Trip 3: Birch Creek to Mastodon Dome and Eagle Summit

Trip rating: 3/5
Dates: 11 – 13 July 2009
Duration: 3 days
Total miles: 47.8 miles (21.8 hiked, 26 miles packrafted)
Trip members: Ty Taylor and Marielle Smith
Start point: NE of Fairbanks, mile 94 of Steese Highway (Birch Creek access road)
End point: Berry Camp access road on Steese Highway
Trip synopsis: Floated 26 miles down Birch Creek and hiked alpine ridgeline to Mastodon Dome. Intended to continue along ridgeline to Eagle Summit and cycle back to car via the road, but instead took an earlier ridgeline down from Mastodon Dome to Berry Camp access road. This trip might merit a score of 4/5 if the water was a bit higher and the sun a bit less ruthless.
River class: I-II
Map:

Trip route: Birch Creek headwaters to Great Unknown Creek. Hike to Mastadon Dome and out mine road (we had planned to hike back to the road via Eagle Summit, but were too beat).

Trip journal:

View of the massive burn along the Steese on our way in. Fireweed blanketed the charred hillside with a spectacular purple.

DAY 1
TY: We hid two bikes off the Steese Highway in some bushes, locked to an alder, at Eagle Summit to cover the 13 miles that would separate us from our car when we completed the ridge-top hike to the road. We were looking forward to the exhilarating, mostly downhill bike ride in the midnight sun to cap off the trip. We parked the car at the Birch Creek headwaters next to some plaques with some simple words from Tim Palmer in “Lifelines: the case for river conservation,” appropriately putting our movement into ecological context:

“Passions run higher on rivers. Life seems more vital. On a river, it’s easier to believe in the power of nature, in the water cycle, in the chain of life, in the flow of nutrients down to the sea, in the fact that we are made from earthly elements and when we die those elements go back to the ground and feed some other life.”

I felt something of those words when filtering water from alpine seeps, savoring the earthy cool flavor and feeling how a piece of the land and sky becomes me and travels across itself.

The headwaters were too bony for floating so we waded from rocky shore to shore, crossing some beautifully imprinted and good sized grizzly tracks as we worked our way to deeper water. We were antsy to float and probably put in earlier than we should, resulting in bumping along the rocks and constantly getting out to drag the boats through shallows. It was, however, great manoeuvring practice! For the first five miles we spent about a third of our time out of the water, a ratio which gradually improved as we approached the Harrington fork, the river’s first substantial fork.

Ty wading across an early stretch of Birch Creek

On a bend, a large raptor circled over us calling out a long raspy “peeeeewww”. Further down, we scared a moose and her young calf away from the water's edge. The mother disappeared in an instant, but her calf had significant problems getting up the steep bank - it seemed it's mother had forgotten just how much longer her legs were!

Ty paddling a narrow braid of Birch Creek

From a cliff across-stream from our gravel bar campsite a peregrine falcon (we think) continuously heckled nobody in particular with a noisy “kew kew kew kew”. Otherwise, wildlife was scarce, likely due to the unfortunate necessity to make enough noise for the bears’ sake that we scare away every living thing that doesn’t fly. One of these days I’d like to shut up for long enough to see a lynx.

Glassy scene on Birch Creek

Since Marielle’s new boots had given her a large blister on the previous trip, we were both using trail running shoes for this outing. We were both impressed with their performance, but having been in (mostly!) and out of the water all day, our feet were cold to the bone by the time we settled into the tent. They continued sucking heat from our bodies the entire night. We made a mental note to bring ‘hot hands’ next time – small packets that heat up and are more often used for cold hands during the winter. Although on later trips we found that if you just hike for a little while after having frozen feet, it seems to bring the blood back to the bones fairly quickly.

Besides our cold feet, we had also opted not to bring sleeping bags to save weight, and instead share a single fleece blanket that isn't even big enough to cover a single person all the way. Even in our thermals and with the emergency bivy stretched over us we froze the whole night.

DAY 2

Gravel bar camp site - Camp 1

MARIELLE: The morning was blisteringly hot, but it gave us an opportunity to dry off our kit from the day before. Birch Creek was more exciting than the South Fork Chena. It was good to get more experience of maneuvering past obstacles – fallen trees, etc that pile up against the bend of the river, just where the main flow hurls you towards. I wasn’t too smooth on all the corners, but luckily the sturdy packraft bounced off even the sharply protruding logs. Amazingly, the bottoms had also stood up to all the scraping the previous day, with hardly a scratch on them.

