I am off with Ms Marsh and Tom to do a copy cat trip, ripping off Ed Plumb and Friends Melozii Trip. It should be a pretty mellow 7 day trip. We can be followed at my spot tracker page.
Hope everyone has a good week!
Author Archive
The next adventure..
Saturday, July 17th, 2010A Cast of Thousands on Riley Creek
Monday, July 12th, 2010The king of pack rafters (at least Interior ones), Ed Plumb organized a trip down to Riley Creek near the Denali Park entrance. This creek is very accessible and is rumored to have some nice class II boating with at least one class III drop. It was supposed to be a short 1-2 mile hike followed by a several hour float. Ed recruited a very large posse (13 people total) for this adventure – I guess the short nature of the trip and the potential fun floating made it pretty attractive.
I was unfazed by the unlucky number 13, as my morning coffee was filled with good signs.
After meeting up at Lulu’s we all left town shortly after 9 and were on the trail hiking at a little before 1 in the afternoon.
The hike was fantastic – the trail is in great shape and very fast walking. We had a major train of people –
I was pretty bouncy from the latte and probably annoyed everyone around me with my endless babbling.
Fortunately people shifted around a bit and thus I got to spread my annoyance around.
Eventually we left the trail and dropped down to the creek.
Where we put in on the creek the water was moving moderately fast with more water than I expected – it looked pretty fun.
This creek has quite a bit of character – at the water levels we floated it at there were quite a few nice rocky sections with fun obstacles to maneuver around.
There are a couple of sections where the creek runs along smallish rock walls, but nothing too exciting.
The forum post that spawned this trip, circa 2007, mentioned a rope across the creek near a cable. Well, it turned out that there is still a rope across the creek under a cable, near a foot bridge.
It appeared the rope was used to haul stuff back and forth across the cable, but its seemed that having it dangle just above the water was unnecessary, especially since there is a foot bridge just near by. NPS’s legendary safety paranoia seems to be a bit missing here..
Shortly after the footbridge we encountered the rail road bridge and a brief exciting section. This bit could be a bit tricky – at the water levels we floated it at it was fairly fun and not too tricky. We took out just after the parks highway bridge and made our way back to the cars.
Quite a fun day trip and highly recommended. Its very similar to windy creek, but at the water levels we floated it slightly harder with a few sections that are a bit more challenging. The total time for the hike and float was around 5 hours so it makes for a nice mellow day trip hike-and-float. It was pretty fun to float in such a large group. There was quite a selection of paddles, different sorts of boats, and several generations of spray skirts all of which it was fun to see in action. There was also a wide range of gear folks were taking. One of the pack rafters sported a neat helmet cam made from a gorilla pod and also going super lightweight style with no pack – just strapping his pfd to his life vest – most impressive! Hopefully some of the videos he took will get passed around, as they might make interesting viewing.
More photos here:
 |
| Riley Creek Packrafing trip |
Triathlon Fun!
Monday, July 12th, 2010Nancy has been training all spring and sumer for a local half ironman called the Sourdough Triathlon. The twins and I spent most of Saturday watching Nancy do her swim, bike, and run and she appeared to have a great time.
The twins had a great time helping Nancy set stuff up for the race.
Good enough of a time I am almost considering learning to swim just to do it next year. Perhaps not though – the swim section
looked decidedly unpleasant. Nancy seemed to enjoy it though.
Nancy had a fantastic race, and came in at about 6 hours 30 minutes. She had the definitely moral victory of racing on a low tech (but quite nice – it was her birthday present last year) hybrid bike, not a fancy road bike, and she did not walk any of the run. Hurray for Nancy!
The twins and I watched most of the race (there was a short break for nap time), and amazingly the twins had a really good time watching the racers go back and forth (the run and bike sections are out-and-back-and-out-and-back sort of affairs). I was very impressed by the Twins race watching stamina!
Fun on the 4th – Hiking Chena Dome with the Family
Tuesday, July 6th, 2010Chena Dome is one of the classic hikes of the interior. It is 30 miles long, with lots of ups and downs, but these are rewarded by great views and wonderful alpine hiking with very little brush or mud. Nancy and I decided this spring it would be a grand adventure to hike it with the Twins and see how well they handle it. As they are only four years old, they were not going to hike the whole thing and we expected to carry them at least two thirds of the time. The hike started off on a fine Saturday morning, though rain was in the forecast. As we started hiking up the trail, we were passed by someone hiking the other way. I talked to him a bit, and quickly learned that he had gone three miles and turned back because he “didn’t want to get wet” and turned back at the sight of black clouds moving in. This was somewhat ominous, but we pressed onwards. We were soon passed by two other parties, including a family with a six year old who was going to hike the whole trail without any help. This made quite an impression on our four year olds – hiking whole trail all by him self! The six year olds apparent lack of any whining made a more of an impression on Nancy and I – only six and already hard core! The twins walked the first three miles or so before being loaded up into the backpacks for nap time.
