Sharing the Landscape with the Caribou for Ten Days

So here's what I sent to the SCA for my final blog post of my stint of syndication with their blog website. Next post will be all me and only available here!

Nothing can inspire a person to conserve the earth’s beauty more than spending time in wilderness. Josh, my supervisor, and I, just returned from a ten-day off-trail backpacking trip through the upland wilderness of Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve in eastern Interior Alaska. We traveled by bush plane, landing on tall grass in an area near Copper Mountain and the upper Charley River. It was an amazing experience; we shared the landscape with the caribou, the wolverines, the marmots, and the bears (although we saw none; not even tracks or scat). And, we brought cameras. The sole purpose of our trip was to visually document the area so that others can be inspired to come and enjoy and respect the landscape.

Itty-bitty plane.

We landed in a Helio Super Courier on a relatively smooth bush airstrip in a lowland field. Immediately surrounding the strip on all sides is ferocious wetland, filled with tussocks, moss, and watery, squelchy ground. Note to anyone traveling off-trail in Alaska; try to travel with a light pack so that you can wear lighter shoes, such as trailrunners, that dry quickly. Even if you wear the top-of-the-line Gore-Tex backpacking boots, your feet will still get soaked, so you might as well give up on trying to keep your feet dry and instead wear shoes that dry quickly. You’ll also travel faster and easier with more lightweight shoes and equipment. Nowhere else other than in Alaska is this so important.

Can you say wet feet?

We slogged through the tussocks up to higher ground, where the water drains well enough to allow spruce trees and brush such as dwarf birch to grow in dense thickets. Wear long sleeves and gaiters in these sections, or your arms will be scratched and your pants will be ripped! As elevation increases, however, the trees and brush reduce in size significantly until they are no longer present.

Josh shootin' away.

We had had our heads forward for so long, sweating and slogging through thick brush uphill, yelling “Yogi!” profusely to notify any bears that might be in the area that we were passing through, that we hadn’t looked back behind us for a while. When we did, we saw the beautiful basin that we had left.

I added in the red lines so you can see where the airstrip is.

We noticed that the airstrip, which is about 800 feet long, looked like a tiny speck compared to the rest of the landscape. It’s amazing how small we began to feel after being immersed in a wilderness like Yukon-Charley. Humans can’t even hike over tussocks without occasionally breaking our ankles, but wolverines hop around like Michael Johnson among toddlers.

There is probably enough poison in the purple flowers, monkshood, in this picture to kill half of the population of Fairbanks. Be careful where you camp, and DON'T EAT THESE.

Once we were above the tree line, the landscape moved to grasses and flowers in the wetter areas and low moss, rock, and berry plants in the drier areas. Sadly, we were a few weeks too early for berry season; we only found about three blueberries that were ripe enough to eat.

Copper is the highest peak you see in the photo.

For the first two nights, we camped under the shadow of Copper Mountain, 6367’, our hiking objective for the trip. It’s quite a rugged mountain above 5500’, with sheer scree slopes littered with huge, loose rocks and boulders. We were not aware of this level of ruggedness, however, and we realized at about 6000’ that we had taken the wrong direction of approach. Another mossy buttress other than the one we took would have been a much better (and safer) choice. The risk of the route we had chosen was too great. Next time! However, the fact that not even we, the National Park Service, had been aware of the level of ruggedness of the second highest peak in the preserve, goes to show the deep level of wilderness that abounds in Alaska. Alaska’s wilderness areas are absolutely untouched compared to “wilderness” areas in the contiguous United States.

Here's a closer view of Copper. We tried to hike along that ridge in the back on the left. It didn't work. We should have dipped down into the valley over the close ridge and come up the big, wide mossy slope that faces the camera.

As we hiked up the ridge on our summit attempt, we had a few encounters with bull caribou. They made experienced hikers like us look like crawling babies what with their ability to prance around on mossy and rocky ridgeline slopes. Throughout the trip, we saw around five caribou on the ground, as well as an entire herd of at least fifty on the flight out of the preserve. The nice thing about seeing lots of caribou is that their presence precludes that of bears for a few hours!

Bull caribou wondering what the hell we are since it's probably never seen a human before.

We spotted two Dall sheep on a ridge across the valley towards Copper Mountain, and we heard an enormous amount of marmots and pika squeaking with disapproval at our presence on the alpine rocky slopes. Listen to the marmots; their squealing calls may be letting you know of the presence of an unwelcome creature (a bear) near your camp.

The icing on the wildlife cake, however, was the sighting of two wolverines on two consecutive days near the end of the trip. Most wilderness travelers go their entire lives without seeing a single wolverine, and we saw two. The Athabaskans, the natives of Interior Alaska, consider the wolverine their chief animal for its strength, agility, speed, and ability to inspire fear in all other animals, despite its small size. Seeing the wolverines, although only for a few seconds each, was an amazing experience. Josh even got video of the first one that should be up on the Yukon-Charley Rivers website soon.

Yeah, I know, it was a pretty terrible place to be. I hated it too.

After we made the call to abandon the summit attempt of Copper Mountain, we descended over the other side of the ridge into a picturesque high alpine valley, complete with crystal-clear snowmelt-fed lakes and streams. It was the most captivating place that I have ever spent time in. Unfortunately, it rained for at least three of the four days that we spent there; we were still able to get some good shots, however. We were sad to leave when it came time to hike back to the airstrip.

Josh, the ultralighter, and his pack.

After having eaten four more days of food, our packs were significantly lighter heading back up the ridge than they had been coming down it. We backtracked our previous path relatively quickly, making our way back to the airstrip in two days. We had set up camp at the airstrip the night before our pickup date when we heard the hum of a plane propeller. We looked up in the sky out of our shelter, and circling the airstrip was a small bush plane, but not the one that was to come pick us up! We quickly removed our tent from the middle of the airstrip and let the plane land. A local bush pilot, Dave, was simply resting at the strip for the night before continuing on to get some more fuel. Early the next morning, he took off, and I shot a video of his takeoff. Enjoy!

It wasn’t long after Dave took off that we did, as well. As we flew low and weaved through the mountains on the flight out of the preserve, I was looking forward to some fresh food, but I was also sad to leave such a pristine wilderness. It’s a place for reflection, and it’s a reminder that, without technology, humans are simply inferior to the other wildlife. Hopefully my images can convey that sentiment. Thanks for reading.