancy hotel. All the buildings looked vintage 1930′s. It seemed that this area was the first one developed when the park was created. In fact that iconic entrance gate is actually located right there at the North entrance not far from Mammoth. We’ve had lunch at a very windy field next to the visitor center and went off to do the first hike of the trip.

First we went around the Mammoth Hot springs terraces. They were just wooded walkways built around the geothermal features. I was hoping that they would connect to the beaver pond trail, but that trail was under construction. The Liberty Cap was  quite noticeable feature. Too bad it wasn’t working any more.

Eventually we found the trail leading up to the hills. It was beautiful not very long trail through some forest with great views of the Mammoth valley. The beaver ponds did have the sings of the beaver activities. The beavers themselves were hiding most likely.

After the beaver ponds loop there was one point on our plan for the day – boiling river. The main trail to boiling river is called Lava Creek trail. It starts actually from Montana side from a small parking lot on the right hand side of the road on the way to the North entrance gate. The trail goes along the Gardiner river for a mile or so. Then it reaches the boiling river junction. The boiling river is really very hot. Not 100C boiling temperature but close. There is no way to sit in it without some adverse effects for the body. However, at the place where it meets cold Gardiner river it is possible to find a spot with reasonable temperature mixture.  Of course all the rotten egg smell was present in full blast. There were people there enjoying the hot springs. Not too many, it was kind of getting late. We stayed in the water for an hour or so, then drove to Gardiner for some dinner. I can’t say that Gardiner had significantly better choices of food than the Mammoth village – same touristy heavy stuff. By the time we got there only one place open that offered standard American cuisine. The dinner was a bit long with wine and stuff. So we missed the presentation in mammoth campground.

September 2, Friday

Get up really early – 5:30AM. Prakash and Shafi wanted to shoot some wildlife. To do that we had to get up so early, before sunrise. After packing we went on driving towards Norris junction with the hope to see something wild.

It was beautiful cold morning. There was frost on the ground. We saw a couple of bison and it was possible to see their breath. There was one lonely bison just walking right on the highway. We also saw some elk running around. That was all for the readily visible wildlife.

Suddenly we saw a bunch of people congregating on a off-highway small parking lot. There had to be something to see there. In reality there was a park ranger with a very good telescope showing people a gang of wolves really far away that were munching on some dead buffalo. It was interesting to see some real wolves. We were way far away to probably even register on their sight. The ranger was just repeating the same thing over and over about the wolves, this particular pack, whet they do, etc. Didn’t even blink, like a machine.

On the way to Fishing Bridge area we stopped at several hydrothermal places in Hayden Valley.

There was a ton of stuff. Smelly mud pools, geysers burbling at all sorts of odd palaces; one getting from a cave like a dragon. Very interesting. Sometimes a new thing starts smoking right through asphalt. We had a semi-sleeping late breakfast in the Fishing Bridge market, got some t-shirts and continue. We stopped on the shore of the Yellowstone lake briefly to take pictures.

By noon we made it to the Old Faithful area. The place looked like a shopping mall. In the center is the star attraction – the Old Faithful geyser. Around it in a circle are the rows of seats for the spectators. A bit off is a new sparkling visitor center with a huge window towards the geyser (I guess it isn’t as much fun to see it outside in Winter). Then right next to the visitor center was a lodge with a restaurant. Behind it and enormous parking lot. Behind that was a lonely backcountry office, which we visited. We had a bout an hour before the approximate eruption time. The “permits” I’ve gotten were only reservations. I had to go to the office to get the real ones. Well, I suppose it was their way of maintaining the real number of people on the trails. If someone got a permit by mail half a year before it wasn’t really clear if they went to their trip or not. The ranger made us watch the instructional video about the behavior in the boonies, gave me the real permit and we were off.

We went back to the circus, sorry, the Old Faithful viewing platform. The anticipation was already building up for the upcoming eruption. The park service doesn’t really know exactly when the eruption can occur. However, they can guesstimate based on the length of the previous eruption, +/- 10 min. So they post the expected time of eruption everywhere. People were slowly accumulating like in a movie theater. There was another ranger walking in front of the first row in one section explaining what precisely was going on at the moment inside the geyser. We came a bit late to get good sits and listed to the ranger. Sad, it would be interesting. We ended up sitting on the edge of platform with fit on the wet ground. Whatever, not a big problem. Well, the Old Faithful erupted as predicted. No visible disturbance yet existed in the underlined caldera as scared by 2012. The show was short but spectacular and ended right in time for short lunch.

The real hike of the day was planned to be Fairy Falls & Imperial Geyser. There was also a so-called social trail that allows the view of the Grand Prismatic Spring form a relative height. A ranger in Fishing Bridge told me about it. Not sure why the park doesn’t do anything about it. This social trail is just bushwhacking up a hill loaded with some fallen trees from some old forest fire. They should really considering making a real trail out of it. I doubt it would be possible to prevent people from going there, but at least they can control the erosion. However, the view was spectacular. The spring is so large that it is not really possible to comprehend it standing right next to it (though it has its own beauty). I was really happy we made an effort to go up.

The hike to the Fairy Falls was not difficult – just flat miles through some dry forest. The falls were interesting. I suppose earlier in the season they were really full. Right now, at the end of the summer, there wasn’t much there. After we reached the falls the team was rather reluctant to continue. We still had about a mile to get to the Imperial Geyser. I suppose they were just tired. It was a long day. However, the imperial geyser was really worth the visit. It wasn’t that far anyways.

Actually, compare to the big and famous Old Faithful it was much more interesting. You can sit right next to it. The surroundings are wild, not some shopping mall. And it was going off almost every 15 seconds. It wasn’t shooting up high, but there was still plenty of action. After that the guys wend back at what seemed like half the time.

I was hoping that we can back to the Madison campground before 9PM so that we (or at least I) can attend some interesting presentation. Well, that didn’t happen. After the geysers we went back to the Old Faithful place. The only spot with decent food was the same Old Faithful Lodge. The eating part took a while. We could even see a new eruption from the restaurant window. By the time we were done and get to the campground the presentation about wolves was over. Perhaps I could get people go hurry up, but I didn’t.

Interestingly, all of the stuff in Yellowstone stores, restaurants, and other services, in Tetons too, was comprised mostly from some Asian students. They seem to be on some Summer exchange work. Weird. It is common for places like these to hire seasonal help (like workers in ski resorts). But this looked like some special government program.

September 3, Saturday

Today was supposed to be the first hiking day. However, before that time we had to sort out the car and see the Grand Prismatic Spring again. In reality, the Spring was on the way from  Madison campground to the OK1 trailhead.
Well, technically we’ve seen it, just from a different angle. However, being right next to it has its own appeal. It was good that we arrived relatively early because a bit later that tiny parking lot was inundated with people.

Up close Grand Prismatic Spring was quite spectacular. Lots of steam, smell, great vibrant colors. The spring itself was huge, deep, with turquoise colored water. There were also other springs around it – smaller, different colors, more steam. I saw many hats lying in the spring water. I guess people were too mesmerized to watch for the wind.

Finding the trailhead wasn’t difficult – it was just a small parking lot off the main road. The trickiest part was to arrange the van. The idea was to drive to the end point – Grassy Lake. Leave the car there and then hitchhike back. I didn’t want to arrange some taxi service because I am a cheap skate. Also, somewhere on the web people said that it was possible to hitch a ride. Now, I personally have never hitchhiked in US before so it was all new to me. So we left Rita, Shafi, and Prakash on the trailhead and drove off.

The first problem was the Grassy Lake road – 10 miles of hard dusty gravel madness. I was afraid our Korean van would fall apart, but it held fine. Good thing Hari had a lot of experience driving on beat up gravel roads. On top of it I was afraid there won’t be anyone there going back. Luckily, as soon as we parked the van, we flagged some 4×4 truck that agreed to give us a ride to the John D. Rockefeller Jr. parkway, i.e. the main road. They were going south to Tetons, but we were not in position to complain. The guy was just suited to do that nasty gravel road. And way he did – he blasted at maybe 60 mph through all that potholes. It would have been fine if we didn’t sit in the back. It was Hari’s decision. So we were covered in dust and got the behind beaten up quite a bit. But we made it to the highway. So I though that the difficult part was done. There were much more cars on the highway and we would be able to find a ride.

I was a bit wrong. We started walking towards the South Entrance. There were many cars on the road, but none stopped. Well, in a way we looked like some two homeless dudes – who would want to give us a ride. It was very discouraging two miles. Right before the entrance there was a turnout with a big Yellowstone NP sign. Well, since we were there, might as well take a picture. While I was doing that an SUV pulled out and a woman who was also taking a picture asked we want a picture together. For some reason I said that we want a ride. I generally never that direct. Perhaps I wasn’t expecting a positive answer. But they did offer us ride. Not only that, they drove us right to the starting trailhead even though it was a bit out of their way.

I honestly didn’t know how to pay them. I’ve never hitchhiked in US so I have no idea what the custom was. I wouldn’t mind paying, not at all, but I was afraid people will be offended. Yes, I should have asked them straight, but I missed the time. After that it was awkward. It would have been nice if they asked, but they didn’t. So, I can do it here – to the couple from New Jersey that gave a ride to two hikers on September 3rd in Yellowstone – thank you so much.

Hari and I arrived to the trailhead at around 6PM. It was a bit late, but enough to make it to our first campground – Firehole Springs. In reality we could have even walked at night. There was no rain and there were trails. Just had to make enough noise not to surprise any bears. All the time we were struggling to get back to the starting point I was wondering what we would have to do if Hari and I didn’t make it by nightfall. The guys could camp there. We could maybe camp somewhere. I supposed, even walking, we could have made it to the South Entrance. Well, it would have been difficult, but not deadly. But definitely a lot of experience. It was a lot of experience nonetheless.