Alas, at about nap time the grade increased making for some fun uphills.
The first day of hiking was quite beautiful – while some very ominous black clouds blew though with a bit of thunder, the weather was quite nice.
After reaching mile seven or so the twins were pried out of their comfortable backpacks and started hiking again.
At a little after mile eight there is an airplane wreck, which provided a bit of excitement for the twins.
The airplane crash site is always a bit depressing, at least to me. Near the engine in the photo is the steering wheel – all smashed and bent.. it seems unlikely that anyone survived the crash. We camped in the next saddle.
Everyone enjoyed a fine dinner of rice, dried veggies, and cashew nuts. Yum, yum!
After dinner the twins and I wandered around, looking at the flowers…
And building some rock cairns.
During the cairn building processes Lizzy was very excited to find a rock shaped like the number one. The joys of being four..
The next morning things were a bit different – we awoke to a gentle rain on the tent.
When we finally made it outside, we found the ridge completely socked in, with about 100ft of visibility. The rest of the day the visibility ranged from 50ft to 1/4 mile until things cleared up in the evening. This made route finding a bit of a chore. In nice weather its it often feels like there are rock cairns every 10ft – in bad weather it feels like they are 10 miles apart. We never lost the trail, but it was quite hard to stay on the trail at several points.
The girls were quite the little troopers, and didn’t whine all that much, even though they spent most of the day wandering around in a white out in the rain.
They spent a bit more time in the backpack (must be nice to be able to retreat to the comfort of a rain proof covered self motorized transport that also provides food and drink on command) but otherwise seemed to enjoy themselves. Several times while Nancy and I were looking for the next cairn Lizzy would inject helpful advice like “You should look at the map” or “you didn’t loose the map did you”.
We also played the ever popular “Is that cairn taller than you?” game, in which the twins guessed if the next cairn would be shorter or taller then them. That game was a major hit.
Nancy also recited a version of Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, the Hungry Caterpillar, and James and the Giant Peach from memory as hiking as rainy fog distractions.
Eventually we made it to the train shelter, were we made dinner and enjoyed some dryness.
The family with the six year old caught up with us at that point and we hung out for a while out of the rain. Eventually we took off and heading back out into the rain which was by this point slacking off and slowly turning into a partially cloudy evening.
The dogs enjoyed this section of the hike immensely – we were now out of the barren alpine rock fields and into mixed dwarf birch which they seem to enjoy a lot more. We took all three dogs, which included two 13 year olds and a 6 year old. The 13 year old dogs, Togiak and Polar, were quite the troopers, even though Togiak has a bit of arthritis.
By the end of the day the weather was quite nice, and the twins got some quality hiking time in.
We made camp just above a small saddle and eventually made it to bed when all the sugar the twins consumed wore off. The next morning arrived with a bit of rain but that quickly cleared off. Rain always sounds worse while in the tent.
Our final day turned out to be quite nice – the sun came out and it actually got reasonably hot and sunny.
The twins had a great time hiking in the fine weather.
With the nice weather, our little flying friends game out, alas.
Fortunately the hiking on the final day was a fairly fast 12 miles, and we made it out by 6, well in time to make it to Mia’s Cafe. The twins enjoyed vegetable yakisoba.
Mia’s food is always good. That little cafe is quite amazing – the burgers are great and at least the vegetable yakisoba is very good (better than any place in town actually). I am now hard pressed to decide weather to order a burger or noodles these days.. Life is hard!
Everyone had a great time on this trip, even though the weather is less than optimal. This bodes well for our Chilkoot plans later this summer, as the Chilkoot is a less strenuous hike (it has about half as much climbing).
Hope everyone is enjoying the summer!
Monday Biking Fun
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010Last year I noticed that a new trail was being put in the Angel Creek valley in the Chena River SRA. This trail is supposed to replace the very rutted existing trail that runs along the base of the valley. The existing trail is pretty wet and really only passable during the winter. Impassible unless you have an ATV, apparently, judging from the ruts. The new trail is routed up high and is supposed to side-hill up the valley, making for a durable, dry trail. Anyway, as I had nothing to do on this fine Monday I decided to go check it out on my bike. While I was out there I also intended to bike into Stiles Creek Cabin and see how that trail is in the summer.
