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Katmai National Preserve 9.0 mi (14.5 km) |
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Let’s pack up and roll out, everyone!
Today starts our first full day of trekking out here in the Alaskan wilderness, so after a nice hot breakfast and a widespread search for a comfy bathroom rock on the open tundra, we packed up our things and trekked north. It started off a little chaotically as we shoved through a thick willow grove and spooked some ptarmigans (Alaska’s state bird), but once we were out of the thicket, the slope ahead was wide open with great visibility!
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Not far up the hill, we hit our first snow! At least, I was pretty sure it was snow and not ice. The only way to know for sure would have been to walk down to it and touch it, but the big crevasse down the middle made me think twice about that! For now, we all settled on taking photos of its magnificence instead!
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And besides, even though we were only about 2,000 feet above sea level, we were in Alaska, which meant we were going to experience plenty of snow and ice, even at the peak of summer! As we gradually worked our way uphill, pausing periodically for water and snacks, the snowfields didn’t even have to move to keep pace with us. At least, I thought they were snowfields. Maybe they were glaciers? I knew one way to find out for sure!
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At our next water stop, I hopped on down to the edge of the nearest field and confirmed that it was, indeed, made of snow, not ice! That enabled me to pack together my old pal, Señor Castorieti, who I hadn’t seen since January 2024! After shaking off some tundra moss, Señor Castorieti confirmed that this was, indeed a snowfield, being made of snow and also being stationary. Glaciers, by comparison, are made of ice and move like rivers, albeit very, very slowly! “You brought friends this time!” he observed next. “I didn’t think you had friends!” Well that was rude, and right in front of my friends too. I sent the snowbeaver off to follow some mysterious tracks in the snow, swiping back my hat and returning him to his snowfield. We’ll talk about this later, Señor Castorieti…
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The tracks in question spanned far into the distance, identifiable as caribou tracks by the two big fore hooves and the two small dew claws on the back! These are remarkable hooves! They’re specially shaped for staying on top of snow and for digging into it! Oh, and as if that weren’t enough, caribou hooves are also great paddles for swimming! I looked and looked but did not see who made these tracks. Maybe farther along our walk!
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Meanwhile, everyone else was refilling their water bottles at a fast-flowing stream! We were high enough that the water itself was probably fine to drink, but with caribou around, there was always a risk that they’d used the stream as a toilet and made it into a water slide for giardia, a.k.a. beaver fever (no relation)! It was a good thing Tim and Philip had packed along some special chlorinated drops to kill off any tummy upsetters and let folks enjoy the cold mountain water without fear!
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One of the challenges of hiking without a trail is when you get to tough scrabbles like the rock field we reached soon after refilling our bottles. Did you know there are two main kinds of rock fields? There’s scree, which is made up of loose pebbles, and talus, which is made up of rocks ranging in size from beavers to boulders! We had about a half mile scramble up a talus field of really neat rocks that looked like they’d been sliced like bread, a treat for the eyes, but a pain for the feet and back!
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But it was worth it for the views! I mean, look at this crystal blue day, super rare in rainy Alaska! Technically June is the driest month, but who could have asked for a clearer, more pristine day than this? We parked our stuff on a hilltop overlooking Emerald Lake, Gibraltar Lake, and, beyond both, Lake Iliamna! It was breezy and cool, and despite the challenge of finding a smooth seat, really comfy for a lunch break! Surprisingly to all, we later realized that in climbing this hill, we had stepped out of Katmai National Preserve and were now just experiencing unlabeled Alaskan wilderness!
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After a good half hour or so, everyone loaded up their packs and began their descent down the hill to a series of snowfields that we had to cross. I was amazed at how many bugs there were on the snow, including a dragonfly that seemed way off course! Even more amazing, many of these insects were there by choice! While some insects have a hard time moving once their bodies get cold, stoneflies, winter crane flies, dance flies, scuttle flies, and soldier beetles all make their home on the snow, eating plant debris or each other! For all we knew, this dragonfly was resting amid a banquet!
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Today was a long walk, and I could see that the 40-pound backpacks were taking their toll on shoulders, backs, and knees, especially as the rocky, snowy ground gave way to a soggy frost heave bog. Among us, it was determined that Stephanie would be our resident bog witch and that she had to draw her powers from the cold, but otherwise pretty clean, water soaking the feet of anyone who didn’t wear Gore-Tex boots! We were all starting to drag as the day wore on, but bogs don’t make great campsites. We needed to find higher ground that was dry without being too rocky!
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As we searched, we spotted, off in the distance, a towering volcano, Mount Saint Augustine! Though it was upstaged by smaller peaks, this snow-capped stratovolcano is actually an island called Chu Nula by Denai’ina folks. It’s also quite active! It hasn’t erupted since 2006, but based on past eruptions, it might be due soon! In a place of ice and stone, it’s wild to think how the whole landscape would be transformed by fire and smoke. I sure hoped none of us were going to experience that firsthand on this trip!
