Alaska Range Adventure 2019

At least once a winter, David and I make an effort to go somewhere new with our dog team. These trips are a way to test out new areas for trips, to train our dogs in different conditions, and those are some excuses, it is mostly for fun. We spend a lot of time at our Tanana River home staring across about 40 miles of flats at the Alaska Range mountains. We have made several trips to explore our “big front yard” but this time we wanted to really get in there. I had been corresponding with a new pen pal, Bonni Burnell since the fall. Bonni and her husband Bruce have lived on the Upper Wood River for over 30 years and they have an intimate and impressive knowledge of the place. Bonni and I had a lot to talk about and we really wanted to get to see their place in person and we wanted to bring our dogs along. So in late January we loaded up our sled and hit the trail.

Conditions were, well, horrible. It was already one of the lowest snow years on record and unbeknownst to us, the route that looked so good on google earth was actually a documented chinook (“snow eater”) area of the Alaska Range where warm, dry winds blast mountain passes keeping them all but free of snow. The Wood River, which Bonni and Bruce usually use to access the larger and more reliable Rex trail to haul supplies in from town, was in unusually bad shape too. Huge stretches of the river were just gravel and open water, not ideal for really any sort of winter travel, much less hauling large loads by snowmachine. As a result, most of the people who generally travel the country (trappers, locals, recreationalists) were smart enough to lay off of it until more snow came around. We did not fit into that smart folks category. This was our first trip without our old guard of trusted lead dogs (Skookum, Minto, Tanana and Polar sat this one out at a friend’s house) and we wanted to know what kind of team we had and how they could work together in challenging conditions. Plus, when you work as guides you are always always always making safest, most conservative decisions for your guests. We wanted to make a few more adventurous ones with only our selves at stake.

We left Fairbanks with 11 days of supplies and 7.5 dogs (Mukluk was 5 months old at the time so he mostly ran along loose). David had built a nice new freight sled for the trip but when we considered the snow levels, or lack thereof, we decided to give our trusty tag sled setup a go instead. That was a good thing, as by the end of the trip we got so accustomed to hitting rocks with our sled that it was almost fun rather than stressful.

We initially planned to leave from our home on the Tanana and mush up the Tatlanika River, as we had done in 2013, but as I mentioned the conditions were bad and we decided to take a faster approach. We parked at the base of the Rex Trail as we had in 2018 and mushed an easy initial 30 miles along the packed trail. The adventure began when we turned on an old trail that goes up a pass and allows you to access the upper Tatlanika. Here is where the trailbreaking began. There wasn’t much snow, so the dogs were able to run over frozen tussocks and navigate the pass pretty well. After our second night we dropped down onto the upper Tatlanika and got everyone re-aquainted with miles of glare ice.

Miles and miles of polished glare ice as we made our way up the Tatlanika River

We try to train all of our dogs to run confidently on glare ice, but its not an easy task. David and I realized the important piece of gear that we forgot to bring- ice cleats! It was about all we could do to stay upright on the ice, and our thighs and shins got the brunt of constantly balancing. Luckily, at this point one of our dogs pulled through. We have had Yawp for a long time and for a few years we ran him in lead next to Skookum, hoping to train him to lead. By himself, he isn’t much of a leader. He will shrink back and lacks the confidence so we have focused on training Eowyn and Bruce Lee to lead in the past few years. On a trip like this we tried about every possible configuration of our dog team. On a whim, I put Yawp up in lead with Eowyn he surprised the heck out of us. It turns out he DID learn some things from Skookum. He navigated the most challenging ice sections almost flawlessly. It was like he knew exactly where we wanted to go to weave around rocks, choose the safest places to cross ice bridges, everything. We were totally impressed at our unknown secret weapon.

Yawp (right) and Eowyn (left) in lead on the ice.

As we got higher on the Tatlanika we approached an area that had been pretty heavily mined. We noticed because all of a sudden the river wasn’t behaving like a river. There were weird channels and huge piles of tailings. This part was especially hard to navigate, and David and I played lead dog quite a bit.

As we approached an area that had been heavily mined the river started making less sense. We got stuck a few times on this kind of stuff where the dogs wanted to run on land but the sled could not follow.

