I recently decided to go check out the Ester Dome Single track, a new trail system off Ester Dome road. I had been avoiding this area as my perception of them were somewhat coloured by some conversations with some random strangers that made them sound like some sort of mini version of the North Shore of Vancouver trails, suitable for folks with 50lb fully suspended bikes and too much Mountain Dew. Much to my surprise, the trails are actually super fun single track winding though birch and spruce trees. Obviously I shouldn’t talk to strangers.. The trails are very smooth and not very technical but narrow enough to keep me on my toe. The winding banked turns are very, very fun. There is supposed to be a short half mile more technical loop, but I didn’t bump into it. Alas, I now feel bad I didn’t come to any of the trail maintenance sessions.
My photos don’t really do it justice, as I was too busy having fun.
Remus enjoyed it too.
Summer is a bit hard on our dogs – the trails around our house are mainly winter trails and are pretty wet in the summer, so they don’t get as much exercise as they should. I have taken Remus, the youngest of the lot, on several mid/short length (20 mile or so) bike rides recently in an attempt to whip him into shape for the upcoming winter. Remus of course is very excited about this, as any excuse to go for a trip is fine with him.
Remus and I headed out to the Mile 28 trailhead in the White Mountains NRA to go explore and get some outside time. I had intended to bike out the main trail, but headed up the Summit Trail instead. I had never really thought of this trail as bike-able, however it turned out to be excellent riding. A bit rocky in a couple of sections but mostly quite fun. The old board-walked area at around the one mile mark are getting more muddy… I miss the boardwalk..
The ride up to the dome was amazingly pleasant. The view from the top was fantastic.
Once on top I noticed a new trail branching off to the side. It’s cut into the side of the ridge, and is dry and bike friendly, but alas not all that scenic.
The biking on the new trail is great.
Apparently BLM is working on hardening and reworking sections of the Summit trail, re-routing or otherwise dealing with the sections that are muddy. Its good to see BLM spending time on non-motorized trails. Hopefully it all works out. Remus and I continued until the new section appeared to stop, and turned around and headed back to the parking lot and then on the check out the main trail, and then headed home. Happy Monday everyone!
I had been thinking about pack rafting trips that might work in the upper area of the East or Middle fork of the Chena for most of the summer, and finally things came together. Our plan was to start from Chena Hotsprings, hike up to Far Mountain, then traverse down one of the many ridges down to the East Fork, then float out to Chena Hotsprings road and bike back to the hot springs. Ms Marsh, Tom, and I left the hot springs a little before lunch time and started hiking up the Far Mountain Trail towards Far Mountain. Alas, on our first try we missed the start of the trail and wandered around a bit before getting on the correct trail. The trail is surprisingly beautiful.
The trail started out on a ATV trail, but once it hits the ridge the ATV tracks die away and fine alpine hiking begins.
Weather was pretty nice for most of the first day, giving us superb views and wonderful hiking. The trail winds though some fairly recent burns and it was pretty neat to see how the alpine area was recovering.
We expected to have a pretty dry hike and had packed quite a bit of extra water so we had enough water to make dinner but we were quite excited to find some tundra pools a little after half way to Far Mountain on the first day.
Hiking was amazingly – nice dry ridges with wonderful views.
After we reached mile nine or so, just before Far Mountain, we called it a day and made camp. Dinner was provide by Ms Marsh, and was a fantastic boil in a bag soup meal.
Lately my trips have switched to “just add hot water” meals which can be made plastic zip lock bags or by reusing the foil pouchs that freeze dried meals come in. It allows us to bring a smaller pot and saves fuel making for lighter packs. Light packs makes for happy packrafters!
The next day the we awoke to less stellar views – it was totally socked in.
We spent most of the day hiking though the fog with limited visibility. Several of my last couple of trips had involved hiking though the fog in whiteout conditions, so I have been getting pretty good at it. This time I was quite prepared and had a route preloaded on the gps making it fairly easy to stay on course. I did get us circled around once and did a unnecessary horseshoe loop, but such is life.
The view from the top of Far Mountain is supposed to be fantastic – alas we didn’t get to see much. There was an impressive cairn though, as well as a very large and loud communication complex on top though.
After going over Far Mountain we turned away from the trail and followed the borough boundary along a series of ridge tops heading down to the river. The hiking remained pretty good – lots of game trails and brush free hills.
I found two sets of caribou antlers that I picked up for the twins – I would have loved to have some antlers as a kid, and thought the twins would enjoy them. Alas, they were not the same size, so when I got back and handed them out, Molly noticed hers was smaller and immediately attempted to trade with Lizzy, who was having none of it.. Such is life…
Just before we reached the river we passed though a recent burn, perhaps from last year. It was very fast hiking and it was quite interesting to see the plants moving in after the fire. There were a couple of sections with impressively thick knee high grass.
