Western Arctic National Parklands Residency Day 8: Wilderness

Still the same morning routine: up at 9am to call Denali Dispatch for morning check-in, pack up gear, eat hard boiled eggs and apples for breakfast, clean up, and head out.  Today we hiked west to the Nimiuktuk, hoping to find our way to the main river channel and great views.  Having scouted this out last night from atop the high rocks, we decided to cross the shortest distance across the worst of the tundra to a fairly high, very long, ridge that lies west of the high rocky outcrop.  It looked like easier walking atop that ridge, and we were right.  Still patches of dense brush, but mostly much better.  Party way up Tyler was noticing a Northern Shrike that just wouldn't quit it's noise in a nearby shrub.  Then he spotted a fox by that bush.  I quick tried to switch out lenses for my zoom so I could get a good shot, but had technical difficulties and had to stick with what I had.  Turned out to be for the best as the fox came closer and closer, eventually just a few feet away to check us out.  Neat as it was, it's not good for wildlife to be comfortable around humans, so Tyler shooed him off with flair, sending him running.  We watched him go, then stop a ways down the ridge and start eating blueberries.  We continued on up and along our way, finding past archaeological dig sites and some cool evidence from thousands of years ago that's still present if you know what to look for.  People used to gather here during the caribou migrations to hunt.  They would build blinds and other things with rocks and steer the herd to a good vantage point for hunting.  Really fascinating to see these things and know that very little here has changed besides the path of the river channels.  Cold as it feels to us here, we can only imagine how people managed in these exposed locations in the late fall.

From the ridge we saw what looked like the best path to the river, to go across the tundra and straight into the river.  We headed down the ridge to do that, a long tough haul, and at a little rise just before the start of the heavy brush along the river, we paused for lunch.  More cheese and crackers again.  After packing up, we saw that down the slope here facing north was a less dense looking section of brush that looked more doable than that to the immediate west.  Still, it was thick.  We stumbled and pushed our way through hollering for bears and found ourselves in one of the channels, not the main one.  With the vegetation so dense it made sense to try to follow this channel until it hits the main channel, and it looked like north was best.  There was standing water, high ridges of sediment and rock, downed cottonwood trees, copious animal tracks, mostly bear and moose, eventually some river otter and lynx.  We hit the end of that channel and it was just thick brush.  We climbed up the steep bank and shoved our way through the tangles of large shrub branches.  I almost fell so many times.  A steep drop has us into another channel.  We followed that one too, making careful notes of our surroundings so we wouldn't get lost.  It became impassable and we were back up the bank and into the brush again.  Tyler found a moose antler, and in another channel there was a half of a moose hoof.  This pattern went on and on, deeper and deeper until we decided that this could go on all day and still not get us to the main channel.  There was so much bear and moose sign we were both a little uneasy about where we were.  We pushed our way straight east to get back out of the river channels and hiked north a bit to a rise, thinking we could get a good view and try again.  It was further than it looked and we were exhausted when we got to the top.  Stayed and sat there a bit, at the base of this very high, steep rise was a very deep pond, and we could make out little fish swimming around.  We snacked and rested, and saw what had gone wrong. We kept going north when we needed to go further west.  Still, no guarantee we'd have found a passable way to the main channel.

We hiked back east across the wide tundra to the ridge again.  It was a long slog, so much work to get there and get up, but a relief when we made it to the rockier bits.  We took our time hiking south along the ridge, stopping in several places to sit a long while, snack, and look at our morning hike.  We could see the rise where we lunched, where we entered the trees, where we came out, and the high slope we climbed at the end.

We got back to camp about 5pm and Tyler made chicken mole while I painted our lake and the rock to the west.  We hung out for a long while after dinner, talking about where to go tomorrow and deciding to figure it out in the morning.  It's still so light at night we opted to hike out to the ridge south of our tents.  We brought cheezits and our little camp chairs and faced west to watch the sun on the Kingasivik Mountains and some clouds rolling in.  It looked possibly like rain after a while, so we hiked back to camp before too long and headed into the tents.  Turned out to be a good idea, as I wrote today's journal entry it began to rain gently.

