In June 2017, I made a trip that I had been hoping to do for quite some time, to the Arctic Wilderness Wildlife Refuge in the Brooks Range in Northern Alaska.
The scale of the Brooks Range is quite staggering, it is a range of mountains 1000 km long, and 240km wide, stretching from the Canadian Yukon border to the Bering Strait.
The Arctic Wilderness Wildlife Refuge is located up in the North-East corner, and is sizeable area of wilderness the size of Scotland (The refuge is 19.6 million acres, Scotland is 19.7 million acres). There are no roads or trails within the refuge, and it’s on the migration route of the approximately 218,000 strong Porcupine caribou herd, in the age of fast paced humanity, this place is truly wild.
It took a while, and several evolutions to come up with a route that covered as much of the refuge as I could, and hopefully get sight of the caribou on their way to the calving grounds on the coastal plain (Where Trump’s “Big Oil” wants to drill). It was hard to get an accurate idea of how many miles I could expect to cover every day – the accepted mileage for experienced fit folk, according to companies that run guided operations in the Brooks Range was 6 – 8 miles per day, which didn’t sound like a lot, but in the interests of safety I stuck to around 8 – 10 miles per day, although 10 -14 would have worked better, depending on terrain.
The only way in and out of the Refuge is by bush or float plane, Kirk Sweetsir from Yukon Air provided some much need guidance on routes, and potential landing sites, although he was more than a little sceptical at first about flying in someone who had never been on the ground before and picking them up 16 days and 140 miles later.
Fort Yukon was the point of departure, It’s a Gwich’in Native American village, and was established by the Hudson’s Bay Trading Company in 1847, although I daresay the Gwich’in people have been on the land for a considerable time before then.
From Fort Yukon, we flew over the Yukon flats and into the Brooks Range.
In the interests of laziness, I’ve just used excerpts from my trip journal, in a roughly sequential manner, interspersed with photographs to help illustrate my trip, there’s no coordinates, but there is a map at the bottom so you can get an idea of my route.
On an aside, Kirk also dropped off Roman Dial and a couple of buddies about 50 miles East on Joe Creek – they headed across the border, down the Firth River, crossed back over some of the territory that I crossed en route to Kaktovik. – A high mileage, high water, beary kind of trip you can read about here
Report
Absolutely beautiful morning, you could see for miles flying over the Yukon Flats, the rivers have to be seen to be believed – thousands of years of unchecked meandering.
Coming into the Brooks Range was incredible, not so much flying over the mountains as flying through them.
Saw where the main body of the Porcupine Caribou had passed through on the way to their calving grounds on the coastal plain, and lots of caribou and Dall sheep up in the hills.
Kirk flew on a little so I could see the coastal plain before turning and dropping me off. All alone – I always wondered what it would feel like at this point, the nearest person would be Roman Dial, when Kirk dropped him off, and he would be about 50 miles away as the crow flies. I was happy, not freaked out or lonely, just happy to be in this beautiful place, at the start of a long walk.
Plenty of auefis (off-ice) in the river and small groups of caribou 20-30, with stragglers in between. I can’t believe I nearly wasn’t going to bring binoculars.
The caribou seem to be in good form, with calves running about playing, the small groups all seem to be moving the same direction, although now and again small groups appear between the hills when you least expect it.
The weather is beautifully sunny, but the wind although not strong is cold, taking the “feels like” temperature down to about 2 – 3°C. No sign of bears yet, although I found where one had made a kill and half covered it, I got out of there pretty quick, as apparently they tend to hand around their kills.
Made about 8 miles up-river to where the Ekaluakat splits and camped. Luckily chosen spot as there is a caribou trail about 100 yards from the tent and I can watch them moving through, had tea and set up the patented bear alarm – slept very well indeed.
It was very foggy this morning, slept with the tent door open watching the sun burn it off, quite hot with very little wind.
Quite tussocky along the first part so contoured around the side of the hill on caribou trails, still plenty of caribou until about halfway between the Ekaluakat and the Egaksrak where they head off in another direction, heading over the hills to the coastal plain. Seen a few ground squirrels and one very close up, you can hear them shouting their warnings as they spot me and disappear into their burrows, they always have at least one squirrel keeping watch. Everywhere you look you can see where bears have been tearing up the ground to dig them out, and some very fresh sign indeed so kept a close eye out. The willows where thick in the creek beds so I whistle every now and again so if any are close by they can hear me coming, still not sure if that’s a good thing or bad thing.
Made the decent into the Egaksrak, was slightly worried about crossing but it turned out to be ok, one main channel and numerous smaller channels with plenty of Auefis – made it across without getting my feet wet. Set up camp about a mile west of the Egaksrak beside the small river I will follow upstream through this section of hills tomorrow.