The beginning if the track for a couple of miles was a well maintained asphalt road going along a river. The road was going to the Lone Star Geyser. I didn’t really care much about it. Frankly, with all the route planning I forgot about this geyser. But the geyser was amazing. It was erupting roughly every two hours. We were lucky enough to actually make to it by the time of its eruption. No Old Faithful crowds. Beautiful suet scenery. Interesting cone from which the water rushes out. I have to admit that out of all geysers we was during the trip Old Faithful was kind of the worst. Those smaller geysers were much more interesting.

We ave reached the campground fast. There wasn’t much elevation change, not distance. On the way we passed a group composed of 3 generations. They said they were doing this route not the first time. There was already one tent at the campground. I think they were squatting because the campground was for only 6 people and there were five of us. Some British couple trying to make it back to their flight in a few days. Strangely, but these Europeans didn’t have a long vacation. The campground was great – large, well maintained, with a nice river nearby, even a fire pit with logs around it. The Brits said that they saw buffalo walking by. We didn’t see any walking buffaloes, but there were lots of their signs, if you know what I mean. Out neighbors went to bed quite early. I suppose they were already adapted to the outdoor lifestyle. We had dinner and hanged around the campfire for a bit. It was getting cold, so we hanged food on the well visible food bar and went to sleep.

September 4, Sunday

The night was cold an eventful. Thought I just missed all the events. Allegedly either Shafi or Hari heard some noise. Something was growling or moaning outside their tents. They got scared, woke up Prakash, cut the safety cord on a bear spray, were ready to fight, but nothing happened. Not sure if they got any sleep after that. I was out dead. Apparently Rita was too (if she wasn’t, she would definitely let me know). Sadly that animal didn’t walk past our tent.

When we finally got up our squatting neighbors have already left. We set breakfast and try to warm up. There were actually a couple of geothermal features of some sort nearby. Small ones. On one spot on the ground right in the camp was steaming, a little bit. I guess it was a bit hot so it was visible while the air was cold. Still, there was quite a bit of rotten egg smell around.

Took us 3 hours to get going, but finally we were on the trail. It was generally nice foresty trail, aside from going uphill all the time. We’ve met a couple of groups going the other direction and one lonely woman hiker going to our direction. She was actually going to a campground near ours. We were still climbing till perhaps lunch time. Then went to a slightly swampy meadow. We had a break there on a shore of a small creek to rest and get some water. In the process my filter finally mechanically broke. One of the ears on the pump handle broke. Oh, well, this was definitely a sigh to get a new one. Not sure how long they supposed to last exactly, but this filter worked faithfully for me for 6 years.

After the meadow there was forest and with a bit of walking we reached our campground – 9D2 Gregg Fork. Same deal as before – food bar, river, fire pit. This time, however, we were able to find the toilet. The campground was right on the shore of the river. It was dense forest around with wills and only small spots for the tents perched on river bank among the trees. Although it was hot and I was tired and dusty I was a bit reluctant to swim in the cold river. Probably laziness. If it was the Alaska crew they would get me swimming under the peer pressure. The water in Alaska was much colder, but we were still swimming there. However, this group did do some semi-swimming and washing. After that there was again campfire and dinner with some river chilled vodka.

September 5, Monday

Today we will be meeting Mr. Bubbles. Get up, do all the morning busyness, a bit faster than the day before, start walking. A couple of miles from the campground we came to an unmarked trail junction. There was a clear trail going off to the left. With no other trail junction nearby that was clearly the offshoot to the supposed location of Mr Bubbles. So we went there. After a bit we could see the geothermal stuff. There was a small geyser going off all the time on the other side of the river. It was higher than the river level and had very colorful sides. A bit further was another boiling river type of junction with a swimming hole – Mr. Bubbles. From one side a boiling hot river was going meeting a freezing cold river. Then they both went to some underground hot spring creating a very pleasant combination.

Quickly change and go into water. In reality, there wasn’t a choice. There were these big black flies that were biting quite painfully. Any open skin would be bitten. I actually already had a couple of bites from something that wasn’t a mosquito (there were plenty of those too). Some clear liquid was oozing from the bitten places. I remember V was talking about some sort of black flies that were annoying caribou herds up North. Not sure if he was talking about the same. They looked a lot like the horse flies. Generally, flies didn’t bite in Europe. There was a similar insect, but it was mostly next to water. Despite all this, however, Prakash managed to put swimming trunks, goggles and swimming hat.

There were two dudes who were doing some day hike that passed us. Not sure which campground they stayed at. They went to hot water as soon as we left. The hot boiling river was going from somewhere that would be interesting to explore, but for some reason I missed that. After sitting in the hot tub for about an hour we gathered our belonging and continued the journey. It was rather pleasant. We were going along the Bechler river in a valley. Relatively small mountains on the sides, grass, trees, berries, mosquitoes. Had lunch across from a place that all maps for some reason call Patol Station and soon reached our first real river crossing.

Now, I knew that there would be river crossing and I stated this in the plan and asked people to bring appropriate gear. However, my impression was that the rivers will be slow. After all there was no melting snow nearby. But that river wasn’t slow at all – it was going. Good thing it wasn’t cold. So I recalled all my Alaska training – face the river, step sideways, unbuckle the hip belt – and just crossed. Comparing to the last time we did this in Yosemite this Bechler river wasn’t that bad. Rita, however got stuck and was asking for help. So I had to go back and hold her hand.

The map showed at least two crossings. Perhaps there were more, but it was hard to tell. The second crossing was trickier. The river looked bigger and deeper. I also knew that Rita would be in trouble, so I had to pair up with her. Prakash, who actually also had Alaska river crossings training, went first. He went directly from the end of the trail on this side to the other, which probably wasn’t the most efficient way. Shafi went after him. In the deepest point Shafi’s pole collapsed and he went down. He tried to get up and managed to do it on the second attempt. In the mean time he lost that collapsed pole, hat and sun glasses. Shafi was scared big time especially considering that he couldn’t swim. Shoot, I should have gone first as the leader. To somehow resolve the problem I decided to cross and leave the pack on the other side. While crossing back I found a much better place to cross, much shallower, a bit down the stream. I carried Rita’s pack while Prakash handheld Rita herself who became for some reason thirsty in the middle of the river (fear and stress probably). So eventually we all made it.

I decided to check a bit further the trail if there were any more crossings. I didn’t think that group was capable of any more crossings this day. Plus the river was getting bigger and bigger. But there were no more crossings and within an hour we reached our campground – 9B5 Colonnade Falls. The campground was very close to the Bechler river. There were some trees, but mostly bushes and grassland. There were just open spaces for tents and fire. The toilet was very close so everyone can see who is going.

September 6, Tuesday

Well, after an eventful previous day this one would be just a simple walking day. After the campground there was another beautiful waterfall. These waterfalls – this one Colonnade Falls and the Iris Falls – weren’t tall and massive like Yosemite falls. The terrain here didn’t allow for such tall falls. But they were rather wide. The entire Bechler river was falling down. In addition to that this was all in a valley with mountains and forest on both sides.

The trail was going on the side of the valley, flat. There was scree mingled with some forest. Lots of raspberry bushes on the trail. In reality I was expecting lot of berries in this park. But there weren’t many. Maybe it was late in the season or lack of rain. After the valley we went into a meadow. It was dry, but it looked that could be very swampy when the snow was still melting.

For lunch we did a small detour to the same old Bechler river. The same campground could also be reached by a different trail. However, it was longer and involved two river crossings.  It was kind of hard to convince this group to do it. The river, however, wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t going down much and was quite mallow and easy to cross. During lunch we saw a couple of people going either to or from Bechler ranger station so they had to do all those river crossings.

After lunch we went to a forest again. It was hot and humid. It felt that a promised thunderstorm was coming. There were dark clouds and sometimes I heard thunder. But nothing came of it. Sad. A good short thunderstorm would be lovely. There were still river crossings, though not nearly as difficult as the day before. After a bit the forest leveled out into some sort of meadow sprinkled with spruce trees. It was fine walking, not difficult, just dusty and a bit boring. AT the edge of one the meadows was our campground – 9U1 Falls River Cutoff. According to the map it was a bit South from a trail junction. I wasn’t sure how far. Also, based on the scenery around I was afraid that it may be dry. But it was all good. The campground was pretty much right next to the junction. And there was a beautiful river close by. The campground was designed for many people and horses (or stock) so it had two food bars. But no one came and we had it all to ourselves.

There was standard cleaning, cooking, fire. I didn’t swim in the river again, although I was dusty all over. That place, however, was great for photography. At dusk the sun put this nice colors on the valley and the trees around. There were a couple of clouds to add some variety to the blue sky. The guys in the group went crazy taking photos. Not only the nature, but also posing. I also did a little. The problem was that the area was beautiful, but I didn’t know how to capture that beauty exactly. I saw that some good photo could be made there. I just didn’t know how.

September 7, Wednesday

Today is the finish day. The car should be waiting for us above the damn. My filter had finally conked out. The washer on the top that should prevent water from coming out of the pump was out. As a result the water was shooting, under good pressure, right towards the pumping handle. As a result the efficiency went down to maybe 10%. Since we didn’t have a backup, pumping for such a large group of heavy drinkers would take a very long time. Well, there was no backup filter, but we had iodine tablets. Personally, the water looked fine to me. It was moving fast so no stagnated water diseases and it wasn’t silty. But, to make sure, I mixed the required amount of tablets in the water bucket. The instructions were a bit confusing so I wasn’t exactly sure if I did it correctly.