View from Marielle's boat - with the constant shallow water we rarely got our feet inside the boats all day!

Interesting 'brick' rock formations

We finally got the GPS working for this trip. It was great to attach it to the back of our packs, positioned on the bow like a speedometer! We averaged about 3 mph on most of the river, and some of the shoots sped us up to 5 or 6 mph. It was also really helpful to have the GPS as a backup to our map reading, which is often hard on a winding river. I had set up 5 mile way-points, so we could easily chart our progress (although in later trips set way-points every mile).

Lunch was spent on a small gravel bar in the middle of the river, staring up at a bald eagle perched at the top of a tree on the bank opposite. They are such majestic creatures!

Bald eagle at our lunch spot

At about 4pm we reached a large switch-back and investigated the option of hiking up to the ridge from that point. It meant crossing a large area of burn covered in tussocks, each standing about two feet high. We tried walking just a few metres without the packs and realised it was just too dangerous (ankle breaking territory!). Tempting as it was to head straight for the hills, we instead trudged our way through a thick mud swamp which fed back into the river, and suffered the frustrating switch back.

Before too long we were on a gravel bar on the east side of Great Unknown Creek, our take out point. We had a long rest – it was an extremely hot day and we were both feeling the effects. Thankfully, it was cooler when we set out up the hill that would lead us to the long alpine ridgeline. It seemed there was no way to avoid tussocks, but at least the ones we encountered weren’t as big as the ones on the adjacent hill, and they didn’t last for too long. However, they did lead to a marsh! After a quick slog, we were soon on dryer ground and heading up the steep hill. As we crested the top and started down the other side towards a small drainage, a moose, startled by our presence, trotted across the stream and up the opposite hillside with envious ease. It covered in a few minutes what would take us about an hour! We filled up with water and continued on past the drainage to a precarious supper spot, perched among large sphagnum mounds.

Marielle at the precarious supper spot - we had to hold the pot whilst the water was heating, for fear of the dry vegetation catching on fire (whilst being bombarded by teams of hungry mosquitoes!)

We packed up and continued up the next forested hillside, which led to the alpine ridge, hoping to set up camp at the rocky section on top. But the hill was longer than we thought, and fairly exhausted we set up camp on a comfy sphagnum bed in amongst the trees.



DAY 3

View up the hill, morning of the third day

TY: We had slept soundly in our exhaustion on the deep, pillow bed of sphagnum moss before the heat of the morning sun drove us from the oven. While packing and hydrating, we hid from the climbing sun as well as we could before setting off. We reached the blessed alpine terrain after about two hours of soft moss, trees, and dense brush. The view opened up to reveal to the South and East the endless series of ridges and domes that characterize the Alaskan interior, fading in ever more ethereal shades of blue to the nebulous horizon. Our pace picked up from less than one mile per hour through the forest and brush to a walking speed of 3.5 mph and more according to our trusty GPS speedometer. Our spirits were high having reached this long-awaited terrain and we even jogged sections of easy downhill. The tradeoff however was the complete lack of protection from the violent sun in a mostly clear sky!

Almost at the alpine, but thick dwarf birch made the going tough for a bit longer...

We reach the alpine at last!

Marielle at the start of the long alpine section with "purple mountains majesty" in the background. God bless America.

We had to drop off the ridge for water, and luckily we found some at 3,000 ft, seeping from the ground and collecting in pools. We hydrated and trudged up 1,000 ft back to the ridge top with 5 liters in each backpack. After that we decided we did not want to do that again if we could avoid it – the detour for water had taken a couple of hours! We rationed water just enough to stave off headaches for the rest of the day. Much of the hiking was rocky and easy, where other sections were soft and mossy, making for a slow trudge.

Ty filtering water from a small pool of ground water

MARIELLE: Our progress along the ridgeline seemed impressive every time we looked back to see how distant our last rest spot had become. The sun was unrelenting though, with temperatures in the mid 90s. Almost every cloud that looked as if it might drift over the sun missed it, leaving us baking with no cover at all. Amazingly, we managed to stay relatively well hydrated, but the heat sapped our appetites and made it more and more difficult to eat our snacks.