We then hung a left onto Moose Creek. One of the many many Moose Creeks in Alaska, this creek was the part of the trip where we decided that we were NOT going to be making a loop. It was one thing to go up the steep, sloping, punchy ice, but it would have been pretty nasty to retrace our steps and go back down. Thus we entered the stage in our trips where we started saying “gotta find something better than this” and gradually lowering our standards for trail conditions as we raised our estimation of what our dog team was capable of.

The river ice was not without its hazards, mostly I held on when chasms like this one approached but I managed to get some pictures of this sloping, hole-laden ice.

Our journey on Moose Creek ended rather abruptly. We ran out of water. Ahead of us was gravel, gravel, and more gravel. We decided to stop for the night and camp on a protected bench above the river. Once we got the dogs settled in, David and I snowshoed farther up the hillside to try to see where our creek had gone. We found a big tussocky tundra hillside that seemed passable. It was the first of our many plan B’s. The next morning we hauled our gear up the steep hillside and re-packed the sled for an overland lug.

The dogs prepare to pull a mostly empty sled up the steep hill.

We hooked the dogs in single-file to make the trail breaking easier on them. One of us walked ahead on snowshoes choosing the trail and away we went. As we headed toward the distant pass we noticed the snow beginning to thin.

We zig-zagged up the valley and eventually climbed about 6 miles up to a broad pass. The higher we got, the less snow we had. It was a windy, warm day and the colors were AMAZING. We saw small bands of caribou as we climbed, they were taking advantage of the lack of snow to get to their winter food.

This was the most physically challenging part of the trip. We had a very full sled and progress was slow. Most of the time David put himself in harness up front and pulled while Jenna pushed the back sled. We kept getting stuck on tussocks and it was about all we could do to move forward. Lots of breaks to rest and pet dogs. Our dogs were remarkably game for this, they didn’t once try to turn around, they just kept going. I guess wanting to see what is on “the other side” is a thing for dogs as well as people.

The trek was worth the effort, the pass was probably the most beautiful place I have ever seen. The lack of snow made every color pop and there were small lakes and a distant glacier at this pass from which 3 creeks share as headwaters.

You can tell how much we were working by the lack of clothing in this picture- most of the hike up I wore a single layer and baseball cap despite strong winds.

As you might imagine, all of this was quite an adventure for little Mukluk, who took it in stride. He ran loose along the team except for in places with scary ice, we hooked him in for that. He is a natural sled dog and was good at conserving his energy by napping on exposed dry grass beds. He was also a very good tent puppy, if a little sneaky. He acted like a big dog who didn’t want to sleep in our sleeping bag, but each night he would settle down by our heads and gradually slither his way into the bag as the night progressed, one morning he was all the way at our toes.

From the headwater pass we started down Mystic Creek. We thought the hard part of the trip was over but we had no idea. The creek was really spectacular, I wish I had taken more pictures but it was about all I could do to stay vertical on the slippery, sloped, and now DOWNHILL ice. We unhooked the tug lines from most of the dogs and I ran in front of the lead dogs winding a path along the ice that avoided some of the many rocks. David was able to use the carbide tipped sled break to keep the whole team at a slow pace for this new chapter of river. We camped at the first spruce trees we found and woke up to wolves howling. Our dogs responded but their song was mangy and amateur compared to the grace of the wolves. As we were breaking camp the chorus continued as the curious wolves approached. It was quite the sendoff.

Bonni and Bruce had warned us about a spot on Mystic Creek that they called “the waterfall”. As we made our way down we encountered a few things that we thought “was that a waterfall?” When we arrived at a 4 foot drop with boulders on both sides we figured had found it. We tied the dogs to some willow on the side of the creek and David went down to clear some trees out of our precarious path. Again, safety was the focus rather than photography, but you can see the beginnings of the approach in the photo below, the main drop is between those two rocks. As David was swinging away we heard an unfamiliar sound- a snowmachine! We had sent Bonni a message with our inreach the night before and here was Bruce, with a chainsaw and a snowmachine to help clear the rest of the way. I believe his introductory words to us were “Well isn’t that a &W#$#?” It was. We were really grateful for his help and the dogs were overjoyed to have a trail to follow. It was a perfect meeting point, he would not have been able to get up the waterfall on his machine and we would have had a lot more chopping if he hadn’t showed up just then.