Another lovely sunny day – packed up and away by 08:00 and headed up the creek.
It was too covered in willow to make much progress so headed up to higher ground to contour around, all the buds and flowers are starting to come out, and you can see them changing every day.
Nearly headed into the wrong re-entrant, but the way out looked very steep, so checked on the GPS, good job I did as I had come off one hill early and would have had to back track over a lot of ground.
I was heading over to the next drainage when I startled a single young caribou, it ran away then kept running back to have a look at me, these shenanigans lasted for nearly an hour before it lost interest – it almost felt like being herded by a big sheep dog.
Made it to the top of the pass, it was steep enough and plenty of shale, but good caribou trails to follow. Had a rest for about 10 minutes at the top, then left my pack and climbed to the top of the nearest hill – 3980 ft. – no name – absolutely amazing views.
Coming down was slow going – feeling it on the knees with the amount of weight I was carrying, but made it to the Leffingwell no problem. Same technique as before, find a good spot to cross, tie waterproofs down over the top of my boots as tight as I can with my laces – was around knee deep with a good flow rate, made it across with just a tiny amount of water in my boots.
Was walking along a gravel bar and spotted a ground squirrel close by – stood stock still for a few minutes watching him before I got spotted – the sentry will be getting shot.
Plenty of signs of bear, but no sightings yet – I still put out my bear alarm every night, this is my cook pot balanced on two stones with two more stones balanced inside it so that if it gets knocked over I will hear it – I usually position this about 20 ft. from the tent and so that I can see it from where I’m sleeping.
Found a great spot on higher ground to camp about 40 metres away from a creek – unfortunately when I went to go and get water the creek was dry – necessitating a ½ mile walk to the Leffingwell.
Saw the first small band of bull caribou in this valley – Rain has come on tonight and I have the feeling that the weather is going to change – but what a glorious first three days,
Saw an eagle yesterday – too far away to see if it was a golden eagle and a short time later I passed some jagged limestone cliffs and heard a young one shouting for its dinner.
Rained all last night and very foggy this morning, slightly later start as I only have 7 or 8 miles to do , today and I hoped the fog would lift, it did at about 11:30 – Didn’t take long to reach the top of the pass between the Leffingwell and the Aichilik, lots and lots of willow and a very wide river basin with the river being very braided – only one channel took a bit of crossing, it was about thigh deep but very fast flowing – had to concentrate a bit for that one.
Got mobbed by Arctic Terns when I tried to take a photo of one of their nests
Lots of sign of moose throughout the willows, used bear trails to get onto higher ground on the other side of the river.
Not so many caribou on the Aichilik, turned into a very lovely afternoon, with an ever-present biting wind – kept on higher ground using caribou trails to avoid the tussocks. Descended down into the 2nd river basin – no name – and was able to walk to the junction of the river I will follow tomorrow.
Camped in the willows and out of the wind, had the tent pitched before I realised I had camped next to a bear trail – I hope he isn’t using it tonight.
Lots of little insects, bumble bees, spiders and moths etc, I do wonder how they survive at 40 below. I think a few more days and the willow will be all abloom – lots of little red spiders here – most of them in my tent.
Just to give you a little ideal of perspective, there is a small band of Caribou grazing just above the cliffs in the above photograph.
Very wet last night and foggy this morning, but cleared up pretty quickly – clear by 09:00 – heated some water on the stove and had a good wash – well needed.
Was still in two minds about doing the pass from the Aichilik to the Jago in one or two days, but soon settled as I bumped into a group of four hikers just striking camp at 11:00, think I slightly ruined their wilderness experience, although according to Kirk the lead guy (it was 1 older gentleman and three ladies – brave man, never mind the bears) has been summering in the Arctic Refuge for years – we saw them at the Upper Aichilik landing site when Kirk dropped me off – he had dropped them off at the lower Aichilik landing site the previous day.
What a beautiful pass it was, huge rocky outcrops, deep gully’s and a steep climb to the top, I saw a solitary bull caribou and about an hour later saw 5 large bulls with huge racks of antlers – also came across some shed moose antlers.
Set off at around 09:30 heading to the Jago, a little fog early on but soon burned off by the sun – the last little bit down to the Jago is very steep going.
The water was very cloudy in the streams, further down the same stream it was almost orange – at least the rocks it flowed over were. Body is going pretty well so far – touch wood – just one piece of tape on a toe.
