August 2, 2010

The month of our departure is here.  I am feeling very excited as everything on the Alaska schedule is exciting and everything beyond should be an adventure.

We pulled into the big city of Tok for a needed dose of civilization, laundry, wine, and gasoline.  We set up at Sourdough Campground, a commercial campground with all the modern conveniences, water, electric, and sewer.  It does feel a little decadent when we don’t have to worry so much about water conservation.  The sewer connection was a couple bucks more so I chose that over using the dump station.  Every once in awhile, it is good to flush your tanks a little.  It is difficult to flush the tanks at a dump station because the only source of water is the freshwater holding tank.  We were able to fill our tanks with fresh water before dumping them, then add a little more fresh water after dumping for another rinse of the tanks. 

After doing our laundry, we spent a hot afternoon lounging around, surfing the internet.  We then got out our road bikes and took a ride on the local bike paths.  Tok is a tiny town, but has miles of paved bike paths running along the main roads.  We followed the Tok Cutoff path from the campground south until it ended.  Riding the road bikes for the first time in a long time made us feel like we were flying.  When we turned around and realized that we had been fighting a slight headwind, we really began to fly.  As we neared the campground, I looked at the bike computer.  We were averaging an amazing 16 miles per hour for 44 minutes.  I estimated that it should take us about 15 minutes to head up to the junction and back so I decided on a goal of a one hour ride.  We quickly turned around when we got to the junction and kept pedaling hard back to the campground.  We still had a minute or so to go, so we kept pedaling beyond the campground until the bike computer read exactly one hour.  We covered 16.11 miles in that time, with no wind or elevation advantage since it was out and back.  I think that is pretty good for people our age.

After our bike ride, we indulged in the homemade pie and ice cream offered by the campground.  It was a bit expensive, $10 for the two of us, but it was pretty good.  After dinner, we relaxed in the trailer while the campground’s musical act played right behind us.  They were a fine musical act for a family campground. 

After the music, the campground held their daily pancake toss.  This clever bit of marketing provides a free all-you-can-eat breakfast to anyone who can toss a pancake into a bucket from about 25 feet in two attempts.  Breakfast is expensive as well, $12 per person, so it is worth it to try.  The hook is that there is a pretty decent chance of getting one in, but the chances of everyone in your party getting one in is pretty slim.  So we had half price breakfast, courtesy of my first toss.  We would not have bought their breakfast for full price, so they did manage to get more money out of us with their little game.  We managed to pig out and lighten the load on our lunch supplies for the day.  The food was fine, although I think sourdough pancakes are an acquired taste.

In order to participate in the game, you had to announce where you were from.  This did create a little social interaction within the campground.  It made it easy for us to start up a conversation with another couple enjoying their half price breakfast the next morning.  We also chatted with the owner a bit at breakfast.  This camping crowd does seem to have many people who are wandering in life like we are.  We left Sourdough Campground impressed with the friendly and clever operation that they are running, and better for having interacted with quite a few people.

The next stop was the wilderness again.  We are camped 28 miles up the Nabesna Road, a rugged road that enters the massive Wrangell St. Elias National Park.  We found a pull off along the road that would be big enough for two RVs like ours.  The pull off looks over one of Twin Lakes and a short trail leads down to the lake.  The road was a challenge, like offroading with a trailer.  As a result, being parked along the road is like being parked in the middle of nowhere, total silence except for the maybe half dozen cars per day that pass slowly.

After setting up, we hiked up the road a little over a mile to the first of three stream crossings on the road.  This year’s heavy rains in the interior have washed out roads, including this one, but this one normally has a few creeks that run over it anyway.  We scoped out the wide crossing.  We were almost able to cross over without getting our feet wet in our goretex hiking shoes, but stopped when we reached the fastest moving water.

We were a little surprised to find a lodge just up the street from us on this hike.  We noticed the open sign was flashing and that the lodge had a for sale sign.  On the way back, we decided to challenge ourselves socially and stop in.  The TV was on (electric generator and satellite out here) and someone was lounging in a big chair watching it.  He didn’t even look up or acknowledge our entrance.  A small dog began barking so I talked to the dog.  The owner appeared shortly from a back room behind the bar and I explained that we were just walking by and decided to stop in to see what this place was all about.  The guy started crushing aluminum cans and said nothing.  I commented on the for-sale sign and got a little response, but he seemed like more of an introvert than either of us and the guy in the chair was either stoned or a real hermit.  We turned and looked around their lovely old lodge, decorated with dead animals and a pool table.  We wished them a pleasant evening and left.  Not all social challenges result in great experiences.

After dinner, we dropped the kayaks into the lake by the trailer.  It was a swampy entrance to the lake, but we were able to get the kayaks launched without getting our feet too wet.  We began paddling around the mile and a half perimeter.  The lake is choked with weeds in most places, but I had seen fish swirling along one shore.  I found a deeper spot with no visible weeds and began casting.  I landed a nice grayling in just a few casts.  I wasn’t interested in keeping a grayling just yet, so I released him.

We paddled further, finding another hole in the weeds and another quick meal sized grayling, but I was looking for deep water that might house a lake trout.  I used my heavy lure as a depth sounder when the weeds would disappear, but never found any really deep water.  Along one steep shore, I did get a hit on my heavy lure, but the water still wasn’t more than about ten feet deep.

