Bob and I were packing up on the side of Caribou Creek, looking forward to the last 15 to 17 miles of hiking to the finish. A super cub flew over us, then came back to fly circles fairly low right above us as we got ready for our final hike, packing up our boats and our floating stuff. It kept flying circles above us, and Bob and I gave them several thumbs up to make sure they knew we were ok. Oddly, they kept circling above us. As we got ready to go we speculated what they were doing:
“Maybe looking for someone’s boat?”
“Maybe someone is lost and they are looking for them?”
“You sure your Inreach didn’t go off?”
When we packed up, and hit the trail, we soon figured out why they were circling – we had taken out a few miles early on the wrong trail. It was marked clearly on our GPS – very obviously. Had I actually checked I would have known we were taking out at the wrong spot. There was a connector, but that turned out to be a lot longer than anticipated. We finally reached the trail we should have taken out at, over two muddy hours later. Sigh.
So, this post is a bit wordy – it is hard to condense this experience down to something short and pithy, and that is of course beyond my writing skills, so to feel free to skip to the end to just look at photos.
The Alaska Wilderness Summer Classic is a point to point human powered event. It is now in its 40th year, and the last year for the current route, which is from the Cantwell area to Sheep Mountain Lodge near Eureka. It switches every three years normally. Last year Tom and I did a mostly overland route, and I was really looking forward to taking a boat and getting some floating in this year. Alas, my normal partner, Tom, had back issues that were looking like they would be severe enough to require surgery, so he was out.
Note – Tom ended up needing surgery, and finally got the operation done the week before the classic, and is recovering fine.
I am too big of a wimp to do the whole route by myself. Besides the extra safety factor, although I am not a people person, that much time without any people seems like it would be a bit beyond me. Fortunately Bobby Gillis said he was interested in doing it with me, and so it was a go! Yay! One problem is that Bob walks faster than me and is considerably more hardcore, so I was pretty worried I wouldn’t be able to keep up.
The evening before the start, everyone met up at the start, attended a mellow pre-event chat, then camped on the side of the road. The next morning everyone gathered up, everyone fiddled around a bit, then took a photo and we were off!
The first few hours flew by. I was pretty worried, as it didn’t take Bob too long before he was poking me about walking slowly. After I tried to speed up he didn’t poke me again – hard to say if I actually walked faster or he just gave up on me.
At one point I had to stop to re-adjust my pack. I have one of those super trendy Hyperlite Mountain Gear packs that everyone loves, and while I mostly love it, it is a bit too floppy for really long days with loads over 30lbs for me, and I always seem to be brought up short at some point with an excruciating shoulder neck pain. I think this is my last trip with over 30lbs in that pack. I quickly repacked my pack to move everything of any weight right up against my back and things seemed better. I also took out the trekking poles I had been carrying, and unfolded them, only to discover the connecting part on one of them had been pushed down into the body of the pole. I break poles fairly regularly and these were one of a set I had bought to replace another pole I had broken, and for the classic I brought the unused one as I assumed it would reduce the chance of breaking – but now I was going to carry a broken pole for another 100 miles – arrg! When we got walking again I was pretty irritated, but happy my shoulder muscles were not killing me. Thirty miles later I broke my other pole, leaving me to carry two broken pole, sigh.
It was much hotter than I expected, and I was having a hard time staying hydrated. I had brought chlorine dioxide tablets, which treated a quart at a time but required 20 minutes of waiting. For pretty much the whole way I was filling up whenever I had a chance, tossing a pill in, waiting anxiously for the 20 minutes to go by, then chugging. If I had been thinking more clearly I would have brought the uv wand for faster treating and to carry less water.
It was hot enough that Bob was worried that his bacon would go bad, and he offered some, which I took “some” as most, and nearly choked myself to death cramming a huge wad of it into my mouth. I survived, but Bob didn’t offer me any more food.
Near the headwaters of the Jack we saw a huge group of people on the other side of the valley that looked oddly well organized – everyone was in a line, and their tents were in a pattern. We were later to find out they were a NOLS group on a several week trip.