The Jago is pretty full and fast flowing and I’m glad I don’t have to cross it, large numbers of caribou on the first section, some big bulls with them as well, came across more human footprints a couple of miles downriver – It was a Japanese wildlife photographer,(Taiki Yamamoto), he had been sitting in the same spot for 6 hours waiting for the caribou to cross the river, he was covered over in an olive garb, to conceal himself from the Caribou – it took me a while to work out what he was, I tried not to surprise/sneak up on him, but didn’t feel like shouting my presence, and when he did turn around to see me he nearly had a heart attack, he thought I was a bear.
It’s funny how meeting another human being in a place like this makes you feel, although it didn’t bother me as much as meeting the folks yesterday – I think I have to come to terms with the fact that there are other people here and I will probably meet them – makes you act noticeably different though when you know that there are people within a few miles of you.
Camped up on a tributary to the Jago on higher ground and spent some hours watching ground squirrels, they are beautifully golden brown and boy do they keep a sharp lookout, but through watching them through my monocular I could watch as they went about their business one eye always fixed to the sky, they can cover quite a distance over ground, saw one go about 50 or so meters at one time – The tent was freaking them out at first – but they soon calmed down about it.
Had a cup of tea and a cliff bar at about 18:30 and set off to climb the hill I camped beside. The views were incredible and I sat there for quite a while watching the sunlight play across the river valley and the bigger hills of the continental divide behind – Getting a little worried about crossing the continental divide as there still seems to be a lot of snow and cornices on some of the mountains closer to hand.
Last night I was awakened by the clatter of stones from outside – it gave me quite a fright, I thought a bear had knocked over my bear alarm pot, but it was just Dall sheep coming down the scree to have a drink in the river.
This morning whilst I’m sitting waiting for my breakfast to cook the mosquitoes are out in force, but I’m watching a small flock of 9 Dall sheep graze their way up the hill I climbed yesterday, including one magnificent ram, he has stamped his foot at me a couple of times but otherwise they don’t seem disturbed by my presence.
Easy day today – only did about 6 miles as I’m running a day ahead of schedule, stopped a 14:00 and would have liked to have went on for another hour or two, but past this section (the Y at the Jago headwaters) it looks like there aren’t too many other good places to camp as it gets a bit narrow for the 7 miles or so, until I camp up tomorrow night.
Went for an explore as the route ahead seems to be across an unstable scree slope, which I didn’t much like the look of, but found a path across a large boulder field a bit higher up – the bears and the caribou have worn a visible trail across the boulders – such a thing to see.
A bit annoyed about finishing so early – had a scrub and washed my hair in a stream off the main river – had a cup of tea and a snickers and watched the afternoon sun play on the hills and felt a lot better – I should spend more time just sitting there watching the light change, it’s really something and very humbling. – Nearly tea time then I’m going to get my head down early – no climbing hills at 8 o’clock tonight as I think I’ll need my legs fresh for crossing the continental divide.
Moved up to the foot of the continental divide today, left my pack at the best spot I could find, unhooked the top lid, took bear spray, jacket, 1st aid kit, food and GPS and headed up for a recce, river flowing very fast and hard to cross, it’s not wide and deep but there is a torrent of water coming down it. Got up to where the glacier was, very impressive and not a little scary, water flowing from underneath it and disappearing into the ground – would not like to fall in.
I thought I saw footprints on the glacier so gingerly stepped out to have a look – every footstep sunk to knee deep and once to waist deep, my heart just stopped, thought I was a goner – got to the footprints and realised they were from a caribou and beat a hasty retreat – no way am I crossing over that way.
The only other way I can see to avoid the glacier and the waist deep snow in the corrie, which is old and rotten is to go straight up the nose of the hill for about 500 or 600 feet then traverse right about the same distance. There are a series of castellated rocks about halfway up, so I will have to make it past them, then on to what looks to be an easier gradient scree slope to the top – not sure what is on the other side, but from the map it looks to be the same gradient.
Pouring with rain today, first time having to put on all my waterproofs to have my tea – I eat away from the tent and have no food in the tent at all – the remainder of the food is in my pack which is about 30 yards away, but still visible from the tent, beside my bear alarm.
Lynsey is very worried about bears and sends me reports on who has been killed by them recently – it’s very reassuring!
Seen three Dall sheep on the way here this morning, they seem to be able to defy gravity with no apparent effort.
My thermorest appears to be giving up the ghost as it went flat last night and seems to be losing air again tonight.
Woke this morning to rain and thick fog and sat tight, there isn’t much point in heading up until I can see at least 200 feet in front of me so I can tell where I am on the hill – started to clear about 13:00 so packed up had a cup of tea and something to eat and set off.