We paddled around to a swampy area that encircled an island.  I paddled in and noticed a swirl in the shallow clear water.  I threw my spinner and it was instantly hit by another grayling.  I wasn’t expecting to find grayling in this odd little section of water.  We reached a dead end on one leg and as we came back through where I had just caught the fish, I started noticing them, a steady stream of foot long grayling swimming in the shallow water.

Then we found a small stream flowing in and a small dark pool nearby.  It held at least a hundred of these healthy grayling.  I quickly landed another one, testing the theory that the largest fish are at the front of the pool (they all appear to be the same size).  This pool was only about fifty feet from where we launched our kayaks.  I figured I could catch dinner fresh, whenever we wanted it.

Today was an adventurous day.  We drove up the road further.  The first adventure was crossing the stream.  The van has big, heavy duty tires and plenty of ground clearance, but it is only two wheel drive, a non-positraction two wheel drive.  I drove right in without much hesitation.  I knew the faster water was going to be only about six inches deep, but that it might have some bumps in it.  I tried to maintain a reasonable speed to avoid banging too hard on any unseen rocks, but to keep the momentum up to get through any loose stuff.  I did pretty well, but found a big patch of deep loose gravel upon exiting the water that started to slow me down.  I was relieved when I made it back to a well packed road.

The rest of the road was rough, with several sections of washout that had been repaired.  The literature talks about two more stream crossings, but one of them was dry already and the other was relatively minor compared to the first one.

We arrived at the Skookum Volcano trailhead and began our hike for the day.  It was a beautiful hike up a creek into these volcanic mountains.  It was a perfect Alaskan hike, trees, water, scenery, alpine tundra, and interesting rock formations. 

The trail started in a dense alder forest.  The forest floor was covered with red currants.  My heart was broken as I have never seen that many red currants before and these are not quite ripe.  I found a few nearly ripe ones that were sweet enough to be enjoyable. I told Kris that if we were to hike this in a couple of weeks, my pace would have been painfully slow.

The rock formations were bizarre.  It looked like some of the scenery we saw in the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, but many more years have passed since the last volcanic eruption here.  It appeared to be a light colored layer of ash that was nearly eroded away in many places.  Tall jagged granite peaks contrasted with the gentle ash slopes both in texture and color.  Across the valley, other peaks appeared to be covered with the ash, looking like someone spread frosting on the tops.  It was a dramatic scene.

We lost the trail a couple times.  While this is a popular trail on this road, this is not a popular road so the trail gets relatively little traffic.  The trail follows creek beds most of the way up.  We ended up missing a turn off out of the creek bed and followed the creek almost all the way to the top of the pass.  It took us through a narrow canyon with huge loose rocks all around us waiting for their foundations to slip enough to send them tumbling again.  We chose every step carefully and exited the canyon at the first opportunity. 

Our exit from the canyon put us just below the pass.  A short steep tundra climb brought us to a narrow ridge with spectacular views in both directions.  To the north and east was the Nabesna River valley extending as far as we could see.  To the north and west was a view across the valley that the road follows and the mountains on the other side.  To the north was a bright ash slope and to the south were incredible granite peaks with a few dall sheep climbing precariously on the ledges.  From there we were able to follow the real trail back down.

We rarely see wildlife while hiking, but we often joke about how much of it has seen us.  A paranoid person can imagine the eyes of hundreds of bears peering out of the dark forest at us as we walk through.  Still, I am constantly glancing around, partially hoping to see something interesting, partially intending to see something before I accidentally startle it into a dangerous reaction.  This is harder than it sounds because hiking on an unimproved trail requires constantly watching where you are going to put your feet.  My eyes get a real workout on these hikes, but they were rewarded for the efforts on this trip.  It was a classic surprise situation, hiking along a noisy stream.  We were making noise, but it apparently didn’t come through until we were within 50 feet.  At one point, I looked up and noticed motion.  A light brown animal standing about thigh high moved gracefully and silently off the trail.  I never got a look at its head, but it had a really short tail.  Without a characteristic waddle, I eliminated bear and it was way too small to be a moose.  I am left with lynx.  It was only a brief glimpse, but very exciting. 

After our adventurous hike, we drove all the way to the end of the road, mile 42.  The scenery the whole way is worthy of national park status.  A family lives and operates a lodge at the end of the road.  I can only imagine the hassle of getting groceries. 

We returned to the trailer and it took me about an hour to make dinner.  I dragged the kayak down to the lake.  I paddled over to the spot we had seen all the grayling.  I was disappointed that it took me four casts to catch a dinner of two fish.  A breeze aided my lure in landing in weeds on the first two casts.  I actually had a hit on the second cast in spite of the weeds.  I quickly landed my two foot long grayling, but both times had the hook get tangled in the net resulting in more time spent messing with the net than actually fishing.  Cleaning fish from a kayak is difficult and the swampy shoreline wasn’t much help.  I worked through those challenges, cleaned everything up, and dragged the kayak back up the trail to the trailer where I fried the fish.  We were eating almost exactly an hour after this process started.  That is not fishing, that is harvesting.