Log jams, megafauna, and mosquitoes: oh my!
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| Gaia GPS screenshot of our route: Yakutat to Harlequin Lake, to Italio River floating down to coast and back to Yakutat |
Sarah, Gretchen, and I started the trip on a Friday morning and returned home to Yakutat on Monday, mid-day. Matt, graciously taking the day off from work, drove us to Harlequin Lake and led the charge through the forest, machete in hand to tame the wild branches, several miles to the Italio River.
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| Side view of our packs at Harlequin Lake, headwater of Dangerous River |
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| View of my pack from the back |
Once at the Italio River, we inflated our rafts and waved goodbye to Matt and pup Bonzer, hoping our first log jam was miles away! The Italio River was in a low-flow mode, so we also had plenty of butt-bumping and scooching through shallows. It is in these moments that I become the most appreciative person for river-rounded stones!
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| Arriving at the Italio River |
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| Inflated boats, ready to float! |
Our log jams reached some epic proportions of ingenuity to climb over, scooch under, pass packrafts, route locate around the trees, and bushwhack around them, sometimes multiple techniques for one log jam!
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| Gretchen, solid blue boat, owned an original Alpacka raft from when they were still being made in Alaska! Sarah's is a year or two older than mine, solid red raft. Wearing your pack strapped to the boat like this made bushwhacking much more manageable. |
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| Scouting log jams |
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| Add caption |
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| Gretchen led the charge on this maneuver and made it look like a piece of cake! Sarah forces her raft and pack into submission as she lifts it from this bit of river behind a root-wad before climbing over the trees on the other side. |
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| Gretchen happy to be paddling again after passing another log jam |
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| passing packrafts |
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| Ducking under! |
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| We did have some stretches of great floating! |
Our first camp was on a sand bar in the Italio River. We still had a fair distance of river and log jams ahead of us, dinner time was upon us, and this sand bar was nearly flat. Bingo!
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| Camp #1 |
While drinking coffee the next morning, a
mink splashed into the river to river right of us. Not seeing us until she was nearly to our sand bar, she scurried off once she made it. In addition,
river otter tracks covered the banks as well as Moose. Later on day 2, we turned a corner on the river and ahead of us, down river, was a cow moose walking down the middle of the river. She was graceful as she moved from the water... that is until she turned around and spotted us pulled over on the bank watching her and splashed away down river! No photo evidence, however.
Day 2, for me, was the day when I felt like I had finally immersed into the wilderness. Thoughts of the city, job searching, and anything beyond what I was immediately seeing and feeling melted away. I was aware of the birds on either side of the river and their distinct calls, the sound of the river moving along the banks, squeaking of trees as they moved in the wind, my paddle in the water, the wet on my feet, the sun on my face. I was in the moment.
Later on day 2, we made it to the beach! The Italio parallels the beach for the last bit before turning into the ocean.
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| Sarah and Mount Fairweater and Fairweather range in the distance |
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| Gretchen and the Fairweathers |
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| Paralleling the beach |
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| Beached |
Because the tide was rising and we had a headwind, we were making very slow progress to the mouth of the river. We opted to pull over, climb up, and find an alternate route. This alternate route was just as challenging as we maneuvered through bushwhacking, jack spruce trees, and shouted loudly so as not to surprise any unsuspecting bears. We were headed to the Italio Cabin where Sarah had booked us a night in case of poor weather on our trip.
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| As we stood on the bank, my patch of ground slid out from under me and I slid to the beach below. Human-caused erosion at its worst. |
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| Searching for a way back up |
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| Tree-climb |
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| The last creek before the cabin |
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| Italio Cabin, USFS |
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| Outbuilding beside it. |
Because the weather was wonderful and because I had come from Seattle, I opted to sleep outside in the tent rather than the cabin. I placed the tent beside the runway at the head of the 4-wheeler trail to the cabin. After the tent was erected, I ate dinner at the cabin with Sarah and Gretchen when we saw a coyote approach the cabin. It ran away when it saw us, we must have been a sight after two days without showers, and around the tent. Later that night I heard coyotes howling to each other and the sound of the surf on the beach all night.
