In August I completed a 360-mile, 23 day, solo wander through the Gates of the Arctic National Park.
From the Nunamiat village of Anaktuvuk Pass, packrafting down grade 2&3 white water rivers, across mountains where views of endless summits fade into distant haze, and over daunting mountain passes to the Inupiat village of Ambler on the Kobuk river.
I had planned a trip, but what I really got was an adventure, crossing swollen rivers, climbing remote mountains, finding a first ascent log in an old film can, being charged by a bear, exhilarating white water, and encounters with wolves, bears and caribou to name but a few.
The pristine wildness of this achingly beautiful place is almost impossible to convey, it quenched a thirst for solitude and left me humbled and enthralled in equal measure.
Since my Arctic National Wildlife Refuge trip in 2017, my mind had been on the Gates of the Arctic. In the Arctic Refuge, because it was my first trip to the Brooks Range, I was very conservative with my route and daily mileage. For this trip I wanted to change that and revert to travelling in my usual manner, more mileage, greater ascent and descent, with distances that felt natural, travelling for between 8 and 10 hours each day.
It was also something of an experiment in terms of range, how many days could I comfortably carry food for, along with my packraft, paddle and PFD?
It all came together remarkably well, I emerged slightly leaner and bristlier than when I set off, with a head full of memories and some tales to tell.
I have to credit two of Alaska’s most intrepid Brooks Range travelers (Roman Dial and Luc Mehl) for their detailed recounting of white-water rivers and high passes. I usually try not to follow in other’s footsteps, and for a lot of my trip I didn’t, but without prior knowledge of some of the routes between valleys, particularly from the Arrigetch to the Upper Noatak, the trip as it happened wouldn’t have been possible.
Fairbanks Prep
I collected my pre ordered freeze dried food from REI along with a run to Fred Meyer to stock up on around 100 snicker and cereal bars along with a couple of pounds of Haribo Gummy Bears.
In order to save space, all the freeze dried food was decanted from its packaging and stowed in zip lock freezer bags with food for each day (2 x freeze dried meals, 3 x snickers and 2 x cereal bars along with a handful of Gummy bears) stored in a slightly larger bag, so it was easy to keep track of and didn’t need any sorting day by day. All of the food was then placed in two 15L Ursacks; it fitted – just.
There was some serious trepidation during the planning for this trip to try and work out if it all would fit in my pack, I was actually slightly incredulous that it all did, and even though it looked a bit daft with my PFD, paddles, tent etc. strapped to the outside, it carried pretty well.
Day 1
From Fairbanks my flight was routed Coldfoot then Anaktuvuk Pass which I was pretty happy about, as it’s a place I wanted to see. Eight of us, including the pilot, mostly hunters and a teen from Anaktuvuk Pass.
The flight to Coldfoot was pretty spectacular, from the swampy flat lands with myriad Oxbow lakes then into the foothills of the Brooks Range, passing over the Trans-Alaska pipeline and the Haul Road. I saw Dirk Nickisch’s (Coyote Air’s) bush plane that had flown over us enroute to the Hula Hula river in 2017 parked up in front of their office.
We dropped the 5 hunters off in Coldfoot, including one beautiful blonde haired 10-year-old girl who was on her way with her Texan father to stalk and shoot a “Full Curl” Dall Sheep ram – I didn’t know what to think – I still don’t.
It was something else flying in to Anaktuvuk Pass, flying through the mountains, rather than over them, I got a good view down the Upper John River, landing just before 4pm.
A couple of Nunimiat lads kindly give me a lift round to the Ranger Station to have a chat to the Park Ranger before setting off.
The Ranger was a nice guy, softly spoken and knowledgeable, with 18 summers in the Park. He went through what I presume were the usual queries, Bear Resistant Food Containers, fires, human waste. We talked through my route, particularly the first white water section down the Upper John River. “That’s quite a trip” he said, one eye slightly wider than the other “where are you picking up your resupply”. I explained that I had all my food with me, he looked at me kinda funny, so I told him that I had a couple of shortcuts I could use if I was going to be too tight for time, which seemed to placate him.
On the way out of the door he called “You have a good trip — Don’t Dally”. Those final two words lodged pretty well in my head, at least for the first few days.
From the put in on the Upper John, a couple of miles outside of Anaktuvuk Pass, the first 8 miles were fairly calm, placid paddling.
The Park Ranger had advised portaging the first set of rapids, so that was my goal for the rest of the day. Get to the portage point and camp. As it happens, when I got there, they didn’t look too bad, so I piled on through – it certainly woke me up again, 2-3 ft wave trains and some on the fly route choices whilst avoiding semi-submerged boulders – soaked through but great fun.
I made it as far as the Ekokpuk Creek before pulling in – chuffed to have made it so far. A chill wind and fairly low temperatures along with the fact that I was soaking wet left me pretty cold, got the tent up and made my supper down by the Willows at the river’s edge.
I thought I’d left my spoon in the tent pocket, but it was nowhere to be seen, so I roughly carved a willow branch into a makeshift spoon thinking that tomorrow I would take a little time and whittle a better one – I never got around to it and this stick with a slight hollow was my racing spoon for the rest of the trip.
DAY 2
Hard frost last night, went for a walk to scout the next set of rapids to warm up, the whole river is a series of rapids – some worse than others. The viscous “Wall Shot” has me a bit worried as I’m not really too sure what it is, and I’ve seen it on a couple of blogs as a section to be careful on.
