My Trip to the Arctic Refuge - Part 4

Thursday, June 27th

I'm awake at 6 am as usual and it is cloudy. By 7 am it starts to rain. We need to continue down the river so everyone packs up. Some people manage to get their tents pulled down and stored before the rain starts. I am not so fortunate. It is not fun to pack a wet tent. It would be even less fun to put up a wet tent and crawl into it after a day on the river.

Abby stops by with some very useful tips about packing a tent in the rain. While keeping the rain fly attached, you first reach under and pull the tent poles out. Then you crawl under the collapsed rain fly and tent, and fold up the tent while it is still somewhat protected from the rain. At least, this is ideally what you do.

My tent is an old REI dome model that I bought 15 years ago. Believe it or not, this is the first time I have the opportunity to use it in the rain. I am now convinced it must have been an early beta version, since it does not easily cooperate. As soon as the tent gets the least bit damp, the poles stick to the fabric making it nearly impossible to extricate them. Trying to do this under a collapsed rain fly becomes comical. To any passerby, I'm sure it looks like I am wrestling violently with a wild critter under my tent, but I don't think anyone is watching. Karen does ask why it took me so long to get ready that day. I just reply that my tent, when wet, becomes unruly.

We pack up the boats and head downstream. I'm in Karen's boat, with Lawson and Ken. The rain has stopped, however we soon enter a thick fog driven by a VERY COLD north headwind. For miles, we can barely see beyond the riverbanks. I had, for some silly reason (like it was still clean), decided to try out my expedition weight long underwear for the first time, and it turns out to have been an excellent decision.

Even though we are paddling constantly, and I am wearing neoprene paddling gloves with a wool liner, both of my hands experience that intensifying sensation of pre-frostbite-like pain, like what one might expect from an acupuncturist-in-training. Karen suggests I stand up in the boat and forcefully whirl each arm around rapidly. This helps enormously. The centrifugal motion forces blood down my arms and into the fingertips, warming them.

I repeat this every 15 minutes or so. To the others I must look like a human windmill, vainly attempting some strange new method of propelling our raft downstream. Karen tells us her hands are getting cold also, so she gets up with me and tries a few of these motions herself - so now we are a twin engine raft!

My feet are also cold. I am wearing two layers of wool socks under a third, neoprene sock. Since I can't whirl my legs around in the air, nor stamp them against the bottom of the raft without endangering everyone, I am left with a routine of alternately clenching and releasing my toes (at least 20 times per minute I think).

This is the coldest I've been thus far. I am wearing full raingear, a wool hat, two layers of fleece jackets, a polypropylene shirt, and expedition weight underwear and the wind is making a mockery of my attempts to keep warm. I wish I'd put on even more layers of clothing, or kept them accessible. All are packed away in the dry bag, covered by other dry bags, and lashed securely to the middle of the boat - not to be moved until we make camp.

I decide I am now fully qualified for winter sea kayaking competition in Oregon. I can't wait to try out. Not.

Although the thick fog makes for poor visibility, we can see the terrain change dramatically. We are in the foothills now, and the dramatic jagged mountain backdrops have given way to open rolling hills.

At times, the location of a given hill gives us a brief reprieve from the incessant north wind, and my hands and feet warm quickly. But the wind greets us again as we round a bend and it is back to doing windmills.

Finally, we reach our destination - Caribou Pass.

Caribou Pass is a wide valley in the foothills that is a key destination on the caribou migratory path. This is where caribou make their exit from their long journey in the mountains as they move out towards the coastal plain. The Pass also marks an area where another major watershed, the Clarence River, joins the Kongakut. Visibility is still poor as we set up camp so we can't see much of this yet.

After dinner, I go for a walk up a hill behind our camping area and wind up looking over the ridge into flatlands further down the river. I can see several groups camping there. The fog seems to be slowly lifting. I climb up to a rock outcropping to get a better view as the fog continues to lift. I see someone sitting on the tundra at a lower elevation to my left. He, too, is silently reflecting on the scene below. (I later find out it is Lawson). The Kongakut River widens greatly as it spreads out into multiple channels here. The clouds still limit visibility, however we can see the elevated smooth surfaces of the foothills as they slowly arc downward towards the flat land that becomes the coastal plain.

It starts to rain, and since, foolishly, I had walked all the way up there without any rain gear, I now have to hurry down the hill back to camp. I glissade most of the way down the wet tundra. My fleece jacket is soaked by the time I get back and turn in. I drift off to sleep listening to both the patter of rain and the loud sound of the river rushing by, only about 20 feet from my tent. It sounds like the ocean - a great tune to sleep to.

Friday, June 28.