Ty looking back at our route

I was becoming increasingly tired and getting worried about 'hitting the wall' again. About a mile before Mastodon Dome a caribou trotted into view and ran towards us. For a few moments both Ty and I were worried about its intentions, but it became obvious that it was just curious, and it soon trotted off. As with the moose, we marveled at the ease with which it traveled across the landscape - unlike our cumbersome footsteps. That encounter really brought me out of myself, back into the never-ending Alaskan alpine landscape, and the trudge, for a while, wasn't so bad.

Morale-boosting caribou!

Marielle gets lost in the expansive landscape

We had a scenic supper at the top of Mastodon Dome and decided to curtail our route. We had intended to go all the way to Eagle Summit and then ride our bikes (stashed in alder bushes) back to the car, but we were just too tired. We had noted a bail-out route, utilising a mining road which led from the base of an earlier ridgeline out to the Steese, and headed for this. We marched along the ridgeline and began our descent towards the road. As we neared the drainage at the base of the ridge, we spotted another caribou at the bottom. We slowed up and watched as it became aware of us; again, it came pretty close, us if interested to find out why two people were out hiking so late!

The mining road made easy hiking to the Steese, although after a long day, it seemed to go on and on. We reached the Steese at about 12.30pm, and somehow managed to get a lift back to our car - sitting in the bottom of a boat a pulled by a pickup truck! It was a bumpy ride, but we enjoyed the beautiful cool evening, and the thought of heading back to civilisation again!

The 'boat' ride home

Trip 2: Granite Tors to South Fork Chena River

Trip rating: 1/5 (not recommended!)
Dates: 3 - 6 July 2009
Duration: 4 days

Total miles: 34.8 miles (16.5 mi hiking, 18.3 mi packrafted)
Trip members: Ty Taylor and Marielle Smith
Start point: Mile 39 Chena Hot Springs Road, Granite Tors trail head

End point: Mile 28.5 Chena.Hot Springs Road, Lyrad Creek

Trip synopsis: Hiked up Granite Tors trail via (steep) right fork. Left trail after 5.8 miles at 2^nd set of tors heading southwest, camped 2.5 mi off trail on ridge. 2^nd day hiked northwest down into tributary to Martin Creek, crossed Martin Creek and side-hilled through woods, following the drainage on north side. Camped 1.5 miles from South Fork of the Chena. Day 3 hiked to South Fork, floated 10 miles and camped. Day 4 floated the last 4 miles of the South Fork to the Chena River, then floated further 4 miles of the Chena and exited at Lyrad Creek.

River Class: I (slow)

Map:

Trip journal:

DAY 1

TY: We started late, 4 pm at the Granite Tors trailhead after chugging as much water as we could fit in our stomachs, knowing we had to carry enough for the rest of the day and the next morning. I carried 4 L and Marielle carried 5 since she has trouble chugging down as much as I do before hiking. This was our first time hiking with trekking poles (Alpkit Carbonlight carbon fiber) and we never could have predicted how indispensable they would be throughout the trip – far more so off-trail than on. We encountered several people coming down from day trips and I was already longing to get off trail to escape the constant reminders of the human world.

Ty enjoys some local vegetation (wild rhubarb)

Granite Tors trail (western arm)

Ty approaches the tors

Ty next to one of the tors

From my basic geology background, I think the tors are intrusive dikes of granite igneous rock. Lava tends to push through the matrix of metamorphic schist in vertical “dikes” and horizontal “sills” as it works its way through fissures in the rock. As the matrix rock erodes, the striking fins (or “tors”) of harder igneous rock are left behind jutting like stegosaurus back plates from the earth. Each set of tors has a unique character of appearance. After reaching the top and the second set of tors along the trail, it was invigorating to head off trail and push through dense alders along bear and moose trails toward a set of tors very few people have probably ventured to see. By this time Marielle had run out of her 3 L in her platypus, and was getting a dehydration headache. I took advantage of the opportunity to remind her of the importance of forced hydration before the hike, no matter how uncomfortable it is at first to be full of water.

Marielle enjoys getting off-trail

We hiked about 1.5 mi through alder brush, following a compass bearing to the next set of tors. Noticing some fresh bear signs we continued to make plenty of noise to avoid surprising animals, including moose, which can also be dangerous if a person unwittingly steps between cow and calf. We stopped to eat dinner at a nice alpine lookout, then continued another mile through dwarf birch and soft sphagnum moss, the low red sun through a smoke haze from distant forest fires followed our course, hopping ridgetops, hiding and reemerging from silhouetted rocky backbones. We found a high and dry campsite with good visibility for bears, and stashed our food in odor-proof sacks among rocks a good distance from camp before bed.

