Kenai Peninsula 2010

This is the third and final portion of the Alaska trip. Ice is the dominant feature of this region. Out of Seward, we hiked 3,000 feet up and 8-miles round trip to the massive Harding Icefield (300 sq.mi) from which some 40 glaciers are formed. We spent several days at a heated public use cabin, listening to the glacial thunder and creaking and groaning at Kenai Fjords National Park's Aialik Bay and watching lots of seabirds and marine mammals, including 6-7 Humbpack Whales bubble net fishing (rare for south central Alaska) and two colonies of endangered Stellar's Sea Lions.
We paddled a couple of times out on the bay between rain showers. One day we approached the Aialik glacier. Five miles across the bay, it is 1 mile wide and 1,600 ft tall, but we kept our distance. It was eerie to slide alongside the small icebergs that had calved from the glacier. Another day we paddled by the Pederson glacier and toward the Holgate glacier.
The bay is over 800 ft deep, but the water was smooth and calm. The real danger was losing our bearings--on the way back, fog rolled in and we could not see land behind or before us. The combination of a compass and GPS verification kept us on course. Harbor Seals like to haul out and rest on the floating ice. We collected some small chunks to chill the cheese and Chardonnay--now that's roughing it!
Out of Homer, we visited the Peterson Field Station on Katchemach Bay and saw bog species, such as White Swamp Orchid, Star Gentian, and the carniverous Sundew plant, and many intertidal creatures--I even felt the grip of a Giant Pacific Octopus!

Denali National Park 2010

This is the second portion of the Alaska trip. We camped 4 nights at Wonder Lake, hoping to see Mt. McKinley, also called Denali, "The High One." At over 20,000 feet Denali is the highest point in North America and is often shrouded in clouds and fog. Our diligence was rewarded gradually, as the white mountain slowly revealed itself. We loved seeing the Common Loon nest on Wonder Lake and hearing their hauting wail. There were large rafts of Surf Scoters and White-winged Scoters there as well, and we got scolded several times by territorial Wilson's Warblers. We saw a mother moose actually blowing bubbles in a pond not far from her twin calves. Another thrill was staking out a Gyrfalcon nest on a veritcal cliff and seeing a dark-morph parent bring food to its brood (Gyrs are the world's largest falcon and quite majestic).

At Denali we finished Adolf Murie's A Naturalist in Alaska and started Mardy Murie's book Two in the Far North, a chronical of her life in Alaska as a child, her arctic adventures as a young bride to federal biololgist Olaus, and her life-long advocacy of wilderness preservation in Alaska. I loved Mardy's idea of preparedness--once after a plane crash, the first thing she did was dig out her supply of molasses "cry baby cookies" to share with the lucky survivors.

The bears we saw at Denali were brown bears, or grizzlies, and these we saw from the safety of the bus. The park rangers at Denali go to great lengths to teach visitors about bear safety: DO NOT RUN from a bear, but make your presence known. Although bears are mainly foragers of grass and berries (and the occasional ground squirrel), they do not like to be startled. Author Jonathan Waterman has noted that humans are far more deadly to bears, and that a person is more likely to die from bee stings, a lightning strike, dog attack, or homicide than from bears. One of the places we reliably saw bears was at Sable Mountain. Adolf Murie wrote about observing a sow and cubs from this very same location many decades ago. Like Adolf, we were treated to the play-fighting of twin bears. How excellent that this place has been protected so that generations of brown bears may continue to live wild.

We got a wilderness camping permit to explore the heights of Cathedral Mountain and the views of Igloo Mountain and the Teklanika River basin. I learned not to put all my trust in the GPS and USGS maps, because the thin blue line we thought was a stream turned out to be a bed of dry rocks, so we had to hike 1 mile down the mountain and over tundra tussocks to the river to get our water supply, and hike back up a mile to our camp. It really made me aware of how precious water is, and thankful for abundant access to it at home.

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge 2010

 

 

This is the first portion of a 6-week Alaska trip for two in summer 2010. The most rigorous part of the whole trip was a self-guided 11-day paddling expedition in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. On June 21 (Summer Solstice) we flew in a small Helio bush plane for 3 hours from Fairbanks into the Arctic Refuge. It is the size of South Carolina and is one of the most remote places on earth, lying completely above the Arctic Circle. In summer there is daylight 24 hours a day, and one of the most beautiful sights was a complete, double rainbow at 1:00 a.m.  We traveled in our tandem Klepper kayak along the Kongakut River, which flows north through the Brooks Range to the Arctic Ocean. We saw Bald Eagles and Golden Eagles, groups of Harlequin Ducks and Red-breasted Mergansers, and countless White-crowned Sparrows, whose call sounds like: "I have to go potty, I really have to go potty!" The loud croaks of Common Ravens bounced off the mountain walls.

We encountered several "bands" of white Dall's Sheep, but as we watched a group of sheep flee up a high embankment they seemed more like a "flock" of birds. A solitary Wolf paid us a visit up close, and I found the tracks of an elusive Lynx. We also saw several Caribou, including a mother and calf trotting on top of some aufeis about 4 feet thick.

The river is quite braided, and we frequently had to walk the boat. While paddling with the current, our top speed was 9.2 mph, and one time we crashed into a large rock which gashed the rubber hull of the kayak in three places and broke rib #4 in half. As we made field repairs, beautiful Arctic Terns hovered close by before dive-bombing the small fish in their sights. This tern makes the longest annual migration of any animal on the planet, some 50,000 miles from pole to pole. After the crash, we proceeded downstream with greater caution, and in one place we had to break down the boat and pack our gear to a safer place 2 miles downstream. During the portage we discovered a wet sedge meadow which was home to at least 9 Upland Sandpipers.

We prepared for the trip by reading Debbie Miller's Midnight Wilderness. I contacted Debbie and her husband Dennis for advice, and they were very helpful! In the Refuge, we read Jonathan Waterman's book Where the Mountains Are Nameless. He has also travelled the Kongakut River in a Klepper kayak. After that we read Adolf Murie's A Naturalist in Alaska, based on his scientific observations of wildlife at Mt. McKinley National Park (now called Denali).

The Arctic Refuge is a vast wilderness to be cherished and protected as an intact ecosystem on a landscape scale. At first glance it may seem barren, but upon closer inspection, the ground is painted with a colorful array of wildflowers. Some of the same flora are also found in Illinois (lupine, wild geranium, blue flag, and columbine, for example), perhaps a common link emerging from the last Ice Age. Dozens of bird species that migrate through Illinois rely on the Arctic Refuge for their breeding grounds. There is no way for the extraction industries to operate in this refuge without irreparably damaging the balance of nature. It is an incredible privilege to have experienced this unspoiled wild place and to have been challenged and inspired there.