I awake at around 6 after a sound sleep. The sound of the rain has stopped. I decide to open the tent fly to see if it is sunny yet.

I can't believe my eyes - I am absolutely stunned by what I see.

I look out into a winter wonderland. It is snowing heavily and the ground, branches, everything is covered by inches of snow.

It's only now I notice, as seen from the inside, the thick snow clinging to the outside of the tent rain fly, and I bang on the inside to knock some of it down

I do some videotaping looking out from inside the tent, then get dressed and climb out into this strange scene. Everything is covered with snow. The other tents look like igloos with bits of nylon poking through. No one else is up yet. One raft, still beached beside the river, seems nearly buried in a thick layer of white.
Large wet snowflakes fill the air.

I walk down to the kitchen area. The large tent umbrella that we had erected on top of the folding table has now sunk, nearly to ground level as a result of the weight of the snow. I go about brushing the snow off, which comes down in huge blocks when I am able to force it to the edge of the umbrella fabric. Finally I'm able to set the umbrella back up into its original position.

It is cold, but not unbearable. The temperature is probably right near the freezing mark since the snow is so wet. It's a lot like snow in Oregon.

Eventually everyone gets up. We are all wearing our river boots which also work well as makeshift snow boots. We stomp around in the snow, none of us quite believing it is real.

The snow stops falling by early to mid morning and it looks like we have about 5 inches in all. After breakfast I walk up into the hills to the same spot I had been to the night before. Too bad I didn't take any pictures then - I'd have a good set of before and after shots if I had. After I return to camp, the rest of the group decides to go up to the same area, so I follow them up, climbing the same hill for the third time and meeting up at what I now consider to be MY rock outcropping. The hills are covered with snow, and we are still using our rubber boots for hiking.

Four of us go on to climb one of the higher hills to the north and I take both video and still pictures from the top. We see a ground squirrel on this walk - they are huge - about twice the size of squirrels at home! They must need to store a lot of fat for their winter hibernation.

We hear a plane and then watch a pilot for a while, who seems to be circling an area below us, seemingly to decide where to land. He tries landing on a very narrow gravel bar in the middle of the river and then takes off again. He later lands on a well-used landing strip that erosion has shortened by several hundred yards from what it was a few years ago.

On the way down, we notice how the snow accentuates the dimensions of the tussocks. Tussocks are grassy mounds on the tundra that are formed as a result of the numerous freeze and thaw cycles - they are quite striking in white.

Soon we notice that the snow has nearly melted all the way down at river level. The air temperature is much warmer as we make our way down the opposite side of the hills from camp and we walk down to the landing strip we were watching earlier. Another group has been camping there and that is where they will be picked up - they will go no further on the river. This is where trips on the Kongakut end for most people and we feel fortunate that we will be continuing down the river to the ocean.

Karen had thought she had previously seen some caribou afterbirth near the river between their camp and ours, so several from their group join us to walk down and take a look. It turns out to be some kind of other phenomenon - probably some kind of regurgitation, but everything you find in the wilderness is interesting!

We stop and notice the river flow - because of the snow, which is now quickly melting and draining into the river; the Kongakut is a raging torrent! We are happy we are not going anywhere in the rafts today.

We notice that the clouds have started to dissipate - we can see some blue sky!

Back at camp, we notice that a small stream that drains into the main river has relatively clear water whereas the Kongakut is a thick brown color, filled with silt from the extensive runoff. As the stream's water flows into the main river, it maintains its own path, separate from the muddy water. A clear line between the very different two water flows can be seen extending well into the main river.

We also notice that there is a lot of caribou hair in the water. So many caribou crossing all of those streams above us - now any hair caught or shed is washing downstream and rushing past us.

I happen to look up and notice that the clouds have suddenly given way to bright sun, blue sky and incredible views of snow capped hills. There is a clear demarcation snowmelt line - above which the hills are still covered in white, and below where all is melted.

We notice a large number of birds now near our camp. I spend a lot of time trying to film arctic terns. The arctic tern has the longest migratory path of any bird - any animal actually! It migrates between the Arctic and Antarctic every year, a distance of over 12,000 miles!

They are comical characters too! They like to hover in mid-air and suddenly dive towards the water surface, and pull out of the dive at the last minute. They can repeat this game for hours. There is a Yeager, which is about the size of a seagull, which dives after and plays with the other birds. He is moving so fast
(and only seems to come by our camp AFTER I put my camera down) so I am unable to photograph him.

I got good photographs of a female Red Breasted Merganser (a kind of duck) according to Lawson, who is definitely our trip's authority on birds.

Later that evening, the midnight sun turns everything its characteristic golden color. This is the first time since the night at Arctic Village that such clear sunlight has been visible at midnight.