Prakash, one of sudden, decided to shave. WTF? He was actually doing it before during the trip. Well, if not, then shaving that 5 days old beard would be a challenge. Still, who was he shaving for and spending all that hot water? The funny thing was that he didn’t have a mirror. So he used a camera to feed back video on the screen as a mirror.

We were making good progress. The trail was going through dense forest. This time there were blueberries. Small but very sweet. It was difficult not to stop and eat them. There were river crossings. One very long and difficult climb right in the middle of the day before lunch. At almost the end we get to Falls River river. Our last river crossing in the trip. It looked scary – wide, deep, and fast. This time I decided to go first and scout the route. But with all the scare the river wasn’t that difficult. It wasn’t very deep and quite refreshing.

After that with a bit of walking we were done. The van was in the expected spot, working fine. Everyone was in good spirits to finally reach the civilization. On the way back on that gravel road there were some obstacles. A biker who was going the other way said that there were fallen trees on the road. Great. How can we pass them. The first tree was a small pine. All our man together just pushed it off the road. It wasn’t that difficult. The second tree we just passed.

After the gravel dust we turned South and were going to Colter Bay Village. Beautiful view of the Jackson Lake with Tetons behind it. It was hard not to stop and take more photos. However, I was a bit afraid that the campground may not have any space. Colter Village was a busy place with all sorts of activities and services. They had a store, a restaurant, marina, showers and laundry. All the necessities. We got a camp spot and went to wash up. Prakash got us a family deal. I was kind of wondering if a family in this case would also require everyone to wash together. But in reality it was just a group discount. The laundry/shower even had free WiFi. Too bad that my phone for some reason was on all the time and now was out of power. I couldn’t find any plug to charge it.

After the showers we went to the shore of the Jackson lake. It was dusk again – the best time for photos. Beautiful sight to see with lake and mountains. It was getting a bit chilly after the sun went down. We went to eat to the only open place around – historic Ranch House restaurant. The description had that John Rockefeller Jr bought up all small places around and opened this one up to have good dining experience with nice view. Well, the view was out already, but we can assume that he was correct. This restaurant actually served buffalo steaks, which was what I had. With some less than average vine. Hari didn’t make a good selection this time. In addition to the steak there was salad buffet so we gorged again.

Finally, this day we were done by 9PM. I was hoping that there is a presentation in the visitor center, but there was none. The activities were closed for the season. I guess the fate was for me not see any ranger led presentation this trip. Prakash bought some wood, lemon and potatoes. He plan was to bake the potatoes. Not sure how exactly he was planning to do that or for how long. It takes a while to really get the ashes ready for the potatoes. We cooked them somehow, enough to try out.

The campground was standard – flat sandy forest. Pretty large. I guess commercial operation so they want to maximize guests per number of stuff. Lots of RVs, no hot water in the restroom. It had a heater but it wasn’t working. The place had this feeling that the season was over. There were no ranger activities; the Chinese guys in the shower room were saying that they will go back in a week. I wonder if anything will even be open in a couple of weeks. However, it would be interesting to visit this place in other seasons.

September 8, Thursday

Get up, trying to warm up after a cold night. After packing we stumbled into the only open restaurant in the area. The same one that we had dinner the night before. I didn’t really want to do all this sit down restaurant thing because it usually takes way too long and I end up eating too much. But due to a lack of alternative I wasn’t insisting too hard. I thought that perhaps they have something small simple and fast. Well, the only thing they had was a buffet breakfast. Standard American food with paper fried bacon, sausages, eggs, pancakes, fruits, and coffee. Enough calories to run a marathon. So with all that food we barely rolled out of there by 10AM. A bit late. There was a very long drive ahead. However, with all that food we probably won’t have to stop for lunch. We stopped at now open visitor center for some browsing. They also had Indian Art museum, but we didn’t have time for detailed browsing.

The first part of the drive was through gorgeous Grand Teton NP. That was the highway from which all that iconic images are made – a valley, lake, and sharp peaks rising behind it.

After that it was just driving with nothing much spectacular to see. This road, however, was a bit different from the Idaho side. There were more mountains here. Idaho was mostly flat. Hari was blasting like mad. With all the food and photography we were running late. We still had to wash the car, return one bear spray and extra fuel. It all had to be done before 5PM.

We made it to Salt Lake City by 5:30PM or so. I’ve called the rental guys that we were going to be late. They told us to leave the van at some partner place called Park & Jet. We got it washed. Returned one unopened Bear Spray. However, getting rid of extra fuel was a challenge – they didn’t know what to do with it at REI. Finally they found some bottle that can be used to store our fuel.

That was all. We get the bugs, passed the bogus security, bought some food for the flight. The flight was again like a bus with a stop in LA. Some sort of sport team was traveling. Filled up almost the entire plane. On the way back Prakash’s friend gave us a ride home.

Epilogue

The trip with a couple of hiccups went quite well. No one got injured, the route wasn’t altered. A note for the future: get a map with campsites. National geographic sells one big Yellowstone map and smaller sectional maps. The sectional maps have the campgrounds on them, also mileage and river crossing information. Much more useful.

Shafi’s photos are here.
Rita’s photos are here.
My photos are here.

This is my second trip to the great state of Alaska. It is also the second long backpacking trip. The previous trip, however great, wasn’t in the Arctic, so I had to go again. For some reason I only do long backpacking trips in Alaska, so far. Not sure if it is good or bad.

Since this wasn’t the first trip I hope to be better prepared. The dropped requirement for crampons was helping with weight too (there was some weird request to bring bike helmets as a protection during river crossings. Thankfully it was dropped as well). Somehow this time around I’ve managed to fit all my food into the bear box – 12 days of it. I seem to be getting better at (or I will be a lot skinnier at the end).

So, with a strong experienced group and good leadership was promising to be a great trip.

July 22, Friday

Fly out from SFO day. I couldn’t take this day off because  it would put me over the 2 weeks  time limit and thus would create all sorts of administrative problems. As a result, I was going to prepare and go from work directly. The good thing is that I could show-off all my hard-core backpacking stuff to my co-workers! Well, they weren’t really impressed.

The running started right off the train. Our ingenious public transportation system  makes using it really difficult. Why not put the CalTrain or something right in the airport? No, this would be too easy. Instead I had to jump from CalTrain to BART, negotiate that stupid ticket machine in less than a minute, then take BART one stop to San Francisco and one stop back from San Francisco, then take the SFO air tram. So I arrived to the UA’s terminal in the condition as if I ran half a marathon. But the best fun started later.

It appeared that United bought Continental. I wasn’t a big fan of either of them, but it doesn’t really matter. They managed to change the signs in SFO, but forgot to link the systems. When I showed my tickets to some employees of what clearly showed United Airlines they exclaimed “Ahhh, you are for United! That’s not us. Go to the real United”. WTF? Then the United counter had one worker for maybe 10 lines. Things were not looking good, or fast. All that free market bologna – that monopoly UA worked no faster than our old government USSR service.

Surprisingly I wasn’t late to the flight. The flight was delayed. I’m not really sure how this all working out for the allegedly struggling airlines. They keep charging more and more for each little details (there are rumors that soon even the toilets will soon be not free), so people keep cramming more and more in carry-on. This causing more time to load and unload thus causing delays. How much those delays really cost them? Well, they who make decisions don’t fly coach. Who are paying are the passengers.

Initially the delay between the flights in Seattle was about an hour. Girish got a call from United that the time was too tight and they rescheduled him on a direct flight. I got none of those treatment. On top of this the flight was late shrinking the delay to 20 min. Thankfully they came to their senses and thus Venkad and I were driven by a small bus between the planes right on the airstrip in Seattle (sweet). We didn’t even go to the terminal.

Finally arrived to Anchorage. There was no food on the flight because it was too short. I bought some tasteless burgher in the terminal while Venkad and I were waiting for V to pick us up. The rest of the gang was already settled in the hostel which appeared fine despite some scary reviews. I guess it was the usual case – the reviewers want to pay for a hostel but get a 5-star resort.

July 23, Saturday

Officially, the first day of the trip. Well, actually all we have to do is to procure some supplies and eventually get to Fairbanks at a reasonable time where I found a reasonable campground (I could say before dark, but it doesn’t really apply here). As a result of this plan everything was moving way too slow. I found some Russian place to eat in downtown Anchorage that was closed (why exactly I was thinking of Anchorage as a good place to find Russian cuisine I still don’t understand). So we had a standard heavy American breakfast at some western joint.

Then went around town – souvenirs, weird salmon-flavored chocolate, photos with Sarah Palin, visit to REI, firewater. Basically, we just got on the road at around 11AM.

First big stop was next to Denali NP. There is a highway overpass right next to the main Denali NP entrance. A small commercial town grew up there. There are places to stay, lots of outfitters, a gas station, food of different sorts, and souvenir shops. The only problem is that it felt as if the entire place was in a giant wind tunnel – it was just blowing relentlessly all the time. The lack of trees and sandy soil made it much harder. So the group dispersed in search of suitable place to eat that will satisfy all the competing requirements. Now, I like to eat good food just as much as the next guy. However, in my experience looking for the best place in a set of unknown choices is a waste of time. Since there is not enough information to make an intelligent choice (i.e. no one really tried the food in the set), the result will be the same as random. So might as well just pick something and save time because the result will be pretty close anyway.