As we neared the river we also dropped below the clouds and the views opened back up, making route finding much easier. After the burn we hiked though a short section of fairly brushy black spruce forest, but eventually made it out to the river.
We made it to the East Fork at around 4pm, and were very, very happy to see it had lots of water and was going to be a good float. My big concern about this trip was the water levels on the East Fork – I had not been very far up it before and had no idea what to expect, and was a bit concerned we would hike all the way in just to discover it was too low to be float-able. Fortunately that was not the case – the water levels were great and made for great pack rafting. Since we arrived at the river mid afternoon we put in and floated for a couple of hours.
After two hours or so we called it a night and made camp. The East Fork was surprisingly scenic, with great views of the ridges hemming in the river and lots of interesting rock cliffs. The evening was fairly uneventful, besides the splashing beavers. We seemed to have set up camp near some sort of beaver meeting ground. On this trip I attempted to go without a tent, justing using a bivy and a tarp. It was mostly a success, though the bivy I used does not appear to breath all that well. On the second night, since I had my pack raft out and inflated I turned it over and slept on it – it was like heaven and very comfortable.
The next day we continued the float. Up to this point we had not seen any other floaters, but this changed about midday. We heard an air boat in the distance, and saw several pulled up on shore, as well as several parties of more traditional floaters with rafts and inflatable kayaks.
Strangely we saw lots of boats pulled up on shore but few people and no one on the river..
We passed one of the camps where a large jet boat was pulled up along with a jet ski and Ms Marsh talked to them a bit – they were completely flummoxed when they were told that we hiked in. One of them responded with a “Holy Sh**” and a completely incredulous look. More mind boggling for me was the jet ski – its fragile fiberglass bottom made it seem to me like the least useful motorized appliance ever for traveling in shallow rocky creeks.
We did stop and talk to a guy with one of the groups of non-motorized floaters. He said he was on “Camp Duty” while the rest of his party hunted. They were dropped off at the landing strip at Van Curlers Bar, a old placer mine on the upper reaches of the East Fork. Apparently mining of some sort is in progress and the landing strip is open and usable. Some interesting details can be found online about some of the folks who prospected in this area, including Van Curler. Excepting the air boats and jet boats, the float felt pretty remote considering how close it is to town – there were not a lot of signs of other travelers, besides a large number of cut out sweepers. In the lower sections of the river there are a number of very large log jams that have been cut out, so this is probably a good thing – some of those log jams were pretty immense and would have been a bit of a pain to portage around.
Eventually we arrived at our take out, where Tom and I got on bikes and biked back to the hotsprings while Ms Marsh guarded our packs and hunted for cranberries. The bike ride was very fast and fun and before I knew it we were back at the truck.
This hike, float, and bike is highly recommended – the hiking was fantastic, the floating pretty fun (though mellow), and has a very remote feel considering how close this is to town.
In the spring Nancy and I had made plans to hike the Chilkoot with the twins and possibly joined by my dad. My dad was the chief ranger at Klondike Gold Rush Park and as a kid I hiked the Chilkoot trail several times. I have pretty fond memories of hiking the trail with my dad and was looking forward to sharing the experience with the twins – while they are much younger than I was when I first hiked the trail, I figured that they would still enjoy it. Our adventure started early Saturday morning, as we left Fairbanks on the long drive to Skagway. Our plan was to spend two days driving to Skagway, five days hiking the Chilkoot, then two days driving back. My dad decided to join us, so we planned to rendezvous with him in Tok (he would be driving from Wasilla), and he would join us for the rest of the drive. We left town bright and early Saturday morning, and after several hours, arrived in Tok and meet up with my Dad.
The twins got out of the car to be de-wiggled – fortunately Tok features two visitor centers complete with taxidermied mega fauna and large lawns to run around in – ideal places for the twins to explore and burn off energy.
One of the visitor centers also included a place to play hop scotch.
After lots of running around, the twins (and my Dad) got most of their wiggles out and we got back in the car to drive to Congdon Creek Campground in the Yukon Territories. Campgrounds in the Yukon always seem to be in great shape – clean and well maintained. Congdon Creek campground is on Kluane Lake and is very scenic.
The twins spent the evening building small boats and sending them off into the lake, while Nancy and I watched. My dad is an early to bed and early to rise sort of guy, and retreated to his tent soon after we got our camp site arranged. The next day we zoomed off down the road towards Skagway and just before Whitehorse, we made a side trip to Takhini Hotsprings. I spent a lot of time at Takhini as a kid. Whitehorse was the nearest city of any size (possibly the only one) accessible from Skagway by road, and so my folks made regular trips to Whitehorse to do grocery shopping. These trips would often involve dropping the older Cable kids off at the hot springs to splash around while my folks did their shopping.. Spending the day at the hot springs was much more fun than helping my folks shop for groceries, so I have fond memories of the place. The twins had a blast splashing around in the warm water.