As the hours zipped by, we gradually made our way up the Jack River, and down to Tsusena Creek, where we passed the leaders, Matt, John, and Brian, blowing up their boats. The water looked pretty thin, so Bob and I kept walking, waiting for another tributary to come in before putting in and floating. The creek was a bit low on water, but the floating was non-threatening and bouncy at times. It was much faster and more fun than walking along it like I did with Tom the year before. I only have a few landmarks to watch for along the creek, and was in constant searching for the tree stand Tom and I had walked by. It was hours before we passed it. I think Bob quickly got sick of me constantly looking for it, and mistaking various bushes for it.
A few hours into our float, well past the point where we dropped back into the treeline, Bob was slightly ahead of me, and just ahead of us on the river’s left there was a huge brown bear, with its head in the water, big butt up and facing towards us. After I realized Bob had not seen it yet, I started to panic, worried we would float right into it, surprise the bear, and have it bounce us around like beach toys. After much panicking I finally got Bob’s attention, and we pulled over, only to discover it had wandered off. Yay! This was the first of several bear miscommunications – apparently I just suck at communicating. We continued floating until we finally took out just after the sunset, cold and wet. As we packed, up the “leaders” – Matt, Brian, and John – floated by us. We had been in the lead for the whole float – yay! Apparently walking instead of floating had been a good call.
Bob and I packed up, hiked over to the Tsusena Lake, floated across the lake in the dark, arriving at the far shore where I staggered off to find a place to camp for a few hours. Morning came too soon, and we were off again, hiking over to Deadman Creek.
At one point my watch warned me that I should get more sleep and my recovery would be reduced. Hah, if only! The next few miles were a slog. We tried the direct route and that didn’t work as well as we hoped – there was lots of not so good walking, and brush. We did hear another group at some point, and Bob saw them briefly, and they seemed to be moving much faster. We made it down to the Susitna, where we inflated, crossed, then hiked up out of the river valley in the boiling hot sun. I don’t do well in the heat, and I was hammering down water. It was quite a contrast to last year with warm nights and hot days.
As we hiked up Fog Creek we saw two groups in the distance behind us, which we assumed were other AWMC people, but they were traveling slowly and soon dropped out of sight. In retrospect it is possible they were another group? In the early hours of the morning we camped just above Tsisi Creek.
The next day we hiked over to Kosina and there our route diverged from the route I took last year, and we headed up river.
The internet has said the Kosina was great walking – and there was some wonderful walking in there, but while there was some good walking, but a lot of trudging through wet swamp.
Unfortunately Bob’s knee was starting to give him trouble, and by the time we made it to the second tallest pass of our route it was starting to look like things might be over.
After several rounds of inreaching, we decided to give it some rest, and set up camp near the top of the pass looking down on the Black River, far below us. The advice relayed via the inreach from the marvous Dr Leistikow, my wife Nancy, and Bob’s partner Lee (who is a nurse) said to tape it and rest it. Bob taped up his knee, and then we went to bed, planning to sleep in, and hopefully all would be well in the morning. Just as I tucked into my tent it started raining, and I invited Bob into the vestibule.
An ode to my tent – a sidebar. Fifteen years ago when the twins were tiny, I looked around for small, light tents that would fit all four of us, and found a Tarptent Rainshadow 2 – an under 2 lbs tent for three adults. Our family used it until the twins got too big for it, then moving on, but I liked the designs of the Tarptents enough so I got another one, the “Moment ”, a single person tent. This summer, I noticed Tarptent was making a tent that was just 17oz – the Aeon Li and it looked like I could fit into it – yay! It was expensive, but I figured in the classic I would get at least a few nights out of it, so it could be worth it so I bought one. I figured four nights in it would cost about the same as a cheap hotel.. I am glad I did – it isn’t quite as roomy as the Moment, but it is fast to set up, roomy enough, and has a wonderfully large vestibule that fits Bob in a pinch. A lot of other folks use plastic bags, tarps, or bivvies, or other small sack like options in the classic, but I just don’t think it is worth it – saving a few ounces and being unable to sleep due to bugs or rain seems like a poor tradeoff. I also brought one of the twins’ sleeping bags (the lightest one we own), and a short foam pad. Bob was using some sort of plastic sack, down pants, and a down jacket. I think my total sleep stuff weight was a little under 3 lbs, which I think was weight well spent, as it let me enjoy the limited sleep I could get.