But this algorithm didn’t find many supporters in our group. So I ended up ordering a ton of pretty good Thai food enough for two people (there was just one dish). What is strange is that Alaska seemed to be teaming with Thai places (no Russian food this year at all). Anchorage had them, Fairbanks, this Denali village. I mean, I’m not against Thai food, but why Thai? Strange. I didn’t know Thai people can even handle that cold (joke).

Besides the food there were souvenirs. All sorts of cheap touristy crap. There were Ulu knife sets for $3.99 – a very popular item in the group. From my two trips to Alaska I still didn’t buy those knives – just don’t know what to do with them. They may be ok as a souvenir to put on a shelf. Other than that I doubt I’ll ever use one as a real knife. But those $3.99 ones were made in China. I mean, seriously? In Alaska to buy traditional Ulu knife made in China (the box very explicitly stated that the set was designed in Alaska, but still). However, I did find a very nice jade bears explicitly labeled Made in Alaska, though a bit more expensive.

Arrived to Fairbanks at … some time. It was hard to tell because it was still light. Perhaps it was 9PM. Got the last open camp-site at the Chiena River campground. The campground was fine, even had free WiFi close to the router, lots of berries that other people for some reason didn’t pick, but a very noisy street nearby. For the evening we went to stroll around the tiny downtown. I was lugging around that leftovers of my Thai lunch because I didn’t want to waste it. I was thinking that I can eat it for dinner. Since it was way after 9PM the only place that was open was the McCafferty’s coffee-house (all that Thai places in the vicinity were closed) which wasn’t exactly a dinner spot.

But it was still fun. They’ve had live music. The lead singer was actually the proprietor of the place. The coffee and other drinks were tasty (I’ve had some sort of pumpkin drink). We stayed there till 10PM when they finished playing, since there wasn’t much else to do and it was still light. Then we had a little conversation about the rich cultural life that is flourishing in Fairbanks largely supported by volunteer efforts.

July 24, Sunday

Unlike the previous day this was supposed to be a tight schedule day. The original plan, as I later found out, was to be dropped into the field today. A bit ambitious, but possible, weather permitting.

Get up was sometime very early. Since it was Sunday early morning everything seem to be closed. Everything fast and decent at least. I just spotted one open place – a doughnut shop owned by some diligent but rather unfriendly Chinese people. Well, enough for coffee of sorts and some sugar with carbs, at least for me – I’m not too picky this early in the morning.

After a bit of driving we reached the Wild West, sorry – Wild North – the James W. Dalton Highway.

I still don’t understand what was so special about that sign. It marked the beginning of the long wild nasty gravel road. The road doesn’t have much services. There are a couple of gas station far between. All the food and supplies have to be trucked in (which makes them all taste the same). And there is that ever-present pipeline snaking in parallel. However, if needed one can just pull over and camp. No permit required. The driving, like on any other gravel road, requires careful attention and basically a cool head – going slower will allow you to go further. The strange thing is that the highway is not always gravel. It has some sections of asphalt, for some reason. BLM actually produces a very nice free brochure about the highway. It describes the history, all the mile posts, nature, dangers and beautiful spots.

The first notable stop was on the Yukon River crossing. The bridge was a beautiful marvel of engineering. There was a special small bridge for the pipeline.

Interestingly, right after the river there was this hut with some souvenirs and informational materials about all that BLM lands around and about the highway. You can even get a certificate that you reached the Arctic Circle. On the other side of the highway there was an eating place/store/shower/gasoline/and probably a place to stay – basically what a road sign calls services. We’ve had lunch there consisting mostly of burgers. It was already raining, drizzling mostly.

More driving till the Grayling lake. This is the spot where we were going to be picked up and flown to Bettles. It turns out that Alaska has, at least, two Grayling lakes – one is in Yukon Flats area, another is where we were going next to the Dalton highway. A search in Google maps points you to the lake in Yukon Flats. On the way to our lake we stopped at the very important point – the Arctic Circle sign. How can we miss that obvious touristy spot. Well, our group wasn’t the only one there taking stupid photos. After that in a couple of hours we reached the starting lake.

That was it. We called the Bettles air from my finely working Iridium satellite phone to pick us up, packed, and were ready to go. We should return to this van – our only link to civilization in 12 days or so. That is assuming the weather cooperates. So far it was raining, all the time, just a bit harder or softer. The thinking was that pilots don’t fly late in the day (after 5PM) so we may end up camping on this lake (not so bad, there was a parking lot and a toilet not far from our van). But suddenly they decided that the weather was fine to fly (cloud level wasn’t very low so that they can see the mountains) and it wasn’t so late and sent two planes at the same time.

The airplanes landed fine. However, that dock on the lake from which the passengers usually get into the plane was gone somewhere. As a result we had to do the barefoot boarding – take off the boots and walk to the float. Great service with this airline – no movie, no peanuts, and have to walk through water to the airplane. Good thing they didn’t ask us to fly the damn thing. /end_sarcasm In fact the movie was very good – just look out the window.

The flight to Bettles was short and uneventful. I have to tell you that water landing is great, very soft. The best airplane landing I’ve ever experienced.

Bettles is a tiny town inside of the GAAR (GAAR is Gates of the Arctic – this is how NPS abbreviates this park). It looks like some resort town somewhere on Caribbean or Thailand. It actually reminded me about McCarthy a lot. The town (!) has an airport, some residences, a ranger station for the park, hotel Hilton where we stayed, two lodges, and two (at least) mushing dog places. There is no way to get to Bettles in Summer other than by air. The road works only in winter when everything freezes. But there are still services – there is data connection to the world, probably by satellite, and some reasonably priced food in the lodge, not much fresh fruits and vegetables though. I did see a couple of vegetable beds around town, but it is hard to say if they were for food or decoration. There was also a small greenhouse next to the airfield with some tomatoes. It seems that local people still want to eat good food so they grow their own (the same thing actually appeared in that suburban neighborhood in Fairbanks we stayed in – lots of people were growing their own vegetables).

That was it. We landed on some landing lake. Then got delivered to the airport and checked into Hilton, courtesy of Bettles Air and free of charge. They told us that we can use some old open hangar to cook and even shower. That hangar had a small kitchen, non-working stove, a bathroom of some sort. Some people were rebuilding old airplanes there. Interestingly there were bug repellent bottles on almost every table. I guess mosquitoes were really bad there (Did I tell you that there are almost 40 species of mosquitoes in Alaska).

After we settled into the Hilton it was time to cook some dinner. It didn’t feel like it was almost midnight – the regular human clock we had before wasn’t working because it was always light. It was cloudy with some drizzle so it was difficult to tell what time it was. The area around was sort of foresty. Some trees were growing, bushes, grass, but there was not much layer of soil – mostly rocks and sand. Perhaps there was permafrost underneath. Yet this didn’t prevent mushrooms from growing. Maybe it was the rain, maybe locals just didn’t pick them, but there were tons around, all sorts too. Very good boletes.

Igor picked up enough to cook for dinner. So with a lonely onion from the airport store and some weird local beers that we managed to get from the lodge before it closed he started cooking. Igor wanted to preserve the taste of onions and mushrooms. As a result the cooking time was getting long. However it was still light so it didn’t feel very late. Well, technically it didn’t, but I was tired and sleepy since I had to wake people up that day very early. So I tried the freshly cooked mushrooms with onions and retired into our Hilton suite.

July 25, Monday

First order of business was to visit the ranger station to get permits and become educated on proper behavior inside the park. The ranger station was nice, clean and new looking. Well, the park was just organized in 1980. They showed us a movie about leaving no trace in the Arctic, which always a useful reminder.  The two rangers there showed us the route we were planning. They actually had pictures of the exact place we were going to, the pass that V was planning to cross (what was he thinking?), and the trail. I was a bit disappointed – how well was that area traveled so that the ranges had so many photos of it. And this was supposed to be the least visited park in the nation? Perhaps I shouldn’t have seen it. But they also gave me the GPS coordinates of some hot spring in the area – 67°29.129′ 153°53.124′ (I actually have no idea what that “hot spring” really is in reality).

After some light breakfast in the hangar we … went back to the ranger station to watch a movie about the park. What else to do? It was still raining so the airplanes didn’t fly. All we could do is wait for the weather to clear. After that movie there was a bit heavy lunch at the Bettles Lodge and then another movie. A movie about an older guy who hiked and the paddled all the way from Canada till the mouth of Yukon river. It took him time and money to organize this sort of trip. He actually went over that pass in Arrigetch peaks that we, at this point,were not going to. Suddenly the weather cleared a bit and we were off to the Circle Lake – our starting point.

This time the deboarding was not barefoot. We landed in a thick young forest on the slope of the mountains. The idea was to move a bit down the Alatna river and then turn left towards the Arrigetch peaks. This involved a bit of heavy bushwhacking and walking on tussock. It was slow progress, good thing we didn’t have to worry about walking in the dark. However, to make things worth it started raining again, the group also wasn’t acclimatized to backpacking (well, yes, we were all experienced, sure, but no matter what the first day (and the day after) are always difficult). I personally had my stupid eye+head ache. Funny it always comes up at the beginning of long trips (aside from other cases of unknown origin). All of this didn’t make the going enjoyable, for everyone. In retrospect it seem to have discouraged our leader from pushing the group to what it is really capable. Eventually we broke the camp at some flatish point  that was relatively clear of trees and large bushes. It didn’t matter much to me. Sorry, guys, but I just wanted to sleep off that headache.