The hot springs were only slightly changed from when I was a kid – they are a bit cleaner now and have a few extra bells and whistles but otherwise it’s pretty much just like when I was a kid. After spending two hours or so the twins (and to some extent their parents ) were wore out and we got back in the truck for the final 100 miles or so to Skagway.
Upon arriving in Skagway we dropped by the park office to get our official “talking to” about hiking the Chilkoot trail (like most pre-hiking lectures it mostly could be summarized in three words – “Don’t be stupid”), got our official permits, and then we were good to go. We spent a bit of time wandering around Skagway..
The character of the town has changed quite a bit from the town I grew up in – there are lots of new houses, lots of new summer-only shop fronts.. After seeing the sights we stashed my bike in an out-of-the way bike rack and headed out of town to Dyea to camp for the evening. The morning soon arrived and off we went, starting the hiking section of our adventure.
The twins started out hiking..
The first day was a standard Skagway day – mostly cloudy and damp. It rained lightly on and off.. fortunately we were well prepared, and had rain coats for everyone, including the stuffed animals.
Hiking is of course hard work, and requires lots and lots of snacking.
After three miles or so, the twins started slowing down and nap time arrived. The twins then were bundled up and stuffed into the backpacks for the most of the remaining hiking for the day.
This pattern continued throughout the rest of the trip – the twins start off hiking, they hike until nap time, then get a ride during nap time, and finish the day hiking, except for the day where we went over the pass (more on that later).
Our first day of hiking was super mellow – our destination for the evening was Finnegan’s Point, which is around five miles from the starting point. The Chilkoot trail is in great shape. There is a long section with boardwalk that crosses a set of beaver dams that was a pretty interesting.
When we arrived at the Finnegan’s Point campsite, we found we had the place to ourselves. Finnegan is the first campground and an easy walk from the trail head, so most folks press on to Canyon City or beyond. Klondyke National Park now requires folks to “book” each of the campsites, so we picked Finnegan’s since we did not know when we would be heading down the trail.. since we starting hiking mid-morning we had a short day. This left us with quite a bit of time to goof off with at the first campground and the twins made the best of it by exploring! The big spruce trees were something quite new to them, and they had quite a bit of fun playing around the with the exposed roots.
On the American side the campsites had warming shelters with wood stoves – which was a new experience for me. It was nice to have a dry place to hang out in, though the wall tents are pretty dark and gloomy. The first warming tent had some very neat wooden dumbbells that I expect the trail crew had fun constructing.
Another interesting feature that had been added in the last ten years since I hike the trail was that every site had tent platforms, which made finding a level, dry spot a lot simpler than in the past. Alas, my tarptent was a bit longer than I think they expected tents using the platforms to be but it all worked out.
The next day we headed off to Sheep Camp. My dad took off early and zoomed ahead, making it to Sheep Camp in time to get a nice afternoon nap. The rest of us walked Twin speed to Canyon City. Hiking speeds are a bit slower when your legs are only a foot and a half long.
Canyon City was much like I remember from visits as a kid, though the shelter cabin had undergone renovation and had a new floor, roof, and wood stove.
I have very strong memories of some rocking chairs carved from stumps by chainsaws by some locals who used the cabin as a base of operations for trapping during the winter, and was excited to see they were still there.
After a brief stop at Canyon City, we headed off down the trail to Sheep Camp. We stopped briefly at the old Canyon City town site, and the girls had fun crossing the very bouncy suspension bridge.
Soon after Sheep Camp we reached the twin’s nap time and they got loaded up and snoozed most of the way to Sheep Camp. The trail past Canyon City winds though drier fir forest and has wonderful views of the Nourse River.
Just before we reached Sheep Camp, we encountered a huge posse working away making the last mile or so of trail before the campground at Sheep Camp more pleasant. The girls were awake by this time and were mellowing out in the backpacks and were very impressed by all the activity.
Sheep Camp has changed a lot since I last visited – the shelter cabin was missing its roof..
Several warming huts had been installed..
And there were a abundance of dry tent platforms (quite a luxury!).
The warming huts had wood stoves and much to my amusement these stoves were burning pieces of the old shelter cabins roof supports. The girls quickly pressed the firewood into an alternate use – mainly furniture for their stuffed animal friends.
Sheep Camp was the first campground we shared with other campers, and since it was near full, there were a lot of people. Much to my surprise I bumped into an old boss of my who was hiking the trail with some other folks from Fairbanks – its a very small world! We enjoyed a fine dinner of cheesy rice, and then went to bed in order to get a good start in the morning.