We followed Bruce down the rest of Mystic Creek and across a much more challenging than expected Wood River. They had a trail that ran along the river and it was easy going through the forest right into Bonni and Bruce’s little slice of heaven which included a warmed up guest cabin and water for our dogs. After wall tent camping cabins always feel huge, and just as we arrived, it started to snow for the first time in a long time. Perfect weather for a visit.

We spent the next 2 days talking, eating, talking, eating, Jenna even took a SHOWER (first in months). Bonni and Bruce really have comfortable bush living figured out. We took lots of notes and shared stories. I won’t post pictures of their beautiful home to protect their privacy but if you are in the area, they are the most wonderful folks.

Bruce, David, Jenna by a packed sled on the day that we headed out.

While at Bonni and Bruce’s we took advantage of their knowledge and maps and charted a new route out of there. The Wood River, our former plan, was in nasty shape still so we decided to continue up the Wood and take Quartz Creek up and over to Dean Creek, crossing over the the Yanert River valley. This route would dump us off a ways from our truck, but in very close range to Jenna’s favorite restaurant, 229 Parks. We figured David could hitch a ride back to the truck and Jenna could order food. So we headed up the Wood and as we were told, we found snow there!

Thanks to our very good instructions, we were able to find a horse trail used in the summer and used it to connect onto Quartz Creek. Now our problem switched from not enough snow to too much. You can’t always get what you want. Out came the snowoshoes and up we went.

We camped in the last patch of willows on the way up and the next morning started another trip up and over a mountain pass. The temperatures dropped and we kept expecting to eventually find a trail, but again, no one had been silly enough to get out in these conditions yet. Except for the moose. We saw 9 moose way up in the alpine. We were able to use stretches of their trail. The going was again slow and we had to break trail for the dogs with snowshoes. We developed 2 lead dog teams: Yawp and Eowyn were more experienced and had good judgment for non-trails and ice. Bruce Lee and Kathul were all energy and they were the “big guns” that we put up there when we needed to power up a mountain pass. Check out the photo of Kathul below, leaping her way up the mountain and loving it.

Bruce Lee and Kathul serve as a badass trail breaking lead team. Either that or they want to play with mukluk (ears).

Up up up and over. The views were spectacular, but mostly we were excited for some hard-packed downhill and the sight of more trees for our wall tent.

Breaking trail up the pass with snowshoes

We set up camp on Dean Creek in a beautiful patch of spruce and the dogs enjoyed bushy spuce bough beds.

The next day we continued to hopscotch our way down Dean Creek, using Moose trails (below) but mostly just breaking trail. At David’s suggestion we followed one moose trail way up the side of a bluff and had quite a wild time coming back down.

When we thought that it couldn’t get more challenging, Dean Creek reminded us that it could. We middle and lower sections of the creek were full of chasms and unstable ice covered in snow. We basically could not run on the river and ended up cutting trails through the woods for large sections of it. At the end of a day of doing this we camped in a state of exhaustion. The next morning David went to cut new trail while I packed up camp and he came back with “bad news and good news”. Good: he had cut a trail, Bad: there was a snowmacine trail in sight of our camp.

We enjoyed the rest of the trip out on established trails on the Yanert River. Compared to what we had been doing, this was almost a boring way to end the trip. We had to put on a lot more clothing because we weren’t constantly running. The closer we got the the Parks highway the more confusing the trail became. We took out Jenna’s phone and used a combination of google maps and guesswork to navigate the trail network and ended up popping out on the highway just a half mile from 229 Parks, our new destination. As it would happen, we had to break trail that last section along the highway, but we were able to picket our dogs out at a gourmet restaurant rather than a patch of spruce forest at the end of this final day. Jenna stayed with the dogs (and the wine) while David hitchhiked and just plain hiked back to our truck. We enjoyed a very fresh and delicious gourmet meal before heading back to Fairbanks that night with irrepressible smiles stretching out our faces.