MARIELLE: We had hiked until about midnight. The 24 hours of sunlight during Alaskan summers presents a big advantage, although it can encourage you to put in much longer days than perhaps are sensible! It felt good to be at our ridge-top camp, with such expansive views all around us. Inside our tent however, things were a little less perfect! Trying to cut out as much weight as possible, we had discarded the inner part of my tent (Vaude Taurus Ultralite) and so had to sleep in ringed headnets and continually spray ourselves with mosquito repellent (aka “bug-dope”!) to keep the hoards at bay.

Camp 1, with the tors visible on the ridgeline behind our tent

View of distant ridgelines from our first campsite merge eerily into the distance

Big Bear Tor?! - look at the rock on the left

DAY 2

MARIELLE: This was to be a very long day. After breakfast, we took a good look at our proposed route from our bird’s eye view from the ridge-top. We quickly saw that the ridge we had intended to hike to get to the South Fork was thickly forested. Noticing a large burn mark on the ridge running south-west from our camp, we decided to head for this, expecting it to be much easier going.

Our view of the 'appealing looking' burn from the first campsite

Ty crossing a stream

We reached the first drainage within a couple of hours and filled up with (filtered) water. We then hiked up the other side of the valley towards the burn. Last winter Ty, a friend and I hiked off the Steese highway, crossing the Chatanika River to the Circle - Fairbanks trail, through a large black spruce burn. Most trees were still standing, so the fire had cleared the low standing brush and the going was good. But this burn was different, and it soon became clear that it was going to be much harder to get through than forest! Unlike the burnt area Ty and I had hiked through last winter, this was a mixed white spruce and birch forest, much taller trees, which when burned, topple on top of one another, forming a dangerous charred obstacle course that was far from energy efficient to get through. Judging by the well-used game trails skirting the perimeter, it looked as if even moose and bear kept clear of this area.

The burn...

Marielle not enjoying the burn

Given the impossibility of ploughing through the burn (without injury!) we headed further down the valley: as far away from the river as possible (to keep clear of bear and moose). We took advantage of the numerous game trails paralleling the drainage, many of which were just as well broken-in as human trails, yet they do not follow the same logical patterns. It was a bit nerve-raking to be on them – there were loads of moose prints and I had visions of one charging up behind us, unable to stop quickly enough! We made plenty of noise though, and didn’t see anything.

Large thunder claps echoed in the valley behind us throughout the early afternoon. The storm eventually caught up with us and the rain was refreshing.

This was the day that I ran out of juice! I literally couldn’t go any further. We had passed over pretty demanding terrain – over fallen trees, through dense alder, crossing creeks via fallen trees – and I guess I was just exhausted. We hiked up a steep hill-side and Ty made a very speedy (and comfortable) camp spot in the spruce forest. He wipped round the trees, picking off small branches and laid them on an open area of sphagnum moss to raise us up off the water-logged moss. We sank into the spruce bows and sphagnum on our sleeping pads and bags – just about the most comfortable night’s sleep I’ve ever had!

Again, there were hundreds of mosquitoes in the tent, and without the inner part it was a bit daunting! Amazingly though, they stayed away from us, instead remaining at the tent apex and along the bottom of the sides. Perhaps they were repelled by the spruce bows? Thank you forest! Incidentally, we weren’t proud of taking parts of the forest like that, but it was fairly essential in order to make sure we didn’t sink into the wet sphagnum during the night.

Ground sheet of spruce bows

DAY 3

View of Martin Creek drainage from breakfast location

MARIELLE: The next morning I was feeling much better and so we continued our hike towards the South Fork. A case of Summit Fever had probably been the main reason why we had kept going so late the day before. We had been hiking along the drainage (Martin Creek) for so long, that the scenery had become repetitive and we just wanted to reach the river! Our slow progress was also demoralizing.

Luckily, we reached the South Fork within a couple of hours of setting out. We soon had our rafts inflated and in the water. It was good to finally be on the river, and we were pleased that is was deep and wide enough for our packrafts, and without too many obstacles to portage. However, the river was pretty slow moving, requiring us to put in a lot of effort to paddle.

Ty prepares to start the South Fork float

Good to be on the river!