The next day we would be going over the pass, which is the only challenging day on the trail. Our plan was to get an early start and to carry the twins to the base of the steep climb, then have the twins hike up the golden stairs to the top of the pass. The base of the climb is called the “Scales”, as it is where the packers in the old days would re-weigh their loads and charge extra. We got a fairly early start the next day and were on the trail by 7. The twins were a little nonplussed by the early wakeup but didn’t complain too much as they did get to ride in the backpacks rather than having to start hiking right away.
My Dad zoomed off before we were awake and moving – 20 years of commuting 45 minutes one way have made him a perennially early riser, so he was up at 5:30 and off by 6 or so in the morning.
The first four miles or so before the scales are fairly mellow but definitely uphill. As we climbed up to the start of the pass, we gradually left the trees behind and were rewarded by constantly improving views of the surrounding hills.
The general quality of the artifacts has definitely gone downhill since I last hiked the trail, and this is most noticeable in the pass. The old wooden structures and the tramway tower were in quite a bit worse shape – I guess over 100 years of being exposed in a windy, snowy pass have taken their toll.
Eventually we reached the Scales and the twins were unloaded. Without the twins in them, the backpacks seemed almost impossibly light.
The twins really enjoyed this section of trail – there are artifacts everywhere, and lots of things to see. The girls seemed most impressed by the boot soles (there are lots, and lots of boot soles along the Chilkoot Trail) and the horse bones.
After the Scales came the golden stairs. The golden stairs is the area that shows up in the classic photos of the Chilkoot. The twins really enjoyed climbing the pass – there was lots of scrambling and climbing.
Strangely the twins seemed to hike up the pass at about the same rate as some of the adults… which is amazing as adults’ legs are around a three times longer…
Eventually we made it over the pass and into Canada. Molly and I were the first over and were met by a very friendly warden (the Parks Canada equivalent of a ranger) who was very impressed by the twins and kept offering me coffee and tea. He knew my Dad from way back and apparently had spent the entire morning chatting away and drinking coffee with him. Dad was the first person over the pass that morning, at a little before 9, and apparently had left the wardens’ hut at around 11 – a hour or so before we arrived. After a brief stop at the hut we headed off in a hurry to get to the easy walking trail past Stone Crib. Stone Crib is a large area just below the pass on the Canadian side that is filled with artifacts of all sorts. After Stone Crib the trail becomes pretty tame and easy walking. The twins were quite overdue for their naps and we loaded them up into the packs and they were soon asleep. After several hours of travel we arrived at the first campsite on the Canadian side – Happy Camp.
I had never really stopped at Happy Camp before – in the past I just blew though these sections of trail and went from Sheep Camp to Lindemen in one day, but it was a surprisingly nice campsite. There is an enclosed shelter with no stove that is quite pleasant, and lots of raised tent platforms. The twins enjoyed Happy Camp immensely.
Amazingly Happy Camp is situated in the middle of a huge patch of blueberries, and much to my surprise, no one was picking them. I spend most of the afternoon picking and eating blueberries, occasionally with the help of the twins – yum, yum. The twins generated some interesting interactions with our fellow Happy Campers – twice some small parties of manly-men were sitting around discussing the trail and how hard it was, only to notice the kids and then have their bubble burst when it was confirmed that the twins did in fact walk up the pass under their own power. Ah, life is hard.
In the morning we left Happy Camp and started on our way to Bare Loon Lake.
This section of trail is beautiful, with wonderful high alpine hiking, scenic lakes, and wonderful hills.
Long Lake was particularly beautiful..
The twins walked from Happy Camp to Deep Lake and made fairly good progress for little folks.
At Deep Lake the twins loaded up in the the backpacks and started snoozing while we zoomed down the trail. After Deep Lake the trail parallels a very scenic canyon that alas did not look very pack-raftable. After Deep Lake the trail heads back into forest, starting with spruce forest, then turning into mixed spruce and pine, and finally into pine forest – its quite a interesting couple of miles.
There are a couple of interesting artifacts along this section of trail, including a very neat boat frame.
This section of trail was always exciting for me as a kid. The pine forests seemed almost magical, all long needles and dryness, quite a change from the constant damp of the coastal rain forests I was used to around Skagway. Eventually we arrived at Lindeman.
We spend a hour or so exploring Lindeman. Dad attempted to hunt down some more Wardens to chat with while the twins and I explored the exhibits. Lindeman has a tent with books about the gold rush and photos from that era. Lindemen had not changed much since I was a kid – it still looks and feels the same. After spending about an hour looking around we headed out for our destination for the evening – Bare Loon Lake.