Bob isn’t a tall guy, so he fit fine, and when it started raining as we went to bed, I offered him the vestibule and he joined me in the tent. He looked more comfortable than he was in his plastic sack, and I quickly drifted off to sleep. We ended up sleeping close to 10 hours, and when I woke up I felt completely normal and totally refreshed – yay! Bob’s knee was better too, double yay!
Soon we were zooming down to the Black RIver, and up to another pass. The Black River valley is beautiful, but oddly the Black River is glacial, and very white.
White River would be more appropriate.. Unfortunately now my knees were starting to hurt and near an old crashed plane we stopped and Bob did up his feet while I attempted to fix my pole with the slipped insert in hopes that would help. Finally with the use of Bob’s pliers I managed to pull the insert out and super glue it in place – my pole was working again! Yay! The headwaters of the Black expand out into a huge open bowl with a landing strip marked out by cairns. Just as we passed the landing strip I noticed two people hiking down a far ridge, and after I pointed them out we sped up – competition!
The next pass (the second to last big one) was an easy walk up topped by a loose screen field.
Above us, seemingly an nearly infinite distance away, a caribou walked the ridge above us, running along the ridgeline as if to taunt us about our slowness. Topping the ridge we dropped down into a beautiful valley with a small creek that quickly dropped into a deep channel, eventually reaching Nowhere Creek.
While researching the route I had read that Nowhere creek had lots of petrified wood, and much to my excitement Bob pointed out some huge chunks of petrified wood. Bob works for the Alaska Division of Geological Surveys and is a geologist, so there was much discussion of rocks and geology, but petrified wood was one of the highlights for me!
After crossing Nowhere Creek we headed over the Oshetna, following an amazing maze of caribou trails winding through the tussocks, eventually camping after dark just below the final big pass.
In the morning it was up and over into the Caribou Creek drainage, where we hiked on the west bank until running into an uncrossable flowing mud stream, something that I had never seen before.
The mud was actually flowing down like a stream, with large rocks floating down it, and it was nearly bottomless – I couldn’t feel the bottom with my trekking pole. Bob was in full on geologist mode, and was super excited by the muddy stream of certain death. It was not going to be possible to cross it..
We tried going down to the creek, but found it to be entirely blocked off with very soft and deep mud – it was either deep water, soft mud, or both, and thus uncrossable without swimming. We then headed back up a quarter mile before finding a place where the lake was shallow enough to cross – it was still up to my chest though, and very opaque so I had to feel my way across and hope my pack would float enough I could hang on to it if there was a drop off.
Fortunately no drop off was encountered so we climbed up the other bank and enjoyed a wonderful “sound of music” hillside walk down to the ATV trails that we took to where Caribou Creek was floatable.
The ATV trails were fast walking, and were littered with lots of interesting relics from old mines.
We did run into one more section where the creek was dammed up by a huge mudslide, and this time went completely around it, only to find the mud was asphalt hard.
There was lots of speculation between Bob and I if both slides were the result of the same weather event, as we didn’t see any signs of other slides. Feeling a bit silly, we walked over the rest of the mud slide back to the ATV trail and then on to where we put in. I was pretty worried about the float, as I had heard it was class III and IV, but it turned out to range from mellowish to bouncy class II, and we zoomed along, enjoying the float. Eventually we reached what we thought was the take out, packed up while a super cub flew circles above us, before finally leaving just as we discovered we had taken out at an ATV trail a few miles upstream of the actual trail we wanted to get. Oh, well, what’s a few miles.. well, a lot, it turned out. The “extra” bit of trail we took was muddy, rutted, and had several climbs including one that seemed to go straight up. I have no idea how ATVs get up that climb. Those folks must be crazy!
Finally we reached our actual take out, and hiked up May Creek trail, where I filled my remaining freeze dried meal with cold water and hiked along, hoping it would hydrate and I could enjoy a nice final snack.
The last few hours zoomed by, as we hiked up May Creek trail, which was less muddy than I remembered, across the beaver swap of doom (which now didn’t have any swamp), and up and over the ridge near Gun Sight & Sheep Mountain, before heading down to the old abandoned highway.