July 26, Tuesday

It was raining half of the night. I was sharing the tent with Balder this time. The tent was generously landed to us by Yuhua. It was a fancy 4-season climbing single wall tent, similar to this one. I can’t say I was really ecstatic about this tent (sorry, Yuhua). It did serve its purpose, however, didn’t leak or rip. But for the price it didn’t even come with a rainfly, which in  that conditions would be quite useful. Good thing I brought some garbage bags. So it was raining. By morning it was drizzling and foggy. However, that didn’t stop mosquitoes to do what mosquitoes do. They weren’t too bad, but still annoying. I’ve picked up some blueberries for breakfast. There weren’t nearly as dense as we saw in Wrangell, but there were some, everywhere. Perhaps it was a bit early in the season.

Around after breakfast it started clearing up, just a little bit, very little. Oh well, we had to go anyway. Everything was wet and heavy – closes, backpack, tent, bushes and trees all over. Even the food inside my bear box was wet. I still have no idea how the water got to it. My bear can, unlike others should not leak water inside if a can is just standing there. On top of it I wisely left the cheese inside the box in its original packaging. As a result and due to warm temperature it leaked lots of fat all over the place. But eventually the weather cleared so much that it became quite warm.

We were still bushwhacking our way through. My filter went down. The day before I decided that the prefilter was impeding the progress and removed it. However, this clogged up the main pump with some wood pieces. Thus my filter was out of commission. We can still use the filtering cartridge, but in some other pump. My boots started leaking slowly. So sad. These were high quality $250 leather boots. They were supposed to be bomb-proof. Oh, well, I guess nothing lasts forever. Igor’s and V’s boots were leaking as well; not sure about Girish’s. For lunch we stumbled upon an area which was relatively free from tall bushes. Recent advent of a warm sunny weather allowed people to dry their stuff. Alaska can be very nice when it isn’t raining. Withe the nice weather we could hear all the airplanes flying around.

After a bit of walking we cam across of an established campsite (least visited park, eh?) and called it a day. It was a nice place – flat, with some trees, a small creek not too far. The large main river was roaring down below.

After dinner the advanced (i.e. crazy) group decided to scale some unnamed peak next to the site. It didn’t look to difficult to me just nasty – lots of bushes to whack, mosquitoes, so I passed (there were some other reasons also, one of them was that I started enjoying the book that brought). But the view from the top was probably spectacular.

July 27, Wednesday

Start hiking. The weather was actually turning very nice – no rain, fluffy clouds, quite warm. Due to seem very high humidity I was sweating like a … The trail largely continued the bushwhacking theme with some variations of boulder fields. Since these mountains were old the boulders already had a good layer of losses and lichens making them quite slippery (there will be worse to come). But suddenly we stumbled on a trail (!). I would like to think that it was an animal trail. But the sad fact that it was probably largely human. With the trail the progress went much better.

For lunch we found a nice swimming hole. It was quite warm to people swam. Even I did it, though the water was far from Caribbean. The water was a bit  cloudy from silt, but there was actually small fish in it. At that time we met the group of hikes that started after us. They came on the place the day before. There were just two people with two payed guides. They were making a hell of a progress. Perhaps they knew exactly where the trail was. One of their guides was leading trips in these mountain for many-many years. He was nice enough to hold his groups so that we can pretend we are in total isolation. Perhaps he actually was mostly  taking care of this clients.

After lunch we just booked it. The trail was huge help. Even though it wasn’t a well maintained national park service standard issue trail, it was still a big help. It was getting hot a humid. I could just feel the coming rain. So far, however, only a light drizzle arrived. As soon as I find a good relatively flat spot on the bank of the Arrigetch creek we broke the camp.

It was a good camp – nice view of the Arrigetch peaks (well, we will be looking at them for the next 4 days), beautiful refreshing river, a view of some unnamed waterfall across the river. The people set into their camp routine. There was a lot of massage done, washing, cleaning, gear repair. I managed to rip a sizable hole in my battered inflatable pad. Perhaps it was done during the bushwhacking section. Good thing Igor had some fancy heat activated glue and was able to repair it. I doubt duck tape by itself would hold. One more thing to bring to trips – pad repair kit. After dinner a more advanced group went up to see the small waterfall across the creek. I joined them. We didn’t do anything crazy, just went up to it and took funny pictures. What else was there to do – it was still light.

July 28, Thursday

Why do people get up so late – 8:30AM? We barely started rolling at 11AM. What is this – a pleasure trip? It was a short hike. Basically go a bit further up towards the peaks and find a good place for a base camp. The camp selected was on a bit of a plateau with good views of the Arrigetch valley (whenever it was actually visible). It had remains of some animal and tons of goat or sheep droppings. It would be nice to see them. However, I doubt we would see anyone with all that noise a large group makes. Actually there was a third group that went ahead of us. But they were climbers so by that time they have probably crossed the pass already.

I can’t say that I like base camping (set up one camp and do day hikes). It kind of messes up my head because I don’t see a clear set goal for each day. An idea was floated to get our of this park (GAAR) early. The reason was that the environment we went into wasn’t looking like Arctic Tundra. It looked more like, say, Colorado. So we could get out early, drive further North and perhaps camp there. Well, personally I don’t like change in plans. For me it is always difficult. Maybe I’m just to set in my head for some plan to change it. But things always come up and plans have to be adjusted. So it could be also a better plan – when would I have another opportunity to go so far North. Well, we would see. There were a couple of variables that had to fall into place for the new plan to work. Personally I was fine with bushwhacking till Thursday – I didn’t have a headache any more.

After setting the cam we went to explore the first glacier valley. I’m not really sure how the order came about. It was mostly remains of some melted glacier. I could be still sitting there under the rocks, but there wasn’t much left of it on the surface. The going was as slow as the first day of bushwhacking. It was all big talus field with sizable rocks covered in all sorts of lichens. One had to be constantly focused to prevent falls.

First it is fun, but it gets tiring after some time. We reached the perfectly formed cirque, took pictures, and went back. After that just do the regular chores, washing, cooking, dinner, read, and sleep. For some reason no one wanted to do any extra after dinner hikes this day. To tell the truth the constant light didn’t really bother me at this point. I probably adapted to the new environment and slept just fine, especially after a long day of hiking.

July 29, Friday

Today is another base camp valley hiking day. For some reason the longer the daylight the more people sleep. We’ve been getting up later and later. Why am I can’t sleep like everyone else, wake up like a clock at 7AM. The funny thing is that the time zone is different. So I should be waking up at 8AM local time. Oh, well. Maybe they were all doing something half the night.

But when I came out of the tent I saw a lone wolf. Regular standard issue gray wolf. He ran around the tents, marked that antlers and went off somewhere. Haha. Early bird gets …  a wolf.

After breakfast we went to the most opposite valley that was visited the day before. It was getting cleared up a bit after all that rain during the night. Our neighbors also went into the same valley, though they did get up earlier. Was there some kind of an agreement on the order of valley visit? We could just as well visit the valleys in a different order and not mess up each others’ wilderness experience.

Initially there was a beautiful flat meadow with the river running through. We saw some bear tracks on sand, so the bears must be coming here to eat. After a bit it turned into the same slippery scree with a river right next to it. It started drizzling so no one really wanted to continue further. We found a nice overhanging rock to eat lunch. At least it can protect from some rain. Our neighbors actually went a lot further up the valley. Perhaps they wanted to get their money’s worth. There was probably some small glacier at the end. But going there is a major pain hopping on all that wet boulders.

After that there was another photoshoot we decided to head back. Personally I’ve had some stomach problems so I didn’t feel very well. I think Girish was suffering from the same problem. I don’t know about Igor though. But the three of us headed back. From the rest V and Gaelle stayed to just meditate. The others decided to scale one more peak or at least a valley above a waterfall. On the way back the grassy meadow presented a nice stage for photos. There was no rush to go back – it wasn’t raining yet and we didn’t have a schedule to keep.

After early dinner Balder, Yuhua, and me were just sitting in the tent reading, talking, making fun of Igor who at midnight went to cook some water and eat again.

July 30, Saturday

Get up, eat, go the last valley – the one with the lakes. Again our neighbors got up and headed out before and way further than we did. But it was fine. The weather was ok with cloud cover. The lakes were beautiful azure color. There were even ducks or some sort of birds. I was wondering if there was any fish in there. The thing is that I bought that fishing license and I really wanted to use it (the license even specified the exact time when I could fish). However, at this point the food wasn’t an issue because it appeared that the group resigned to do a short trip.

It was possible to go further. There was total of four lakes one after another, at least according to our maps. The largest one was the second. But it all involved more and more rock hopping.

So the same advanced group went further and the same lame group stayed behind. We just sat there for a while looking at the beauty of the lakes and headed back. Then it started. It seemed as the skies just opened and it poured torrential rain. I thought it usually drizzles in Alaska, but this definitely wasn’t the case. I also decided not to get sweaty in the rain pants ans didn’t take them. Should have known better. By the time we reached the camp I was wet, everywhere except the boots. For some reason that brand new Columbia Peak Assent jacket leaked through. Not a lot, but still. I thought it was completely waterproof. Anyway, I just went into the my tent to dry out. Igor and Girish were sitting there cooking water. I guess they didn’t care any more about the rain. Igor was actually so nice to bring me tea to the tent.

So I just sat there reading my science fiction stories, trying to dry out. The rest of the gang came back a bit later totally soaked. I don’t know how these guys can sustain this and not get sick. Perhaps their immune system is tuned differently. However, after a while I had to come out and eat. At least it wasn’t raining as hard. I called the airline. We had to make sure that they have time to pick us up from circle lake. We may want to come out, but if they don’t have planes available then we would have to just sit and wait. They did have planes. The problem was that the circle lake wasn’t big enough for a float plane to take off with 4 people. As a result, they would have to shuttle us by 2 to Takahula and then take off from there. Oh, well. This actually presented a problem – what if the weather changes and half of the group would be in one spot and half in another?