Bare Loon Lake is a scenic campsite near a shallow lake (thus the name – oh so tricky) nestled among large pine trees. It was our final evening on the trail and the twins enjoyed it immensely. The weather was quite nice except for a very brief storm during which everyone hovered inside the cooking shelter.
The fine weather brought everyone out of their tents and I got to see a lot more of our fellow campers. It was pretty amazing the stuff some of the folks brought – Fifths of fancy single-malts with the original metal sleeves and glass containers, propane stoves.. some of it was quite boggling. The next day we headed out to hike the final three miles or so to Bennett. The twins were not particularly excited to be rousted out of their sleeping bags..
But eventually we got going.
We arrived at Bennett well before the train arrived, and after poking around, stuck our heads inside the train depot to check on lunch. Lunch turned out to be all you can eat soup, bread, and pie – yum yum!
After lunch we watched the train arrive, then got on board.
The train ride was mostly uneventful, except for the very over the top narration by an invisible guide. Soon we were back in Skagway and off to get clean and have a dinner of surprisingly good Indian food. The next morning we headed back to Fairbanks. On the way back though Whitehorse we stopped at the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre , which was surprisingly good.
We spend the night at a campground just outside Tok, and were back in Fairbanks the following day before 1pm, with more than enough time for the kids to attend one of their classmates’ birthday celebrations.
This was a fantastic trip, and highly recommended. We did it in slow mode, but it could be done as a two night, three day trip quite easily without much hurrying. The hike is fairly remote feeling, but expect lots of people – this is not a hike to escape the madding crowds or for the antisocial. I have not done it as a day hike before, but I expect its a great long day hike. Doing it as day hike is also a great way to get out of the permitting complications – apparently only overnight users require permits. The record time is apparently around five and a half hours – in case one wants to run it.
I have had plans to hike the Pinnell Mountain Trail as a day hike for most of the summer. This weekend things lined up and I headed off to hike it, joined by Tom. Alas, Remus had to stay home, as the trail heads are separated by about 20 miles required either two cars or a bike shuttle, and we opted for more fun but not dog friendly option of a bike shuttle.
Tom and I left town shortly after 7am in order to get a early start on what I expected to be a long day – 10 hours of hiking, 6 hours of driving round trip, and 2 hours of bike shuttle action. Fortunately the drive though coffee huts were open this early, which was a pleasant surprise and there was much rejoicing, hurrah!
The drive to the trail head was pretty uneventful, though we got a flat near 12 mile summit. When we stopped to unload our bikes for the shuttle I though I could hear a whistling sound, which sounded like air escaping from one of the tires. I drove the car back and forth while Tom watched the tire in question but nothing out of the ordinary could be seen, so we pressed onwards, only to have the tire go flat in a couple of miles.
Amazingly, the folks I bought the tire from replaced the flat free of charge – which was quite nice of them, as the cut in the tire was pretty large. I was quite pleasantly surprised when they told me that as the cut was unrepairable, they would just give me a new tire.
Shortly after the tire change we reached Eagle Summit and began our hike. We ran into some other hikers right out of the parking lot. They appeared non-plussed by our fanny packs and lack of packs and my attempts to engage them in conversation were foiled by one word responses..
The weather from this point on was fantastic – the day started overcast and a bit gray, but the forecast was for it to clear and become quite warm. By the time we started hiking the clouds were pretty much gone, the was a slight breeze, and the sun was out – fine weather for a long day hike.
The Pinnell Mountain trail sticks mainly to a series of ridges and it winds around or and goes over a number of small mountains and domes. It has a number of climbs, and one moderately hard climb but nothing very difficult and the effort is rewarded by superb views.
The hike is entirely above tree line with no brush at all and is normally quite dry.
There are two small shelters on the trail. These shelters are pretty small but can be very welcome in harsh weather as the trail is pretty exposed.
They also feature water catchment systems that made our hike much, much, easier, as we knew we could rely on water at the shelters.
On this hike I experimented with using a very small fanny back and it worked great – there was just enough room to get the basics in (rain jacket, first aid kit,etc ), a handful of snacks., and two bike bottles. The small size definitely helps you cut down on what your are taking, as you really can not fit much in it.
At the first shelter it soon became clear that we were hiking a bit faster than expected and would finish well under my estimated 10 hours – this was good of course but a bit surprising.
This trail features lots of interesting rock formations, including a rock shaped like a face.
A little past the face rock we encountered the 4th and final hiker we would see on the trail. This guy was hiking the trail as a four day trip with his black lab and was busy scanning the valleys with binoculars when we encountered him. He had yet to see any wildlife but brightened up substantially when I mentioned that we had just seen a caribou around the corner. Near the middle of the the trail there is a long section of board walk along the low point of the trail. This section is called “Swamp Saddle” and even with the boardwalk can be a bit wet. The boardwalk is a mixed bag – when its nice weather the boardwalk makes for nice and dry travel, however near freezing it becomes very, very slippery and hard to walk on.