Saw a huge Golden Eagle fly by on river right, I always forget how huge they are. Rapids were pretty good fun – some pretty big ones that I needed to paddle aggressively to get through.
I finally found the “Wall Shot”, I see what they mean. The river goes straight into the wall with waves and currents reverberating in all directions – pretty dicey place and glad to get through it ok.
The worst of the rapids end just below Till Creek – pretty thankful as I was running out of my supply of Brave.
Made good time and was at Hunt Fork just after 11:00 with another 40 minutes or so paddling to get to my takeout point.
There’s a small lochan just above the Hunt Fork junction, and for some reason I had the inclination to visit it, it looked pretty alluring on Google maps, and I’m pretty sure it doesn’t see many visitors due to its relative inaccessibility. The route to get there was stopping a few miles south of the Hunt Fork and heading up over the hill via the bealach.
Where I planned to take out was really steep sided and nowhere to stop, I ended up another ½ mile downstream before I hit a gravel bar I could get out on, and from there it was a steep sided bushwhack to clear the worst of the spruce and alder before the steady ascent to the top of the hill, stopping every 10 minutes or so to catch my breath due to the weight of my pack. It was a pretty tough ascent but incredible views up and down the John River.
The lochan on the other side was really beautiful but I’m not sure it was worth the efforts of the following day. I saw my first bear of the trip, heading down towards the Lochan – unfortunately the direction that it ran when it saw me was the very direction I wanted to take. I proceeded cautiously.
I pushed on for another hour past the Lochan before setting up camp and had a very pleasant evening beside the creek – a cup of tea and some Haribo – hang clothes out to dry, then snooze before supper.
This is the life.
Day 3
Today damn near killed me, the hardest day I’ve had in a long time.
The bottom of the creek was all choked with alder and bushes. The hills on either side were tussocky and filled with alder, so I spent most of the morning alternating between wading up stream, climbing over and under fallen trees and stumbling through alder covered tussocks – nothing else for it but to plod on.
Despite the bushwhacking the scenery is absolutely beautiful, I saw a cow moose near the top. Just as I was getting up after a quick break, it came over the rise, so we saw each other at about the same time – we stood and looked at each other for a while before she charged off, then stopped and tentatively watched as I passed quietly by and down the hill.
I reached the top of the bealach, had been trying to stay high on the side of the hill to avoid the worst of the thickets, but I stayed too high, too long until I was overlooking the Hunt Fork river instead of heading up over the hills into Kevuk Creek.
From my vantage point overlooking the Hunk Fork I had to backtrack about ½ hour into the start of the ascent into the next pass. I was pretty tired by this point, but it was another 6 miles to get to where I needed to be.
I did half consider following the Hunk Folk up, which would have been an easier route, but I didn’t want to give up on the route I had planned so early in the game.
It was a bit of a slog to the next bealach, nothing like this morning though, but just slow, tough going – especially with the weight. When I got to the top, I tried to cut across country a little to try and iron out some of the bends in the creek.
It is tough but beautiful country up here – I bet it doesn’t see many people – with good reason. Bushwhacked downhill – found a place to camp by the creek, had my tea and went to bed.
Shattered – what a baptism of fire!!!
Day 4
Still pretty groggy when I woke up at 6 am – had to peel my eyes open with my fingers.
I was dreading the next leg, as from what I could see from my vantage point it looked pretty rough.
About two hours high on the hill side, the usual tussocks and alder and very slow before Kevuk Creek valley widens and there is some good walking on the gravel bars. Plenty of bear, moose and wolf sign in the willows, with good bear trails to follow, although I frequently cross the river to stay on the gravel bars and avoid having to take to the hillside.
I made pretty good time all in all and was at my planned camp site just after 3pm. A very narrow canyon was just ahead, so I didn’t want to set up camp before I knew what I faced in the morning.
I ending up wading up the side of the canyon in waist deep water for about ¾ of a mile before the valley opened back up – boy was I glad to see it open up and let me escape.
Camped tonight in a willow island with a main bear thoroughfare about 30 feet away. Not many other places to camp – hope I’m not disturbed in the night.
Not feeling too great this evening – hopefully nothing and feel better in the morning.
Day 5
Pretty much crossing Kevuk Creek back and forward all morning, The water is pretty fast flowing, not too cold and about thigh deep until further up where it’s easier to cross.
Trying to stay on the gravel bars to avoid having to take to the hill sides which would have been 2 or 3 times slower.
Lots of wolf scat here, with an abundance of tracks higher up – looks like they use this pass regularly, some huge bear prints too, I should have stopped to take a photo, but wanted to keep going.
I was worried a little about getting cliffed in again and having to wade up the river, it looked that way a time or two, but there has always been enough room to get through.
Made it to Natat Lake about 2 pm and headed to the small promontory between the two halves of the lake. The sun’s shining – the place just has to be seen to be believed, incredibly beautiful in the autumn colours, possibly one of the nicest places I have ever been to, there is also a lot of bones and remnants of bones scattered about the promontory, the bears and wolves must appreciate the view too.
Natat Lake is surrounded by tussock fields and after an hour bashing through, I gave up and climbed the side of a hill and contoured around. Great views down to Easter Creek.
Beautiful camp site in the willows and sun is still really strong this evening at 7pm.
Pleased with today’s progress – still not feeling 100% but not too bad.
Instead of heading along Easter Creek as planned I’m going to head over the mountains into July Creek.