It was a hard hour even to the start of the climb, as I had about a mile of the river to follow, even though the water level is considerably down from yesterday crossings were still a bit touch and go. Made it to the start of the hill and it was clearing up well so I went with yesterday’s plan of going up halfway then traversing across, unfortunately the shale was too steep and slidey – about a foot and a half back for every two feet forward, so no choice but to go straight up – worked from feature to feature with lots of scrambling, have never seen rock so crumbly – no great holds at all – had to chance it on a few occasions and a lot of shale to get through with lots of false summits – the last few sections were quite surreal trying to move though waist deep snow up a very steep incline, it took a huge amount of effort to move a few inches at a time.
Eventually made it to the summit three and a half hours from the start of the climb – hands and nails bloodied from trying to gain holds, – the most intense 3 ½ hours I have had for a while I can tell you.
The views at the top were immense, a 360° view of the Brooks Range in all its glory, definitely a view that will be seared in the mind for years. (7340 ft) – Spied the caribou that had made the tracks up the middle of the Glacier – it was lying dead three quarters of the way up.
Downhill on the other side? Well that was easy – just skied down on the shale, and a lovely smooth shale it was to ski down it was too, – got to the river ok but still took a bit of scrambling up and down at some of the more impassable sections – glad I’m on the other side of the continental divide – I can relax a bit now.
Fairly quiet day today after yesterday, moved down the valley about 5 miles into the Sheenjek valley proper, lots of sign of moose, but no sightings of moose, or bears, or wolves, I think the one I will be most disappointed if I don’t get to see will be wolves, fascinating, social and intelligent creatures, not too bothered about the bears, although I know it will be the first question I get asked when I get back.
It’s been a funny day weather wise – I’ve been sitting at the fringes of a huge thunderstorm for most of the afternoon, with frequent cracks of thunder and a fair bit of rain.
Took advantage in the lull in activities and heated water up on the stove, had a good look around then stripped off and had a good wash – clothes all washed and hanging on the bushes to dry – thank goodness for the breeze or the black flies and mosquitoes would be having a field day.
This evening, the light has just turned surreal – a very white, low down light as the sun starts to get as far over the horizon as it does at this time of year before it starts to come up again.
Just used up my first gas canister – kept going for ten days – pretty good.
Last night as I was lying in my tent with both end covers open as usual for ventilation a ground squirrel stuck his head in the proceeded to gnaw at a guy line – a “Hey You” saw him retreating back to his burrow until I was fast asleep, when he crept back out and ate a load of insulation off the back of my pack – wee bugger.
Moved about 7 miles downstream on the Sheenjek, the landscape here is markedly different, in the valley at least, the hills are much the same, but long deep groves of willows line each side of the bank and have great corridors throughout made by bears and moose, plenty of sign of both, but still no sightings.
I watched two grayling swimming in crystal clear water, bobbing up and down now and then to catch a fly, I’m sure I could have caught at least one of them, but it would have unconscionable to ruin their peace.
Scanning the river from the high ground today and saw a bear on the far side of the river heading into the willows, at least I have seen one, if only at a distance, probably the best way to see one.
Decision time – hang about here for a couple of days or add on an extra unplanned loop which will add another 30+ miles and bring me back to the same landing site, no big decision really as I’m really enjoying covering the miles and watching the land slip past. I have 4 days in which to do it as I need to be at the landing site by the evening of the 28th.
Very hot today – unbelievably so for the high arctic must be nearly 20°C – better not tell Lynsey.
Had a good go at fly fishing today once I had the tent set up, got an old willow branch and tied a length of line onto it, with a small pebble for a weight a fly on the end, can see lots of grayling but no success, although I think it was a bit too windy and gave up after a little while – will try again if I have time at the end of the trip.
Had my tea with a little brown mouse on the edge of some willows tonight- it was a mountain house job with kidney beans – I wasn’t really fussy on it, it turns out the mouse wasn’t too fond of it either, although it had a bit of a cliff bar.
Speaking of Cliff bars, I don’t need as many calories each day as I thought – I bought around 4000 per day, but do fine on just over three, a little hesitant on discarding excess food, but I’ve been leaving a spare Cliff bar a day at the entrance to ground squirrel burrows, wrappers off of course, might be a bumper year on the Sheenjek for squirrel.
Thermorest is definitely giving up the ghost – have to blow it up a couple of times every night.
Mosquitoes are getting noticeably more numerous – bigger too, have started to wear the repellent over the last couple of days 99% Deet – very effective.
7:16pm – just had my tea – Mac n Cheese – delicious – sitting on the side of a hill with a good stiff breeze blowing – just watching.