It appears that BLM is in the process of upgrading this section of trail, as there was a number of caches of building materials along this section of trail.
The boardwalk only lasts a mile or so, then its back to ridge hiking and nice views.
The second shelter at mile 18 is pretty much identical to the one at mile 10 – though it is a bit less exposed.
We filled up on water again and I chugged a extra bottle fun as a I was getting a bit deydrated at this point. The remaining 10 miles of trail went by pretty fast.
There is one moderately steep climb with a huge number of switchbacks after the second shelter, but otherwise the trail is fairly mellow, and after the steep climb the trail starts heading downhill, making for fast walking. We reached the bikes after 8 and a half hours of hiking, quite a bit less time than I expected. We only ran a very short section – Tom is training for the equinox marathon but I am alas not in that good of running shape currently so we only ran a short section. The trail is almost entirely runnable and would make a great, though long, trail run.
After reaching the 12 mile summit trail head, we gorged on snacks and then jumped on our bikes and headed off to Eagle Summit. As this point I was getting a little dehydrated and as it was now very hot and calm I was soon quite dehydrated. Tom zoomed ahead invigorated by the thought of biking uphill in the hot sun… Eventually I reached Eagle Summit and dove into the cooler in the back of the truck and enjoyed the cool sodas stashed away there. By the end of the day I had had 2 quarts of power aid, 8 20oz bike bottles of water, and 40 oz of pop – thats two and a quarter gallons of liquid! I was still not hydrated when I got home and had to drink several additional quarts of water before I started feeling reasonably hydrated.
The trip ended up taking a little under 6 hours of driving round trip, 8.5 hours of hiking, and 1.5 hours of biking – quite reasonable for a long day trip. My fanny pack setup worked great and forced me to pack a bit lighter than I normally do, which was good. The fanny pack setup also worked pretty well for the brief bit of running I did, so it might be a good option for trail runs in the future.
Pinnell Mountain trail is a classic interior hike and well worth doing. It has super fine views, the trail is in pretty good shape, the climbs are not very challenging, and the trail is amazingly brush free – all in all a fantastic hike. It can be done as a reasonable 2 day hike or mellow 3 day hike if long day hikes are not your thing. Its a spectacular hike!
Remus and I escaped this afternoon to go hike Granite Tors..
It was a great after noon, hot and sunny – a fantastic day for a hike, and for reflecting on life the universe and everything. Time well spent.
We found berries..
And more berries..
And even more berries..
Blueberry season appears to be on us.. Get your picking in now before Remus and I eat them all!
Note: Someone asked me about this trip, and alas, the photo site I was using (the old google photos) doesn’t work anymore – jump to the end, I added a link to a flickr gallery with the full resolution photos to see any of the photos in more detail. -Jay, Summer of 2018
Last year Ed Plumb and crew did a pack rafting trip out to Melozi Hotsprings, about 30 miles away from Ruby. It looked like a very fantastic trip, so Ms Marsh, Tom, and I decided to do a version of it, though at a bit slower pace. Our plan was to fly to Ruby, take a boat ride up the Yukon to Horner hotsprings 30 miles or so upstream, take a dip in the waters, then hike 25 miles or so Melozi, chill for a day, then float out.
Here was our route.
Our trip started on a overcast and damp looking Sunday as we boarded a flight to Ruby – little did we know that “damp” was going to be the theme of the trip. In Ruby we meet up with Jim from the Yukon River Lodge just upstream of Ruby, who gave us a boat ride up the Yukon to the start of our hike.
We started the hike a mile or so from Horner Hotsprings. Horner was once the site of a busy lodge, but its now just a simple hotsprings in a dense thicket of brush. The brush on the hike in brought back memories of south east – hiking in the rain in dense green foliage. Fortunately there was no devils club!
The bugs were out in full force though – by the time we hiked the mile or so to the hotsprings we had collected quite a fan club of mosquitos. The hotsprings at Horner are a pretty simple affair – just a tarped rock pool, but the water was nice and refreshing.
We had the place to ourselves, excepting the bugs and some other small hot springs aficionados.
Alas, I was the only one who got in, as the bugs were pretty intense.
After a quick soak (having folks stare at you like you are insane tends to speed one up) we continued on our hike. The first day we planned to hike 6 to 8 miles and camp around an alpine lake. The hike out of the small valley the hotsprings resides was pretty interesting – we hiked though dense green brush..
Then into a Aspen forest..
And finally onto a alpine ridge above tree line.
The view from the ridge was not so hot – we had under 100m visibility with occasional brief batches of less then 10 meters visibility.. Not the best day to hike to a small lake on top a ride surrounded by steep drop offs… All went well though and we made it intact to the lake, though we arrived a bit wetter than we would have liked.