Late in the evening, after the food was done and vodka finished we had a singing session. Venkad, Balder, Gaelle, Yuhua, V and yours truly were singing, somewhat reluctantly, songs in different languages, mostly their native languages. Even V sang one, some old country song. He forgot all Tamil songs over the years.

July 31, Sunday

Morning brought more rain, then fog. But we had to break the camp so there wasn’t much choice. However, after a bit the weather cleared, even full rainbow appeared. When it did Yuhua yelled so loud I almost lost my hearing. We were kind of struggling to break camp. It took quite a while to pack up. I guess after several days in the same spot it wasn’t easy. Then there were also pictures and stuff. So we basically rolled from the camp at around 1PM.

With the newly discovered trail the progress was good. By lunch time, whenever that was, we reached the same old watering hole. It was actually warm and sunny enough for people to dry closes and equipment and actually swim. Swimming is not a problem per se, even in that cold water. The problem is how to dry up after that. Some people swam in that whole. I didn’t. It wasn’t warm enough for my taste. But Venkad was swimming all the time. Perhaps different people have different levels of tolerance to not being showered. I didn’t mind. V have never swam (in all the trips I had with him I’ve never seen him swim). He did, however, shaved as soon as he had a chance.

We also tried to fish in that swimming whole. There were a couple of small fishes there, probably grayling. They were biting really well. The problem was that I have brought way to large hooks. That was fine exercise, we weren’t going to mess with cooking them anyway.

After we started heading down it started raining again. This time I was wiser and put my rain pants on. But soon the rain stopped an I started swimming in my closes. I couldn’t get any break – either wet inside our wet outside.

We reached the same camping knoll we stayed at a couple of days earlier. This time, however, it was occupied by the park rangers on their whatever mission. Likely there was another spot right next door. One of the park ranges, as soon as he saw our group, came over to talk. I suppose they don’t really see large groups like that often.

The weather wasn’t sunny, but wasn’t rainy either. Good enough for dinner, talk, some close drying, and foot massage. This time around no one wanted to scale that peak next to the campground. For some reason it became very cold that night. Usually, it wasn’t very cold so far this trip. But his particular night it was. Well, I suppose some peculiarities of the Arctic weather.

August 1, Monday

Today is a potential get out day. Sad, I was really looking forward to a very long backpacking trip. The weather seemed nice so we may actually be lucky. It would be really unfortunate to get stuck sitting on a lake waiting for weather to clear for a couple of days. (Well, I could perfect my non-existent fishing skills).

With the trail we were making great progress. In a couple of hours we have reached the main Arrigetch creek valley. It was kind of flattish valley with the river just meandering though. This meandering actually created many small lakes and islands. Man, the forest there was plentiful – lots of blueberries, mushrooms. Different types of mushrooms. I’ve never seen so many types of mushrooms in such a small place. Too bad we’ve missed this place the first day.

We’ve reached circle lake by lunch time, made a call to the traffic controller in Bettles and prepared to wait. There was a broken Twin Otter nearby that we saw on the way in. Right now it wasn’t visible, but there were some strange noises coming from the place where it was expected to be. Vencad and Igor went to check it out. Suddenly there was one the Bettles Air beavers coming from behind the bushes. It turned out that with the current wind the pilot can take off with 4 people no problem. Then we can Takahula shuttle busyness. Nice, we can save some money too. I went with the first batch straight to Bettles.

As soon as we let to the airport, Igor went to shower. And he calls himself an outdoorsman? Anyway, Girish in the mean time used the satellite phone to call his wife (which the company didn’t charge for some reason). But the party was over before they knew it. The Bettles Air guys told us that they can fly us to the van (Grayling lake) right away since the weather is good, which they did. The advanced group flew from Bettles to the van and the rest went straight to the van. I did, however, managed to visit the Ranger Station and pick up their fancy bandana. Well, the bandana was just unique – it’s is bright orange to be visible from a bush plane and it has some information on backpacking. It is just unique. Other parks don’t have it.

On the way back I piloted the plane, a little bit. We have had a bare foot deboarding again. On top of this the rain started really picking up. So by the time actually went on the road with our jump started van it was pouring and everything, including the inside the van, was wet. Likely the drive was short – just till the town of Coldfoot, AK.

Well, whether they were happy to see us in Coldfoot camp will probably never be known. We were basically the largest group of foreigners they’ve ever seen. The eating place – diner of some sorts – had orders but we went to the buffet I don’t remember why any more. Perhaps it was after 7 days of eating not enough of freeze-dried food. The food was nothing fancy – standard American buffet fare. At least they had some fruits and vegetables and hot tea. There was also a full bar, but I’ve skipped that. There were always some people coming in and out, drinking, talking. Some tourists, I suppose, some maybe construction workers. The truckers that carry stuff to Deadhorse had their own corner. I hope they weren’t drinking. The place even had a laundry, which we used. There was also a multiagency visitor/information center across the road. Very well built with expansive interesting displays. Just no visitors. So we were just sitting there in the diner waiting I guess for the rain to subside, no one minded. There was also a vote on where to go – North or South. North won. I think it was the right decision. It would be much better if the van didn’t break down, but I guess it is not possible to have everything. At about midnight we have relocated to the Marion Creek Campground nearby.

August 2, Tuesday

It started raining again during the night. The evening was dry, but I guess that didn’t last long. It was actually hard to tell the time of the day – it was all the same gray. Somehow we packed all that wet equipment into the generously smelling van and went to Coldfoot to eat. There was actually not much choice – there is nothing for 270 miles from Coldfoot till  Deadhorse. Breakfast was again a buffet. I think during the backpacking I forgot what buffet was really about because I just kept eating.

The plan was to drive further North to see the real tundra. Perhaps camp there for a day or two and visit Deadhorse with a potential tour of Prudho Bay. And what do you know? As soon as we crossed a very scary looking mountain pass the weather started clearing up. When we reached the North plateau it was actually quite pleasant. Sunny with clouds. The wast expanse if flat tundra on both sides of the road. There were even some small hills with some snow on them. Nice, it would be interesting to cam there for a couple of days. Well, assuming the weather stays like this. However, it would probably be quite boring to just walk for miles on flat terrain (mosquitoes and tussock and all that water probably won’t let it be boring).

We have reached Deadhorse sometime after noon. Interesting place. It is basically a factory town. Everything is revolving around people working on the oil busyness and a little bit of tourism (one can get a two-day excursion to Deadhorse from a cruise). Lot so machinery everywhere, some weird heavy equipment. All waiting for winter freeze when the heavy work can be done on the frozen tundra. There is no asphalt, no sidewalks, no downtown per se.  There is a store, however, and a couple of stay and eat places. But the food in all those places was $20 buffet, that’s it (I suspect the food was the same also). There was absolutely no alcohol. I suspect it is a good idea. You don’t want people who operate heavy machinery next to highly flammable liquids to have access to alcohol. Most of the passenger cars there are big trucks, mostly Fords too. Probably company cars. Interestingly most of the parking spaces have power cables hanging. They are to connect the heater in a car in winter. Pretty much all the cars in Alaska has this small power plug hanging from under the hood. I suppose in Deadhorse it would be especially important. Most of the oil stuff belongs to BP. However, there are lots of small contractor companies. Each company has its own space with the equipment stored for the services it provides.

First thing we visited was Arctic Caribou Inn in order to reserve the tour to Prudho Bay and Arctic Ocean. Generally Prudho Bay is closed to tourists due to security. Actually, I don’t know whose security they had in mind. There are polar bears there. The oil guys have cameras to keep an eye on them. Any tourist venturing there would be in more danger from bears than present danger to some oil infrastructure. They probably also don’t want people walking around all that equipment unnecessarily. So, after the tour was reserved (and they checked everyone’s IDs) we set to find the best buffet in town. Somehow Igor found that newly built Aurora hotel. The food was good, the view from the eating place was great. There was just a bit too much of it. It was the third buffet in 24 hours and my stomach was getting full.

After the heavy meal we set out to find a place to stay for the night. It wasn’t much to it. No one really cared as long as we didn’t  interrupt the business operations. So we went a bit South on the Dalton highway and found a small side road with a flat dry spot. There were already some people camping there. There was some shotgun training. Our van renter generously provided us with a shovel, a gold panning plate, and a shotgun.

Someone had to always stay on guard to watch for polar bears. The guys in Prudho Bay have their equipment, we had to rely on our own reserves. Since I am a morning person I volunteered to take the morning shift – 4AM till the get up. Get up time was rather early because the tour was supposed to start at 8AM. However, after all that food I couldn’t sleep. In the mean time people were watching gorgeous sunset+sunrise, Gaelle even swam in that arctic river nearby. It was beautiful around midnight – sun with clouds, very quiet, beautiful colors. When Balder woke me up for the shift, however, at 3:30AM it was foggy and cold. Everyone was sleeping so I just sat there in the wan with the gun and the camera ready. But I had my reward – there was a fox that ran through the camp and I just had the camera ready to take pictures.

August 3, Wednesday

Get up very early at around 6AM. I mean the rest of the group had to get up. I was up already. Packed, all ready to go and … the van doesn’t want to start. It was cranking, but didn’t start. Perhaps with all that fog and humidity and cold it had accumulated water somewhere. So we were trying to cajole it to start in order to make it to the tour. Two days before it was possible to jump it. This day even that didn’t work. Balder went to ask the neighbors for help. Some guys camping right next to us in their RV or something. They were hunting and fishing. They tried to jump with the same result. Applied some weird chemical to the fuel. Eventually, after many attempts it started, but by that time we were late.