The new trail to Lower Angel Creek cabin is great and makes for fantastic biking. It starts off with a nice climb that offers great views:
It then side hills up the valley for 5 miles or so, then hits an intersection where you can drop down to Lower Angel Creek cabin, or continue on for a hundred feet or so.
The developed trail dead ends at this point, but it appears that it will continue on as its cleared and flagged for quite a distance, so it looks like State Parks plans to extend it to the upper cabin.
I stopped by the lower cabin and checked out the log book – a party of bikers had just been by the day before so it looks like this trail will be pretty popular in the future.
The winter trail past the lower cabin heading out to the upper cabin was marked as closed to motorized vehicles, but alas there was fresh tracks on it from some large ATVs.. The trail did have a very pretty display of some white flowers that appeared to be only growing on the trail, not off the trail, making for a nice effect.
The trail is really fun on a bike – its dry, free of ruts, and has lots of nice mellow climbs followed by short descents as it works its way around the valley. Alas, its a bit short, being only a little over 10 miles round trip, but hopefully it will get extended to the upper cabin, making for a longer ride. There are only a couple of tricky parts where crushed rock was brought in to fill in some muddy sections. These sections are very passable, but require a little care – no big deal.
There is one nice small pool of water off the side of the trail, which Remus enjoyed, and a couple of dry pools.
I am looking forward to skiing this trail this winter – it should make for a fantastic loop when combined with the old trail!
A map:
On the way back I stopped by Stiles Creek Trail and biked into Stiles Creek Cabin. This was a pretty fun ride that is a little under 8 miles one way. By the time we were half way to the cabin Remus was a bit beat – it was hot and he is a little out of shape, as alas am I. Fortunately, at least for Remus, it started raining shortly after the half way point and he cooled off in the downpour. I, on the other hand, got nice and muddy.
DNR has been making lots of improvements to this trail. They re-routed the first several miles of trail to get around a massively muddy section, which has made the trail a very fun summer bike ride. DNR is apparently still working on it – they had some tracked equipment near the start of the trail:
And some signs of trail hardening still in progress – you can tell where the trail work stopped:
This is the first time I had been on this trail on a bike in the summer and it is very, very fun! The trail winds though mixed deciduous and spruce forest and is very scenic.
Alas, the rain hampered by picture taking, so I didn’t get any pictures good enough to do justice to the route.
On the way out I stopped to toss bits of a broken tequila bottle off the trail and was surprised to find a bunch of parts from a rear derailer.
After making it out to the parking lot, Remus jumped into the back of the truck and went right to sleep – I think I wore the guy out! Alas – no sleep for me as I had to drive home.
Both these trails are highly recommended bike rides and are very worth the hour drive from Fairbanks.
As a side note, I have really been enjoying my new bike, a 2008 Gary Fischer Paragon. I picked it up last fall at Goldstream Sports and have really been enjoying it. It is an amazing transition from my old Kona 96 vintage Aa. It rides wonderfully and is a nicer bike than I need these days – life is tough!
Hope you all are enjoying summer!
A Weekend with the Family
Tuesday, June 29th, 2010The family and I had a very busy weekend. On Saturday we hiked up to Wickersham Dome. Molly and Lizzy walked the entire way up to the dome by themselves.
There was quite a bit of stopping to check stuff out – the twins are continually amused by random things along the trail. Lizzy was quite fascinated with the flowers.
They made pretty good time even with the stops and had a blast hiking.
(Photo provided by Eli)
They even enjoyed the final climb to the top – after which of course everyone had a nice lunch and then rode in backpack carriers to the car while taking a nap. Everyone being the twins that is.
On Sunday we headed out to Chena Lakes to spend the afternoon goofing off, playing in the water, and hopefully getting in some packrafting practice time. Nancy biked there along with Tom and her old school friend Eli who is in town for a conference. They appeared to have a good bike ride, but when we caught up with them they were having fun fixing a flat. Fortunately the twins were around to supervise the repairs.
Eventually we made it to Chena Lakes, where the twins got out their own bikes.
Eventually Nancy took the twins out for a nap time run in the Chariot, and Tom and I got out our packrafts and spent several hours splashing around in the lake. The water was fantasticly warm given it was a fairly cloudy overcast day. We spent a lot of time practising re-entering flipped packrafts – I think I flipped and got back in about 30 times. I was much, much faster by the end of the day. Spending a bit of time practising flipping is really worth while – it keeps you from panicking when you flip in moving water, and hopefully allows you get back in. Not panicking is pretty crucial if you don’t want to loose your paddle and possibly your raft – potentially leaving you with a long walk home. Chena Lakes is a great place to do this – the water is quite warm and the lake is normally not all that busy. The beach is pretty busy, but the rest of the lake is generally pretty unused.