The view from the lake was a bit limited.
After a night of rain and wind, which my Tarptent survived intact, which was good news as this was by far the windiest I have every used that tent in. We spent the next day hiking on more ridges in near whiteout conditions. The hiking was a bit slower than we planned on due to rock fields and the poor weather, so we deviated from Ed’s route a bit. By the end of the day the weather was starting to clear up, but it was still raining intermittently with periodic low visibility sections as clouds blew though. The next morning arrived a lot dryier than the preceding two days – it was mostly cloudy without any rain – quite change. We also were treated to our first scenic vistas (beside fog that is) of the trip. After a couple of hours of hiking we soon were approaching the hotsprings, and got our first glimpse of the airstrip from a hill overlooking Hot springs Creek.
From the distance the airstrip looked pretty impressive – super long though a bit brushy.
As we dropped down off the hill, we followed the creek and soon were walking on the airstrip. The airstrip was fast walking, but didn’t look to be all that good of a landing place – the middle two thirds is washed out with moderately deep ruts in it.
The section near the lodge is in better shape, but is quite brushy with moderately tall alder. Its also a bit short.. I am not a pilot but it looked pretty tricky to me.
After we arrived we quickly dropped off our stuff at the main lodge after checking that no one was around and visited the hotsprings. I had checked with BLM’s online land status system before visiting to make sure the lodge is not currently leased and that it is public land, but I was still surprised that no one was there.
When we first arrived the main hot tube was a nice temperature and one could actually get in it.
By the end of the day it was pretty hot, and by the next day the tube was unbearably hot. It appears the main tub is not actually a hot tub per say, but more of a hot water holding tank for the lodges piped hot water during the lodges hay day. Perhaps all that rain cooled it down enough so it was bearable for the first day… The hot spring is situated on top of a little rock bluff, and the hot water flows over the bluff making a hot water fall that cascades down into Hotsprings Creek. After the first day we attempted to stand under the hot water falls, but that was a bit unpleasant – the falls are very hot, and the creek very cold, leaving your upper body scorched and your feet cold.
Never fear – we rearranged the rocks at the base of the falls and created a small pool with some random tarps laying around, making a little hot water pool right in the creek. This worked great, as regulating the temperature is pretty easy – all you have to do to cool things down is let in more cold water, to heat things up let in less cold water – very, very nice! (Ms Marsh photo)
After a bit of soaking, we decided to so explore. The lodge complex is pretty extensive. We found a map in a filing cabinet with the general layout of the lodge.
A fair number of the buildings are in pretty good shape. The pool, alas, is has completely collapsed and is returning to the forest. (Ms Marsh photo)
On the last day of the trip while waiting in Ruby for our flight out we talked to a local who remembered visiting the lodge in the late 70s and remembered the pool – apparently it had pretty hot water in it, and that it “had a deep end and a shallow end, just like the ones in Fairbanks”, as he put it. It must have been quite a novelty – a warm pool in such a remote setting.
The shop is in marginal shape – one side is open to the elements and the roof leaks. Amazingly the tools inside it seem to be in pretty good shape -there is a partially disabled three wheeler – a “Big Red” – the classic child crushing model that got three wheelers banned in the US..
A gas powered welder, several generations of chain saws, a weed wacker, and lots and lots of random hand tools and spare parts.
Outside the shop was a collection of very old snow machines, most missing engines, tracks, and other parts. The late sixties or early seventies vintage Johnson Skee-Horse was pretty entertaining (it was supposed to have a 14 horse engine – wow!), as was the ton of random old yellow Skidoo parts lying around. .
The shop had a pretty nice selection of hand tools which were in surprisingly good shape.
The cold celler was a scary mess and I was afraid to look inside it.
The numbered guest cabins were in pretty good shape, though only one was suitable for staying in the winter.
Cabin number 5..
Cabin number 3..
The “Reindeer Cabin”, apparently named after the reindeer hearers who were the original residents and the first users of the hotsprings.
Apparently in the 1900-1910 time frame reindeer were raised up stream 15 miles or so of the hotsprings to feed miners in the greater Ruby area. The herders would come down occasionally and soak apparently, and eventually built a cabin to make things more comfortable. The Reindeer cabin is were the lodge complex really started feeling creepy – it looked like the last residents just up and disappeared. It contains chests of knitting, children’s toys, books, painting supplies, even the former residents prescription medicine – all left as if the former residents just decided to go away for a weekend, and ever came back. Its pretty creepy and a very depressing sight – it came across to me like the cabin of broken dreams..
Toys in the entryway..
A desk..
Drawings on the bedroom wall..