So, after everyone else has gone to bed, I make my 4th trip up to my rock outcropping and again photograph the valleys of Caribou Pass.

There are small wisps of fog that are caught by some of the hills - one of them looks like a glacier winding its way down the mountain. It is utterly incredible lighting - I have to force myself to head back to the tent where I linger by the river taking some more photographs and then finally get into the tent about 2 am.

Saturday June 29th

The weather is still clear in the morning. After another wonderful multigrain pancake breakfast, we break camp. This time, I am the first one ready - my tent is dry! Ken, Lawson and I join Abby in her boat this time. A short distance downstream we stop in a mosquito-infested area where Karen had seen an eagle's nest last year. We don't find the nest, but we see grizzly bear hair stuck to some willow branches. Bears often scratch themselves by rubbing against branches like this. We also find an outcropping of slate - it looks just like the stuff you'd see for sale in a tile store.

There is a beautiful view of the mountains to the south.

The valley now is flat and wide and the river is heavily braided with many channels. It becomes a challenge to thread the boats through narrow passages without getting stuck on gravel bars.

Much of the shallow water is not visible until you are right on top of it and by then, sometimes it is too late. At times, we have to get out of the raft and push it off the gravel, then jump back in. Most of the time, we can break loose by bouncing the boat up and down with our butts while paddling, turning, back paddling - anything that works, until it breaks free.

We stop for lunch and can see a couple of bears far in the distance back on the hills in the general direction we came from. Binoculars are definitely needed to see them - I believe Danny is the first to spot one.

We continue on until we reach the last slope of the foothills, as it meets the very flat coastal plain. The plan is to camp by that last hill and climb it, but the river channel we find ourselves in takes us about a mile to the east of where we want to be. The hill rises with a very gentle grade above the plain, and seems like it would be a great place to hike and perhaps catch a view of the Arctic Ocean.

We beach the rafts and consider our predicament. Our first plan is to see how far of a walk it might be to the hill and whether it would be worth portaging all of our gear. We decide to scout out a possible route, and we ford numerous channels as we walk in that direction. We see thousands of caribou tracks including very small ones that are obviously from newborn calves, however no caribou are actually visible here now.

The seal between the rain pants and boots works like a charm while fording streams - my feet stay bone dry.

After a while, we realize that this portage plan will not work. The hill is further than it looks, and there are so many channels to cross it would take all night to move our gear there. We decide we should continue down the river until we find another good place to camp.

Just as we start preparing to get back on the river, a grizzly bear is spotted. He is on the hill we were going to camp at - just above the spot we were trying for! We can see him clearly through the binoculars as he rummages around on the hill. At times he'll break into a short run, and then stop. He acts like he owns the hill, and we are not going to dispute that! Good thing we find ourselves in a river channel a mile or so away.

We continue down the river for another half hour to an hour, then find a good campsite on a very large gravel bar between a couple of the river channels. The hill with the bear is now well behind us, however we can still see the bear - he hasn't gone anywhere.

Around 11pm Danny spots a huge gathering of caribou back on the foothills that are now about 3 to 5 miles to the south of us. They are stretched out over a distance that we estimate to be several miles in length. Using binoculars we can see what must be thousands! They look like little gray dots from our distance, but they are moving. In one area they form almost a straight line for a half-mile or so, as if they are in some kind of parade. There are actually two large groups on two different hills. We also see at least one bear heading in their direction.

Bears have been known to attack and eat caribou. As we watch this bear, it almost seems like he either doesn't realize or doesn't care that there are caribou ahead of him. Maybe he's had enough berries or squirrels to eat. He seems to stop in an area where he is alone and stay there for a while.

We hope that these caribou will come down out of the hills and head in our direction but after about an hour or so, we don't see any movement towards us at all. We do see some lone female stragglers in our area. We see one female and her calf running south about a half mile from us. The calf is about the size of a dog. It is amazing how fast the calf is going - it is able to keep up with its mother just fine. The calf can't be more than about a month old. They go off into the distance like two cars racing down a dusty road - traveling at a very constant and fast speed and kicking up debris as they run.

Finally it gets too cold and I head for the tent. It is overcast and we haven't had any midnight sunlight this evening.

There is only one more full day left on the trip. The day after tomorrow a plane will pick us up on the Arctic Coast. I reflect on all we have seen so far - the thousands of caribou, the smaller bands of males crossing the river, now the females with calves. The musk ox, Dall sheep, countless species of birds. The haunting beauty of the midnight light - the terrain with its odd and beautiful rock formations that seem to present an entirely new visual experience around every river bend. I drift off to sleep, my head flooded with images that haven't been catalogued yet.

Continue to Part 5