We went to the Caribou Inn with the idea to perhaps reschedule the tour that was already paid for. The operator was “oh, sure, no problem. We’ll do it at 12“. In reality the operator was just one dude who is actually a security guard and just does the tours on the side. Plus not like there were drones of people waiting for this tour anyways. So before the tour would start we tried to fix the van. I mean there couldn’t be a better place for a vehicle to break down than in Deadhorse with all that machinery around. There must have been lots of great mechanics who could fix anything. Well, the reality was quite disappointing. For whatever reason most of the cars in Deadhorse were Fords. Somehow the mechanics were so specialized that they didn’t know what to do with a Dodge. WTF. It’s a car, not a rocket engine. Anyway, we didn’t fix our van. As a result, camping in the tundra was out of the question. If we have left it overnight it might not start at all and then we would be really stranded, big time. So we just hang out inside Caribou Inn till the tour time. I didn’t eat anything still digesting that heavy dinner from the day before. Interestingly the insides of the Inn looked like the inside of a ship. Same type of doors and corridors. Toilets actually had showers. It didn’t look like a hotel.

The tour was mostly oil company propaganda. First the was a movie how they developed this oil field. Then he just drove us around the town showing the machinery and stuff. That Christmas tree thing that can close a well. He was throwing lots of numbers around and terms and stuff, but didn’t really show anything specific. Prudho Bay itself didn’t look much different from Deadhorse. I expected to really see some oil-producing stuff, that big machinery, the drills, the pipes and pumps working – more details basically. But all we got is just view of the buildings, from afar. There were a couple of lonely animals walking around. Some lost bull caribou, two arctic owls just sitting there (in different places). From the distance they looked mechanical as if made specially for the tourists. There were rumors that some polar bears were spotted in the area. That would be so exciting (!), even if we had to stay in the bus, but nothing happened. All we did is dip feet in the Arctic Ocean and went back. After the tour we just got some food for the road and started driving South to Fairbanks. As long as the van isn’t shut off for a while we were fine.

Drive back was great, for a while. The weather became better – sunny with some clouds. Beautiful tundra all around. It could have been of course a very wrong impression. But from the distance tundra looked fine. It was very unfortunate that we couldn’t camp there.

We stopped by in Coldfoot, AK to get some gas, food, and maybe souvenirs in the Arctic Interagency Visitor Center. It was actually very disappointing that they didn’t have GAAR little magnets. Strange. So I had to just resort to a pin and a t-shirt.

It seemed that the rain had never really stopped in Coldfoot. We left it was raining, we came back it was raining. It was the same situation there in the same diner, with seem to be the same people. So we just ate some leftovers and went on the long road. The idea was to drive all night, changing the drivers, of course, and perhaps reach Fairbanks by morning. There we should call the car renter and find a mechanic who can tell the different between a Dodge and other cars. Good thing I wasn’t the driver. However, big thanks to Balder and Viyasan for their efforts. We could just stop for an hour or so on the way, there was just nothing on the way just mountains, forest, and the pipeline.

August 4, Thursday

I woke up at maybe 3AM. It was already light. Balder was still driving. The sun was coming up (or going down – it was hard to tell) and it wasn’t raining. We were getting close to Fairbanks. I wasn’t sure how the others slept that night. I suppose it depends on each individual. But I sure would use some more sleep. Although I did wake up, I was so tired that I couldn’t crack my eyes open. So while I was struggling with that and missing all the nice early morning nature around we reached Fairbanks, AK. It was around 5AM. The idea was to wait till 7AM when the car renter’s office opens. In the mean time to get some hot liquid, perhaps with some caffeine in it. The best place to do it, it turned out, was the local Safeway. It had food, Starbucks coffee, hot water, toilets, tables, even free WiFi – all the necessities. Somehow Igor found this hostel – Glacier House – that let us crash in their backyard for a day for about $10 per person. I was actually happy about it because was afraid that the group would just decide to leave the wilderness lifestyle behind and stick with the touristy path of hotels and coffee shops.

The hostel was very interesting. It is basically a house in some residential neighborhood. Nothing even remotely close to the area of Fairbanks that can be considered downtown. It has all the regular amenities – WiFi, shower, laundry. But also a small vegetable garden and even a live chicken (not sure if they will ever eat it, though). Actually most of the houses around the neighborhood had some sort of vegetable gardens or greenhouses. Venkad, Yuhua, Balder, and I did a small walk around the area enjoying the nice sunny weather for a change after all the washing and cleaning was done and V didn’t come back with the van yet. There was a small river somewhere, but all access to it was over private property. One can try going, but Alaska being a frontier state it was possible to get shot. The neighborhood looked very green. There were regular houses with just plain yards – no much separate sidewalks and curbs. I was wondering how this place looked like in winter.

Then an idea came up to actually pack up and go to Denali NP. It was on the way anyways. If we left soon, instead of the next morning, we could actually get an early start and see more of the park, maybe even backpack there. Despite the day felt like lasting forever it was still just around noon.

For some reason no one objected to this idea. V came back from fixing the van. Said that the rental guy doesn’t give a … about his van. In the case it fully breaks down he could just drive from Anchorage and pick us up. I guess he just gets them cheap and runs to the ground. So we all packed and went off. The hostel people were a bit sad it seemed. Maybe they were expecting a big and noisy group for the night. Oh, well, we had to do what we had to do; besides – we have already payed. The hostel caretaker said that it was possible to get the campground inside visitor area of Denali (this is the area where all the hotels and visitor centers are, bot the place where the bus goes) without any reservation, especially on a weekday late in the season. Still I’ve called a couple of commercial places close to Denali NP entrance to make sure there was room. One camping place actually said that tents were not allowed because it was too windy. After some short lunch we were off.

We have reached Denali before 5PM, right on time before all the administrative offices close. Getting the campground was easy – we got Riley Creek Campground tent only walk-in – basically we could camp, but couldn’t park the car there, not a big deal. However, figuring out what to do was a challenge. The main limiting factor was Igor’s flight on Saturday evening. Since there was no driving in the Denali proper we had to adjust to the schedule of the backpacker bus. The only bus that could fit was the first one leaving the end – Wonder Lake Campground – at around 5AM. We could just flag it on the road, but there is no guarantee that there would be space in it. So, the only option left was to camp one night at the furthest developed point in the park - Wonder Lake Campground.

That was all. We purchased tickets to the bus, some souvenirs (V got his favorite – a Denali baseball cap), a bit of food, and settled to the camp. There was some sort of dinner made mostly from the old uneaten backpacking dinners and newly purchased stuff. After that, since it was still light and good weather, a small group did a hike around the Denali Village towards a small beaver lake. One can see the Alaska railroad and the resorts inside the park. Good thing that it is all localized to the small area right at the entrance and the rest of the park is still wilderness without even trails. Towards the evening it started raining again while I tried unsuccessfully to fall asleep.

August 5, Friday

Getting up was way early – 5AM or so. We had to break camp and walk to the bus stop to make it to the first backpackers bus at 6AM. There was a small quarrel again about the buses and the exact place we could leave our van because the people in the park were giving mixed information. Eventually, after some struggle to start the van we were off to the Wonder Lake.

The drive itself was good, at least the parts that I remember. It was about 6 hours or so. Because of the early start I was dosing on and off all the time (and I wasn’t the only one). We saw some wildlife. One girl spotted a group of grizzlies on the side of the road. Too bad I didn’t have good optics to see them very well.

We have passed through several mountain passes. The weather was getting progressively worse towards cold wind with rain and snow. There was an Israeli couple who had mountain bikes and was planning to bike back to the entrance. Not sure how far they’ve gotten in that weather.

The Wonder Lake Campground was shall I say interesting. It was a regular accessible non-wild campground with tables and toilet with water. The campsites were located among the bushes on a hillside towards the main Denali mountain range. The mountains, including The Big One, were somewhere in the clouds as expected. The campground also featured a walk-in food storage sheds. I suppose that was a necessity. Since it was accessible by bus – i.e. no carrying your own food, people brought stuff, big time, including vine bottles and other goodies. All of this had to be properly stored otherwise there would be a lot more grizzly sightings.

After setting up camp we went for a short hike (Igor for some reason didn’t want to do it). In essence there weren’t many places to hike around there – it was all wilderness without trails. There was just one short trail leading through a rather swampy forest towards wide braided Denali river. Upon reaching the river Balder decided to take a mud full body massage.

Well, I have to admit there was quite a bit of high quality black mud there that the river was probably carrying from some distant glaciers. However, the weather wasn’t exactly supportive for the mud bath activity. In the mean time V and Gaelle went to cross the entire river. I wouldn’t mind doing that if there was some purpose on the other side of the river. But just to get my boots wet wasn’t very appealing.
On the way back we stumbled upon a field of blueberries. Sure, there were blueberries most of the trip, but not in such high density.

In the evening there was range led presentation about the global warning. Though I wasn’t surprised by most of the information he said about the warming, I was surprised about the things that Alaskans do about it. I was under the impression that Alaska would be this very conservative state that denies any mention of global warming. However, being hit one of the hardest by the changes, they seem to be doing a lot more about it that many other more liberal states.

August 6, Saturday

This day the get-up was early too. I was already awake but didn’t get up, just soaking in my sleeping bag that accumulated heat before the actual time. Then I heard V’s voice urging people to get up because of some view that was so good he was having an orgasm. Was this a joke? So I came out from the tent to see. Yes, the view was ecstatic indeed.