The main lodge building is in great shape and doesn’t really feel like it has been abandoned all that recently, until you start looking around..
Old caribou tags..
And the reading material all point to a mid 80s and early 90s abandonment.
The main lodge has radiators along the walls and under the floor and it appears that in its prime it was heated by the hotsprings. The building has a wood cook stove with a rusty stovepipe with holes, and a large rock fireplace, so it might be a bit hard to heat in the winter.
The lodge has a full size piano and an accordion. The piano still functions though a lot of the keys are sticky. Alas the accordion is pretty far gone and I didn’t have the heart to attempt to play it and break it.
Strangely the kitchen in the main lodge building had a mix of very old food stuff..
And some newer stuff labeled in what appeared to be German:
When we got back in town we were able to find these folks online – apparently they spent a week or so at the hotsprings in 2003. It was pretty fun to decipher one of the mysteries of the place.. Alas, lots of mysteries remain – its really hard to imagine why the place is abandoned. The hot springs are great, the surrounding country beautiful, and the fishing appears to be top notch, at least for grayling.. so why was it abandoned? It would seem to be quite a viable lodge.. perhaps not for hunting as we didn’t see much in the way of wildlife, but as a hot springs or scenic destination its nice. Lots of other lodges seem to get by with quite a bit worse setups. According to BLM’s online land status website, the lease expired in 1996, though the reason it expired are pretty unclear – did they forget to pay it, did it get revoked, or did something else entirely occure.. there are so many mysteries about this place.
The main building is pretty bug proof, and was great to hang out in for the day and a half we spent at the hot springs. Soon after arriving we had the place festooned with our drying belongings.
Having a place to dry our stuff and to hang out in a dry place was very nice after 2 days of rain.
After a day and half of hanging out at the hotsprings, we had to get a move on and start moving again, and so we inflated our packrafts and started floating.
Hotsprings Creek had quite a bit of water in it and the floating was pretty fun – lots of small splashy class II rapids.
We put in next to the waterfall and it was really fun to float by a hot water waterfall in a packraft.
The float out to the Melozitna River was quite fun.
We camped shortly after the confluence with the Melozitna. The Melozitna is a wide, slow moving and surprisingly warm river.
The daytime air temperatures during our float were in the mid 50s and it appeared the water in the Melozitna was slightly warmer – its pretty strange to be able to stick your hands in the water to warm them up.
The next day the Melozitna became a bit more scenic as we approached the Melozi Canyon. We camped 10 miles or so above the first rapids in the Melozi Canyon. Late in the evening three jet boats zoomed by, which was a bit of a surprise, as it was rumored that the rapids blocked off jet boats.
In the evening I was joined by a large number of small guests, who alas had to stay outside.
Next next day we passed though the Melozi Canyon, which probably the most interesting section of river we passed though. The Melozitna River has two short class III rapid sections that we portaged – they didn’t look all that hard but it was not really the sort of weather that makes one interested in getting we – we portaged the rapids.
The first rapid
The second rapid, as seen from below
The canyon is pretty interesting, with wonderful smooth water sculpted rocks.
The first rapid has a wonderful little side channel that goes around on the side, skipping the hard section.
This section would have made fantastic camping, alas it was the middle of the day when we went though and we had a lot more distance to cover, so we pressed onwards. The area looked to have a fair bit of wildlife traffic and would be a interesting place to watch and see what walked by.
Bellow the second rapid there was a number of small boulder gardens, but nothing too exciting.
Once past the rock gardens then it was back to mellow flat water floating.
The rest of the canyon is pretty scenic.
After the canyon the river drops into a flat plane and becomes fairly wide before arriving at the Yukon.
We camped fairly near the Yukon so we could get to Ruby before any afternoon winds kicked up and so we could make our afternoon flight.
The Yukon was surprising mellow – large and flat with a fairly tame current. (Ms Marsh photo)
Soon we arrived at Ruby, had our rafts packed up, and I was enjoying a trashy book while waiting for the plane. Ruby has a nice picnic area near the water that we spend a hour or so hanging out it. There was also a three person crew that staying in the picnic area that was working on a small hydroelectric test bed project that aims to eventually provide Ruby with hydroelectric power during the summer months. After a bit of waiting we were soon on a plane back to Fairbanks. (Ms Marsh photo)
A hour a bit later we arrived in Fairbanks to nice clear skies and Nancy and the twins – it was very, very nice to be home!
This was a super fun trip and highly recommended. A word of warning – the lodge appears to be open for leasing from BLM pending some site appraisal, so it might fall back into private hands – if you plan to visit please double check with BLM first to make sure it is still off lease before setting off. The airstrip is pretty marginal – perhaps it goes without saying, but only land if you are sure you can do it safely as it is pretty remote and its a long, long walk out.