View from the bow of Marielle's boat

View down the South Fork

Marielle portaging

Ty chillin'

We pushed it too far again, and by the time we stopped for supper, Ty was crashing. By the time you’re tired, it’s already too late – even when you stop for the night, there are so many chores to do. We prefer to continue paddling for an hour or two after supper, to put some distance between us and our food spot (in case any bears are attracted to the area). Upon finding a good camp site, we then have to hide our food a good distance from our tent. All of this takes a good deal of time and effort, so it’s best not to wait until you’re on the point of exhaustion to begin these chores! That night, we had already hit the wall, so we simply crossed the river after eating and set up camp on the other side. That night, our tiredness inhibited us from making the best decisions in selecting a good camp site and we didn’t realize that we had set up our tent in the sun, until we crawled inside it and began cooking. Too exhausted to move it, we lay outside our bags dowsed in bug dope and had a restless night.

DAY 4

TY: Around 8 am we wrenched ourselves out of the tent and packed up. We ate the last couple bites of pasta that we couldn’t bring ourselves to swallow the night before, and split half of the half of a peanut butter and jam sandwich we had left, saving the rest for a meager “lunch”. Immediately crossing our first log jam, we pushed steadily along working the fatigue from our muscles. In much better spirits than the latter part of the previous day, we actually were enjoying the meandering river through this beautiful land. We watched schools of fish swim under the boats, I saw an otter swim just beside me in undulating motions like a dolphin (the wildlife highlight for me!). A raven perched stoically on a leaning snag over the river, holding its mouth open – was it dumping heat? Cut away hillsides were dotted with holes, the homes of bank swallows (thanks for the ID Dad!). I looked for mastodon bones protruding from the banks as we drifted by, but saw none. We startled a cow (female) moose and calf who watched us drift by after retreating to the bushes.

Ty passing underneath a fallen tree

Ty scans the cliffs for protruding mastodon bones

Portaging a fallen tree

We had presumed as a worst case scenario that we would have to paddle until 7pm, so we rationed our combined food of a half-PBJ (translation for the English: peanut butter and jam sandwich) for a 1:30 lunch, and the 3/4 Snickers bar for later. However, we arrived at the Chena River at 1:30 and munched our lunch in elated relief!

All smiles upon reaching the South Fork's junction with the Chena

Even navigation of the short trip on the Chena was confusing. We knew we could just hike north from any point, but after a little exploratory walk through the woods getting mobbed by extremely aggressive mosquitoes, we decided to paddle on and try and recognize where the river came close to the road. We soon found a camper with a family fishing so we knew there was a road and we were essentially done! We hiked out to the road and soon got a ride from the foreman of an asphalt crew back to our sweltering hot car and were on our way home.

Marielle’s final thoughts:

Day 3 was another case of Summit Fever – we had both wanted to reach the end of the river, not least due to dwindling food supplies. But we realized that rushing through the wilderness, and not taking enough time to appreciate it, somewhat defeated our intentions of exploring Alaska this summer. The duration of this trip and the difficulty of the terrain stretched us, so we really want to do trips across better ground (e.g. alpine), with more breaks and time to enjoy where we are. It’s all a big learning curve though – in terms of our gear, the food, and we’re also learning how fast we can go through different types of terrain. We’re staring to look at maps in a more informed way – seeing the real contours and possible vegetation types, rather than getting so caught up in a “cool looking route”. We’re also getting stronger, so hopefully we can put off the crashing time!

Ty’s final thoughts:

This was our first multi-day packrafting trip. The trip overall was much more difficult than anticipated. However we shouldn’t overlook some laudable successes. The dehydrated dinners I’d been working so constantly to amass during Marielle’s absence had worked great! We had meals of pasta with pasta sauce including several healthy veggies, and meals of potato and squash mash with lentils and carrots and tasty spices. These meals, dehydrated and placed in tough ziplock bags, constitute very little space and weight, emit little odor, and provide a hardy and nutritious dinner at a fraction of the cost of store-bought freeze dried meals (e.g., the “Million Dollar Mountain Meals”). Our carefully designed gear systems minimized weight enough, even with the additional weights of rafts, paddles, pfd’s and helmets, that on the toughest terrain our packs were not overly cumbersome. We learned that the benefit of weight saved by eliminating the inner tent may be compromised by the lack of sleep. In the lowlands of the interior, the weight of mosquito protection may be well worth it. Also, on our final day, while looking hungrily at the many grayling swimming beneath us, we decided it would be prudent to include a fishing line and hook in our emergency kit!