Rafting in Arctic Refuge

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After our 4:15 a.m. cab ride to Reagan International, and 6:00 a.m. flight to Chicago, and then connected to Anchorage by early afternoon. With a long layover for our Fairbanks flight, we took the bus into downtown Anchorage and killed a few hours enjoying some locally-brewed beers and Halibut burger sandwiches at Humpy's. Our flight to Fairbanks (1 hr) went off without a hitch, and we taxied to our bed and breakfast, a cool 3+ story house built around a giant white spruce beam.

The next day Carol and Jim of Arctic Treks picked us up and brought us to the little airport, where we loaded up all our gear, met the guides for our trip (Country, Molly, and Shannon) and the three other clients (Peter, Adele, and Michael). It was a 1.5 hour plane ride to Arctic Village, a native settlement at the southern end of the Brooks Range. Dirk from Coyote Air (an even smaller plane) then flew the first 4 from our group up to the starting point of our trip on the Hulahula River, at Grassers Camp. We were on the second trip, and the scenery from the plane was incredible.....lakes, mountains, and incredible valleys in all directions. It was sunny, but wicked windy at Grassers, where we would end up spending the first two nights. We set up our tent, and immediately starting enjoying the amazing mountain scenes and the dozens of arctic wildflowers that were in bloom. Enjoyed our first of many social meals in the cooking tent (and rounds of hot chocolate) and then made a short hike to a nearby pingo (look it up) lake, with a nice little grebe swimming about. Lots of animal tracks everywhere, and our first shorebirds and raptors. Getting use to the endless summer of the arctic (the sun never set) was going to take some getting used to, but we slept very soundly.

Day 2 found us on a couple of short hikes. Country took us to some ancient bear tracks he found a few years earlier, we spotted a lone Dall Sheep Ram up in the mtns and a big sheep group across from camp.
We did a wildflower hike up a nearby valley, spotted a gyrfalcon, and continued to gaze and gaze at the ridiculous mountains. The next morning we packed up and loaded up the rafts for a big 20 mile day on the Hula. The river was apparently really low, which made for a fair amount of paddling, but the scenery was well worth it. Mountains and incredible drainages and fantastic skies. We made some periodic stops, including lunches and obligatory post-lunch tundra naps. The wind and sunny skies made mosquitoes a non-factor, another trend that would (amazingly) hold for the entire 10 days (no bug nets or repellent needed!). We reached our campsite at Kolotuk after a good 7 hours (5 paddling, 2 for breaks). Beautiful campsite with a big boulder field nearby and flowers everywhere. Day 4 we spent hiking and hiking and hiking towards Esetuk Glacier.....a fantastic hike and Shane's favorite day of the trip. We gained a little over 3000 feet of elevation from the river with mountains in view from every direction, including big Mt. Chamberlain (>9000 feet) to the West, and dozens and dozens of other peaks of the Brooks Range. Even got our first view of the Arctic Coastal Plain to the North. We saw lots of cool birds along the way, including our first rock ptarmigans, snow buntings, and golden plovers. After our long lunch break, we trudged the final couple miles to the overlook of the glacier, took some victory photos, and headed back to camp, which took us over 3 hours. It was a really long and fantastic day....lots and lots of photos were snapped (as evidenced below!).