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| Camp #2. Italio Cabin in the background--notice the interior bug net; this played a large role in night #3. |
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| Tent facing the beach. |
I rose early and walked down to the beach, past the budding lupine, the fading brilliance of the common shooting stars, and I spotted fresh bear tracks on the beach. There was no evidence that it came anywhere near me in the tent, but I felt like I had just missed seeing her pass. The sun was out and there was enough of a breeze any hair escaping my hat caressed my face. I sat and journaled, appreciating the moment of quiet mornings, my favorite time of day.
After breakfast, we had extra time at the mouth of the Italio as we waited for tides to change at the Dangerous before we could cross. The rising tide started at 1pm, what we needed before we attempted a crossing... the name is too ominous to try any other time. So, we went back to the mouth for a view of the beach and Sarah's quest for a Japanese glass ball! Just as we stepped out to the beach, Sarah spotted a large grizzly far down the beach. Gretchen pulled out her binoculars and narrated to us how the bear was rolling on its back in the sand as a dog might do! We opted to walk along the ocean so as not to encounter the bear.
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| The beach worm and bird tracks littered the sand |
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| Sea fog slowly started forming |
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| A fish out of water |
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| Looking down at Gretchen from atop the burm |
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| I didn't realize what Gretchen was picking up while trying to get this photo of how high off the ground and how long this piece of driftwood was. |
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| She teased out the message in the bottle! |
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| It was a religious pamphlet from California! |
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| Sarah, myself, and Gretchen at the mouth of the Italio River |
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| As we helped Sarah search for a Japanse glass ball, I was appalled at the amount of plastic trash. A reminder to avoid plastic at all costs. |
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| Sarah on the hunt! |
In addition to crossing the Dangerous River, we had quite a few miles of hiking ahead of us on the sand. We crossed countless bear, coyote, and moose tracks. We even saw tracks of a cow and baby moose!
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| Inflating to cross Dangerous River |
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| Gretchen crossing Dangerous River |
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| Me crossing Dangerous River |
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| The Dangerous: calm day for crossing! |
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| Stretch and snack break! |
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| Mount Fairweather behind us |
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| The beach went on for miles! |
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| Gretchen and Sarah navigated |
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| Multiple creeks to wet our ankles |
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| Another crossing |
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| We needed to hike inland a bit to find non-brackish water. |
Although we never did find non-brackish water, we did see a large, dark... log in a meadow. We all looked at it and all determined it was a log. As we approached the meadow, the "log" looked up, saw us, and ran the other direction! It was a big, beautiful grizzly! After that encounter, we picked up the shouting.
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| Bear tracks covered the beaches, though we only set eyes on two. |
In addition to seeing bears and bear tracks, we also saw a coyote in the distance. What was peculiar about this was two blackbirds (crows? ravens?) were dive bombing the coyote. Gretchen had her binoculars handy and narrated the scene for us: They're clipping him! He fell over! He got up and is still running, but they keep knocking into him! This is so bizarre!
We eventually came upon the coyote's tracks of the event. What a neat event to witness!
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| We eventually made camp and cheersed to another night in the wilderness! |
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| Sunset of Fairweather Range |
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| Camp #3 |
That night, I was asleep by 9:30. Gretchen and I had fallen asleep on top of the bug net (see image of camp #2) since there were no bugs to speak of. I awoke at 11:00 pm, covered in mosquito bites and the tent FULL of bird-size mosquitoes! I sat straight up and started smashing them. Luckily, Gretchen was also awake, being tormented by the mosquitoes, and we rearranged our sleeping to be inside of the bug net rather than on top of it. Sarah had donned her mosquito head net and zipped up her sleeping bag for refuge. In the morning, I had 17 mosquito bites in a semicircle around my right eye!
Our final morning, we woke early to paddle the Ahrnklin into Yakutat on a falling tide. We were on the river by 8am. It had been raining during the night, but as we packed up, the rain subsided. We paddled into Strawberry Point and Matt, designated chauffer of the trip, picked us up and took us back to their place to clean up for our flight out that evening!
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| Strawberry Point, Yakutat |
**Most of these photos were taken by Sarah!