The clouds from the day before were cleared up and under the blanket of the fresh snow we could see Mt MckInley with pink glow from the rising sun. Gorgeous. I was very surprised to see how large that mountain was. The day before, in the clouds I thought that the mountains there weren’t that large. But once cleared The Big One really stood out towering above everything else around. The commotion awaken everyone in the campground. People were taking photos like mad trying to capture that sight (and packing at the same time because the bus was going soon). After all that bad weather we got somewhat lucky.

The ride back was more interesting than the day before. The weather cleared. There were sightings of some dall sheep far in the distance. We saw that grizzly bear that was still sleeping on a caribou carcass. Apparently a bunch of wolves killed a caribou. However, one grizzly bear got hold of the kill and took it from the wolves. He then proceeded eating the meat. He couldn’t, however, eat all of it at one set – a body can only absorb food at certain rate. So in order not to give up the precious protein he  just slept right on the carcass. The driver said that he’s been doing this for a couple of days already.

Not much happened after that. We reached the park entrance on time, somehow got the van started, had fast food in Healy (that touristy strip mall right outside the park entrance), and blasted towards Anchorage.

Upon arriving we went back to the same Alaska Backpackers Inn hostel (not only that, they even gave us the same rooms). After many showers we just went downtown for the final dinner. Igor found this Sack’s Cafe place. A bit more than I would normally pay for food. But hopefully the salmon I had was local and wild and not some farm raised in Canada. On the way back from the restaurant we found a strange Russian Pelmeni place in the main downtown Anchorage. That place was owned by some Italian dude who grew up somewhere in South America. Well, I can say authoritatively that his pelmeni still needed improvement.

After Igor was offloaded sort of speak all that remained was to go back to hostel and sleep. Personally I wanted to visit that market in downtown where the last time we had a much better pelmeni. We stopped by some liquor store to get more alcohol and chips. People were planning to stay up late. Personally all I wanted was hot tea and good WiFi.

August 7, Sunday

Last day in Alaska. Got up fine. It appeared that Venkad with Gaelle and V spent most of the night in the van drinking (at some point a hostel worker asked us to move from the basement kitchen because some late arrivals needed space to sleep). We just had a couple of hours to get last minute souvenirs. We visited the salmon river next to the Ulu factory store. For some reason the salmon run this year was pretty thin. Then visited the market which was quite deserted. Perhaps due to intermittent rain. But worst of all there were no Russian dumplings or pirogi there, at all. There were lots of Asian food and regular fairs. So I just got the GAAR pin (why is that park doesn’t have a magnet?) and some chocolate. That was all.

We went to the airport.  V returned the van. Checked that people didn’t really loose much of the weight this trip. Had some shitty food at Chili’s place in the airport (I was so mad at the waitress there I didn’t give her any tips), and flew back to San Francisco.

Epilogue

This was my second trip to the great state of Alaska. Hopefully not the last. The state has so much to offer in the way to travel. It is large with many different places to stay and things to do. I hope I don’t have an incorrect opinion about the friendliness of the people there and the next trip will be welcome. Perhaps I can visit in Winter or do some sea kayaking travel around Prince William Sound.

EveryTrail map is here.

My photos are here.
Girish’s photos – GAAR, Prudhoe Bay, Denali.

What I decided to do is to go to the Redwood National and State Parks (they seem to come in a package). Camp there for one night. In the process visit Eureka, Ferndale, and some other beautiful places on the coast. It was a bit of a gamble on my part because the campground in the park cannot be reserved, at all. So we could end up with no place to stay.

Saturday, July 2nd, 2011

Starting very early with some hiccups we finally were on the road. My main goal was to drive through some beautiful rarely visited places in the state. As a result, after some coffee in Cloverdale we took CA128 towards the cost. The drive was beautiful – shaded winding road. Though it gets a bit annoying after a while. For some reason I thought that the other car was in front of us and due to the lack of network it was not possible to coordinate. As a result I just blasted through. Fort Bragg had a museum, a flea market, and some sort of biggest salmon 4th of July BBQ. We missed all that. Eventually we’ve made it to the historic Ferndale.

Ferndale is an interesting little town. Mostly farming and tourism. It is located very close to the coast a bit off the main highway. We’ve had late lunch there took lots of weird pictures and even played around on a veloricksha. There was a Loleta cheese factory tour nearby, but by the time I figure it out it was closed.

After that it was off to Eureka. It was interesting that it was very cloudy and cold in Ferndale, but sunny in Eureka. Those towns were not that far apart. I wanted just to walk around downtown Eureka, but that idea didn’t really find lots of support in the group. So we just wandered around a bit, listened to some Hawaiian drum concert next to the main fountain. Then asked for a decent local food recommendation and went for dinner.

The dinner was Asian, if I remember right, Cambodian fare. Quite good. Some local woman recommended this place, especially the soup with a melon. After dinner there was another long and winding drive to the Boise Creek Campground.

Sunday, July 3rd, 2011

Get up early to get the permits in the Thomas H. Kuchel visitor center. The things is that this park doesn’t charge for camping permits, it also doesn’t allow advanced reservations. As a result, to get good permits if at all one has to arrive early. We’ve gotten there at reasonable time. However, all the good stuff was gone already. All that remained was 44 camp. Oh, well – better than nothing at all. I would be quite at a loss if we didn’t get permits at all.

The access to the backpacking trailhead was actually behind locked gate. The park people gave us the key code to the lock. It was possible to get to the same camp from the open hiker trailhead, but it would add 5 or 6 more miles. Plus they said that car got broken into there. The backpacker parking lot was full. I was wondering where all those people were going or already went to. Hopefully, the campgrounds won’t be so crowded.

The trail was great – all downhill, shaded in giant redwoods. It was leading down to the Redwood Creek. The tallest accessible tees in the park were actually growing on that small patch by the river. It would be all fine if I didn’t have to carry that watermelon that Krishna bought. But it worked out fine and we were down at the creek by lunch time. After some lazy time there was a bit of a climb towards 44 camp.

It seemed that this side of the Redwood Creek was logged. The trail going to 44 camp was actually old road. The camp had a toilet, but no water. All the available places were actually on some old roads curved into the side of the hill and overgrown with vegetation. The forest was so thick that it would not be possible to camp anywhere else, so space was a bit tight. However, I didn’t see anyone. Where did that people from the parking lot actually went to?

After setting up camp I’ve decided for some short day-hike. We could follow some old trail that snaked around the hill then followed a smaller creek that met the main Redwood Creek. That trail didn’t really reach the Redwood Creek, but I figured that we can bushwhack a bit down and then get to 44 camp quickly.

The trail was great. I like those kind of trails – not too improved for lazy scared humans, full of trees and bushes. It seemed that it wasn’t used much. There were a couple of bridges. However, with all that rain and fog they had tons of moss on them. As an added bonus it wasn’t hot.

The bushwaking, however, didn’t fly. At all. The river was there, the direction was known. But the bushes were just insane. Nothing even remotely close to being passable. Redwoods don’t rot – they just lay there. We had to climb over, under, through, in the cold water and mud. The progress was very slow, people getting tired. I was afraid that someone can get injured and then we’ll be in really deep. As a result, sadly, I decided to turn around and go back on a known, but very long trail. It wasn’t actually as bad as I expected and we also saw very beautiful red sunset colors.

But the camp was reached already after dark. We also found that we had neighbors. A couple of college kids on their summer country tour. I tried to make fire but the wood was a bit damp making it difficult. Suji found that her beloved expensive iPhone got dunked in the water and was already out of commission. People were tired and hungry. The fire, with some help from the neighbors’ fire was going willy-nilly. It needed more wood to get the heat high enough to dry new fuel, but I was too tired to set it up. However, we still played some game with the neighbors.

Monday, July 4th, 2011

Get up, eat, pack. The weather was nice – warm and sunny. We’ve walked around the big trees and came out from the trail before lunch. In retrospect we could have done some hiking along the river and came up on a different trail. It would ave added a bit more mileage. After coming out we did a small hike around the Lady Bird Johnson’s trail – short, but very nice redwood grove. Good thing it was saved.

After the hike Suji, Jacqueline, and Krishna went fast back. Rita, Kim, and I sort of stayed back. I actually wanted to visit that Loleta cheese factory, but it was closed. We stopped in Eureka on the island in marina at Cafe Marina & Woodley’s Bar to eat some fish lunch. Tool it easy. Yet still reached home before the fireworks.

The trail can be found at Redwood NP at EveryTrail.

Photos here.

If you wan to have a more than one boot system you need to provide a partition for each one. There are some tools in some Linux installers that will let you move the files in Windows file system and partition the dist. However, ultimately you have to make a guess on what your future Windows and Linux needs will be. With the current enormous drives this may not be a big problem, but still.

• What if one of them runs out of space?
• What if you decide to completely move to the one side? You end up with a chunk of dist that is not really useful and cannot be merged back.

Enter Ubuntu Installer. This program installs Ubuntu as another application to your Windows box. All this application does is alters the boot loader, adds some file, and creates this giant file which it uses as its disk. At the boot it just boots into this file-disk. The entire hard-drive can be accessed by mounting ‘Host’ file system. Not sure what the real performance of this setup is and if it can be dynamically increased, but the setup is quite convenient. If things change, you just uninstall Ubuntu program and your host Windows PC is as good as new.

1. Well, first attempt has failed – the mixture curled. However, my wife said that she will eat that as a dessert. Weird.
2. Second attempt
1. One egg yolk
2. One table spoon of sugar
3. Half a small carton of Half&Half
3. For some reason the mixture is getting icy – you can see the forming ice crystals like in the freezing water. Something isn’t correct probably.