On Day 5, we packed up and paddled 12 miles to Crystal Mountain camp, located near the end of the Brooks Mountains, with just rolling hills and Arctic coastal plain to come. These 12 miles had a fair amount of white water, which made for a really fun day. Lots of splashing and waves, and very spectacular water and cliffs. We saw some Dall Sheep from less than 100 feet away in cliffs right next to the river, and saw some golden eagles (and a nest) and our first arctic tern. Crystal Mountain was probably the most scenic of the whole trip, with great views of the winding Hulahula and the nearby mountains. Lots of tall willow trees in the drainage nearest camp, and Country advised that he has seen shrikes there in previous years. As dinner was wrapping up, we were called out of the food tent to enjoy our first grizzly sighting. A dark and giant (male?) was wandering along the tundra a few hundred yards from camp, slowly working its way in our direction. We got to watch him moving quickly along for several minutes, getting probably within 100 yards of our tents, but seemingly taking very little interest in us. We were each armed with bear spray and two of our guides had firearms, but this bear showed no aggression, and eventually wandered up the willow drainage and out of view, not to be seen again. An hour or more later we hiked up with the guides to one of the little hills behind camp to see what we could see, and could spy hundreds and hundreds of caribou on the plains to our north, trotting along in a line. The migration!!! These caribou were easily a mile away, and there were probably over 500 observed over the course of 30 minutes. While still enjoying watching the 'bou through binoculars, Lauren spotted a lone black wolf in the other direction, only a couple hundred feet away. It spotted our tents (not us, we assumed), stopped in its tracks, and then went back in the other direction, where we spotted it one more time before it disappeared far up the drainage. A terrific arctic evening of wildlife spotting (and good light for pictures!).

On Day 6, we explored the areas around Crystal Mountain camp, including some more far off viewing of caribou on the plains, as well as what appeared to be some interactions with wolves and a grizzley. We definitely spied the wolf from the night before a few hundred yards off, but it looked like there may have been more closer to the caribou. While watching the plains from a little stoney hill not too far from camp, we were greeted by a northern shrike who flew and perched in some rocks nearby. In exploring another drainage, Shane also happened across some rough-legged hawks and a fat marmot. In the evening, 2 more grizzlies made an appearance near camp, both looking quite large. We watched them for over an hour as they walked along the river (and eventually away from camp). On Day 7 we paddled out of the Brooks Range and out into the tundra......ending up at a Islands Camp. We got excellent views of the Brooks Range from the plain, and were visited by a stray caribou after we set up camp. There were whimbrels in the wet tundra behind our camp, and a couple more golden plovers. We also saw long-tailed and parasitic jaegers flying around (big predatory gull-like birds). A really beautiful campsite out in the open. In the early rainy hours of the next morning, a wet wolf apparently came poking around our camp, and was spotted by Michael. It eventually crossed the river and headed West over the hills.

Day 8 was a loooong paddle day that would eventually be tallied at 23 miles, although we thought it was going to be less than 15. We continued to see some great birds and some small groups of caribou. We stopped to explore a cool section of river ice that was rapidly melting away, exposing some cool blue ice. There was a sizable group of caribou up on the ice as well, but several hundred meters away. We continued down the river, battling the low water levels as we winded down the braids. We finally spotted the airstrip a couple kilometers away and paddled into shore late in the day. We met some other kayakers there that had done our same route, but at a little more of a leisurely pace. Their plane was picking them up the following morning. As we were all camped along the river and only 10 m or so from the airstrip, that was quite an alarm clock. We lazily explored around the airstrip camp on Day 9, and small groups of caribou (3 or 4) regularly came through camp and crossed the river. Peter spotted a wolf walking along the airstrip as we were all eating in the tent, and on a later walk along the river, Adele found a sandpiper (Baird's?) with a couple of fluffy little chicks. About a kilometer away on the far shore of the river drainage, we could see a big group of caribou bucks lounging around....their antlers making a cool silhouette against the sky as they bedded down. While the sun never set, we were treated to some great pink clouds late in the evening as we ceremoniously deflated the rafts in anticipation of our pick-up the next day, which would retrace our steps through Arctic Village and eventually back to Fairbanks. We all met for a celebratory dinner in town (mmmmm Salmon) and said our goodbyes to all our new friends. We spent the next day walking around Fairbanks, checking out the U. Fairbanks Museum, and ending up at the Pumphouse. We walked all the way back to our B&B (a good 4 miles) and re-packed to head back home the next day. We really got lucky with so much beautiful (and bug-free) weather.....can't wait to get back to the Arctic some day!

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