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We arrived at a suitable camp site a few minutes later. It was high and very rocky (so I called this one Rock Camp), but there were patches of soft tundra that were big enough for tents, if a bit scattered apart. Tim and Philip set up the cooking site over by the nearest lake, setting up a wind screen for easy cooking and comfortable sitting. While gathering water, Philip accidentally startled a mama plover off her nest! These shorebirds usually hang out on the coast, but they nest all the way up here in the mountains where there are fewer (but never zero) predators! She did return a while later, though, once she was sure we were no threat to her or her eggs.
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Down at the water, the unnamed lake was about as chilly as could be, being still partly covered in ice. That made it perfect for soaking our tired, sore feet a while. It was also amazing looking down past my toes at the busy lives of the creatures that called this cryotherapy retreat home, from caddisfly larvae in their signature pebble casings to tiny shrimp-like crustaceans called scuds, which jetted about between gaps in the rocks! I figured this was another good reason why Mama Plover had picked this spot to nest!
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Oh! And I found my favorite of all of the tundra wildflowers! Look how cute these little bell-shaped flowers are! They belong to the Alaskan bellheather (Harrimanella stelleriana), which we’d earlier confused with crowberries! We were here in the wrong season for any kind of berry, but Philip told us there is a widespread movement to give crowberries a chance! Maybe if I come back in another season, I’ll get to try them, but for now, I was enjoying the floral side of the tundra!
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After a tasty dinner of soba noodles, Tim offered up an optional post-dinner hike to see some more views. My feet felt pretty well recovered, thanks to the scud bath, so around 8:30, I joined him and the three Houstonians—Tyler, Marie, and Stephanie the Bog Witch—on an extension, beyond our lakeside camp and up the boggy-terraced slope leading to another viewpoint.
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Along the way, as we navigated tundra, snow fields, and boulder fields, we all told different tales of past adventures. Tim, it turns out, spent northern winters working in McMurdo Base down in Antarctica! Tyler & Marie had spent a lot of time hiking in Oman! I had a few tales of my own to swap, but the common thread was that everyone had encountered some kind of issue going to the bathroom while abroad, including one particularly gross story about a bus ride in India! I’ll spare the details of that one.
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Coming from a pretty dry part of the USA, I was just so amazed by how much water there was, and all of it crystal clear to the very bottom! I felt like I needed to pause and photograph all of them, but after a while, I realized there were just going to be more and more lakes along the way. If I stopped to photograph them all, we’d never reach our destination!
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After half an hour of hopping across streams and shuffling through snow, the route began to curve up, and Tim shared one more useful tidbit about the local flora. There was a kind of succulent herb called the ledge stonecrop or western roseroot (Rhodiola integrifolia), which was announced to be edible! Best tasting when picked before their signature rosy flowers started to bud, they were mildly bitter veggies but pretty tasty nonetheless! I’ll get some photos of those later on down the way, but my snacking had put me behind the group, not advisable for a beaver in bear country!
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Speaking of bear country, we hadn’t seen any signs of bears up this high, but our viewpoint gave us a keen look down at the the lush shores of Gibraltar Lake below. Tim had brought Niko’s spotting scope and seemed to be able to make out a bear way down among the trees, but by the time I looked through, it seemed to have left! I personally prefer seeing bears than not seeing them, but if I were one, I’d probably stay down by the fish-filled lake too! Regardless, it was a really stunning view in the early evening light, around 9:30 PM!
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We’d dallied a bit on the way up, so Tim gave us the option of taking a more direct route on the two mile return to camp, utilizing the natural highway of a snowfield! Several caribou had done just this before us, and so we followed their four-part tracks for over a mile across this massive snowfield, bypassing the streams, lakes, and boulders we’d navigated on the way out. And wouldn’t you know it? We found the three caribou—a bull, a cow, and a yearling—on the other side of the hill leading down to camp! They sensed us early on and cantered a little closer to get a better idea of what we were about, but they never got within a hundred yards of us. Instead, they must have realized we were neither predators nor other caribou, got bored, and took off right toward camp, where we weren’t sure if anyone was still awake. What a cool wildlife sighting!
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The caribou had disappeared by the time we returned to Rock Camp around 11:00 PM, and the light was just starting to look like sunset. We were all so excited by our wildlife encounter that we had to shush each other before getting too close to the tents, where everyone who’d stayed behind was very clearly asleep. It’s tough getting into a sleepy mode when it’s still so bright out, but that’s what the eye masks are for. All in all, today was a fantastic double hike, and I look forward to what’s in store tomorrow when we break Rock Camp and journey on!
Rock-a-bye for now!
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Total Ground Covered: 17.0 mi (27.4 km) |
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