We were supposed to avoid walking on the Glenn HIghway, and last year Tom and I were forced to walk along a utility cut, but I vetoed that this year – there is no way I was going to be walking though folks property at midnight in the dark, someone would likely shoot us! Instead we walked the highway for the last few miles, getting off as trucks came by, zooming along in their bubbles of light. We finally pulled into the finish at Sheep Mountain Lodge a little after 1am.
I was saddened to find that I had forgot to pack any food in the truck besides a few Muscle Milks, but Bob was nice enough to give me his remaining freeze dried meal, while he had a ramen noodle packet, topped off with a few beers – the finish trailer was well stocked with beers. Such a fine finishing feast – thanks Bob, I will always be thankful for that meal!
In the morning we caught up with John, Brian, and Matt who finished 17 hours or so ahead of us, and enjoyed a huge breakfast, before heading back to Fairbanks.
Thanks for the company Bob, this was the adventure of a lifetime!
Of course, a huge thank you goes out to my family for letting me disappear for a whole week, only to be asked random medical questions about knees via inreach, and then come back all sleep deprived. Thanks Molly, Lizzy, and Nancy!
And finally, a big thank you to Matt K for organizing. Thanks Matt, it is a lot of fun!
Some thoughts
Gear
I brought a 30 degree bag I originally got for my daughter lizzy and a short section of closed cell foam pad. It worked great.
I took a tent, an Tarptent Aeon Li. ( https://www.tarptent.com/product/aeon-li/ ) . It rocked.
We took an older MSR Pocket Rocket and a quart-ish pot for heating water for freeze dried meals. Totally worth the weight I think.
Foot stuff – I bought ¾ of a roll of Lukotape, and still had lots left at the finish. I brought a fairly large amount of homemade hydropel replacement, and used lots. I used some inov-8 RocLite 300 shoes, and they worked fine but were toast by the end. I wore a thin liner sock and a thick outer sock. Mostly I was quite happy on the foot front, and finished with just two small blisters.
Boat stuff – I took a dry top and float pants. That worked fine, but would have been cold if I swam. It was lighter than any other option I had. I had a “normal” lama boat with am white water deck, Bob had one of the newer narrower boats with thigh straps. We both had pfds, and bike helmets.
Clothing – In addition to what I was wearing at the start, I took an extra top, bottom, a puffy synthetic top, and one set of extra socks.
Navigation Stuff – Bob and I used cell phones for navigation. That worked great, when we looked at them and didn’t do dumb things like take out earlier than we where supposed to.
My total pack weight was a little under 40lbs. Which seems pretty heavy.
Food
I took roughly 12 lbs of food, plus four full size freeze dried meals. Two of the freeze dried meals were the jumbo Expedition Foods (https://expeditionfoods.com/ ) 1k calorie meals – and those were great. The last one I had with cold water on Squaw creek trail, which was surprisingly good. Otherwise I was pretty unhappy with my food selection – I needed more variety and easier to digest food. My notes from last year told me to bring more variety and easier to digest food, so maybe I should read my notes and not stupidly repeat my errors. I did take some fatty meat sticks’ ‘ and they were great and went down well. I ate almost all my food.
Route
The route we took this year was great – it was fast walking for the most part, and floating cut out a lot of time. The walking was mostly good,and in parts it was fantastic. The walking in the Oshetna and Kosnina valleys had some sections where it wasn’t as good as I would have liked, but otherwise it was mostly pretty good. The area is super scenic, much more scenic than the ATV trails I took with Tom last year. However, I think the walking on the ATV tails is actually a lot faster, and that still might be the “fastest” route, if a boat is taken to float Tsusena Creek. Floating Tsusena Lake was also a time saver, and it was very neat to float across it in complete darkness. Caribou Creek was a blast, super fun!
What I would Change
I would take another water treatment system, like a steripen for faster hydration if it was hot.
I would take different poles. Those black diamond poles I have been using suck, with their connector pieces coming out at inopportune times.
Better food choices.
Reduce! My pack was ~40lbs, I should be able to get it much lighter.
After Effects
Last year my feet swelled up a ton. This year I used compression socks just after I finished, and while my feet swelled a bit, it wasn’t nearly as bad. However, my knees were super sore after finishing, and it took weeks for them to feel normal again. I need to figure out something so these things are easier on my knees. Otherwise I was mostly intact at the finish.