No bear sightings today besides tracks in the river channels.  That spoils our one-a-day or more record.

First view of the morning right out my tent.

A wider view.

Looking down on the walk to the kitchen area. Gives a small sense of the deep, tightly growing plants.

Tyler says this is one of the largest tussocks he's ever seen.  Thigh height and a huge diameter.

Past the tundra, hiking through the brush before getting to the patchy rocks and lower plants that are easier walking.

Looking northwest in the direction we're headed.

The Nimiuktuk and mountains beyond.

Our fox friend a little bit after Tyler first spotted him.

Checking us out and coming closer.  Yes, I'm zoomed in at this point.

I love grasses with back lighting.  It was hard to narrow down which photos to include, there are still too many here.

Coming closer.

And closer.

Seems a little too calm around us.

Marking his territory on top of some bear scat.  Someone has dominant species issues.

Looking west again, the fox ran off to the left of this image through the blueberries and willows.

Looking west and wrapping to the north along the Kingasivik Mountains to the rest of the Brooks Range beyond.

Really enjoyed this view of the ridge extending onward past where we dipped back down to the tundra.

Looking northward.

I really love this area.

Headed across the tundra.

Coming up on our lunch spot.

Looking at the direction we were going to walk into the riverbed.

Looking north, down from the rise we lunched on.  It's like a tangled wall meant for a labyrinth.

What we saw after forcing our way through that wall of vegetation.

And looking the other direction.

Unidentified plants.

Lots of exposed roots down in here.

Half of a moose hoof.

Still more tangled sections, even inside.

Neat looking greens and swirls.

More washed away detritus.

Tyler trying to show the scale of the amount of rock that's forced up along the edges here.  Hard to see.

So many fascinating places we could explore.

Moose antler!

More channel bed.

Figuring out what to do, decided to go up and into that brush on the right.

I had been asking Tyler how deep the grass roots on the tundra grow.  With permafrost it didn't seem like they could possibly get as deep as the midwest prairie grasses.

Still more gravel.

Some signs, I think this was the lynx but I'm tired and not focused right now.  Will double check.

Past some of the tall brush above the bank it opened up to shorter grasses, waist to shoulder height, and I could see this view.

Tyler in the brush to show scale.

Yet another river channel.  They really are interesting, though not very photogenic on a day with lighting like today's.

Tyler again, to show the scale of this place.

Tracks.

Clearly bear tracks.

A last river channel view before we pushed our way back out to the tundra.

Looking back on little ponds we passed along the edge of the tree/brush line.

Another unidentified flower.

Looking over toward the ridge and, in the left of middle, the rocky outcrop by our lake.  It looks so far away.

Looking down on this very deep pond while resting and snacking.

A hint at the scale of this, those are large cottonwoods on the far bank of this pond.

Looking back at the Nimi after crossing the tundra back to the ridge.

Love this tiny plant.  Not yet sure what it is.

Little willow that looks like a bonsai at the top of this windy ridge.

The Kingasivik Mountains and Nimiuktuk River.

Looking at where we hiked.  Our lunch ridge is just before the brush to the left of center here.
We popped out to the right, about a quarter of the way from the right edge.
The tall slope we perched on above the deep pond is at the center, far right edge.

Westward panorama.

View with part of the ridgetop.

Ah, home is in sight!  Tiny, tiny tents out there on this vase tundra.

A tangle of tundra.

Photo doesn't do justice to the great light that was playing across the grasses while we relaxed at dinner time.

Tyler took some photos while I was painting this evening.

Clouds moving in as we hiked south, away from the lake and tents.

Starting up the ridge.

Blooming Labrador (tundra) tea!

Looking south at the lakes beyond.

The view back to camp with some of the last sunlight of the day.

A nice spot for a snack!

Between the darker mountain and the one further away is the start of the Grand Canyon of the Noatak River.

Relaxed and happy.

Getting gloomier.

A last look, for tonight, at this view I love.

Headed back to camp for bedtime.

The lake got quite still before the rain started.

Another look at my abode for this trek.