There is still a lot of Auefis in this river- flows from the East Fork of the Chandalar or headwaters near there into the Sheenjek – Some of the Auefis is still several feet thick and striated with different colours of ice – some startlingly blue and others quite opaque.
Today was a great day, about 3 or 4 miles up a very wide but dry creek bed – hard going as it was very rocky. After about 4 miles there were three entrances or routes to be chosen, each one a towering entrance to a canyon between the mountains, my route was the middle one and hard going and narrow it was with a river going down the centre of it. The dry river bed has in fact three tributary rivers, one from each of the canyons travelling under it somewhere, and although you could hear it, there was no sign of the water.
The river I was following ascended up to a watershed at about 4500 ft., the usual boggy type of place, but in this one the bog was made of small stones, and you sank uncomfortably deep with each tread, with the ground undulating in waves away from you – very unnerving.
Going down, the river although narrow was lined with willow and was especially beautiful, but difficult to traverse through so moved higher up, but lots of growth on the hill so some bushwhacking to do, although I made as much use of the bear trails on the way down that I could, a can of bear spray wedged tight in my right-hand pocket and the leash off my trekking poles just in case.
I really wanted to catch sight of a moose, so each section of willow was scanned intently on the way down – but not to be, although I was so close to one at one point that the leaves were just springing back into place after it had passed – how can I miss something bigger than a cow?
I saw a ground squirrel really close by at the river bank acting furtively, and we stood and stared at each other for a long time before he got bored and headed for home – I wonder what he was up to.
Covered over 100 miles by this point with my pack on, plus another 10 or 15 for my wanderings each evening, still feeling good for it and no aches or pains with only another 15 or 20 miles to go over the next two days.
Another superb day and a few more miles covered in beautiful country – it really is difficult to convey how incredible this place is. Vastly different from the North Slope here and from higher up on the south side of the Continental Divide.
Last night – my tent was pitched just by the start of an area of willows, the tent site was right beside a bear trail but I had camped similarly before, I took the usual precautions of laying down small twigs of older dried willow on the trail before and after my tent as well as marking my territory close to my tent. At around one thirty in the morning I heard a lot of twigs breaking, I lay quite still, both my arms were in my sleeping bag with the bear spray within reach, I saw the outline of a bear through the tent wall – it stood there quietly for a while and cracked his jaws then moved on leaving a very relieved me still in my sleeping bag to a quiet rest of the night – although I didn’t get that much more sleep, but otherwise relatively unperturbed.
The first part of today was travelling along dry creek beds then up onto higher ground to avoid the auefis which is covering most of the river bed. Around lunch time I reached a high point beside Double Mountain with views over the whole valley – you could see for miles, the valley is about two and a half miles wide by five miles long and you could see it all, had a cup of tea and a couple of Cliff bars and was looking through my monocular for Moose as I was sure I would be able to spot one from the amount of fresh sign nearby – but no joy, what I did see was another bear ambling along before disappearing into the willows.
The rest of the afternoon was spent more or less in the same vein, I followed a beautifully made bear trail for about 4 or 5 miles, through woods and tussocks – I don’t think they like getting their feet wet when they don’t have too as the tracks are along the top of tussocks which have been nearly flattened by the amount of traffic. Lots of very fresh paw prints heading in both directions – I’m being especially careful and the trail is saving me hours of bushwhacking as the bottom of the hills are thick with willow and berry bushes – so impressed with the bear trails – they even have lanes coming and going from the main trail – didn’t see any more bears but plucked some freshly scratched bear hair from a tree.
Saw two bush planes today, I think they must have been heading to pick up a rafting party from the Hula Hula.
Mosquitoes are terrible today and getting worse every day, It only takes a slight breeze to keep them away, but a moments stillness and they come back – I have plenty of repellent on when I’m writing this but they still buzz very close to your face without landing.
All afternoon there has been intermittent cracks like thunder as large chunks of auefis collapse off the main shelf, it really does make some noise – made me jump the first time I heard it
3:38 in the morning – I heard the sound of a low plaintive howl, as I lie there listening it comes again with long pauses in between, it seems to be quite far away.
5 something, I hear the howl again, this time much closer, I lie there, it comes again, decide to unzip my tent and go out to have a look to see if I can spot him, I grab my monocular on the way out, I walk slowly to the edge of the willow strand I am camped in and there he is, about 30 yards away from me sitting in the long grass, he looks at me and howls again, I think he is looking for the rest of his pack, I stand there watching him for a long time and he doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to move, I walk as quietly as I can back to the tent to get my phone so I can take a picture of him, but this seems to annoy him so he gets up and lopes away down the valley stopping every now and then to howl his message.
That has made my trip complete, I can go home happy now, it still seems like a dream.
Route
