Gates of the Arctic III (a.k.a. place-remembering)

"The storm was swinging eastward...[T]he sun was shining brilliantly on countless lofty peaks without name and beyond the scope of human knowledge. All around [me] were gorges, thousands of feet deep, great snowbanks, bright green valleys, gaily colored rocks. All was peace and strength and immensity and coordination and freedom" — Bob Marshall, Alaska Wilderness

Water, rock, snow, moss, sedge, sky, fog, and my feet—that was my world, for 11 days. Seventy-odd miles through the Brooks Range along what, retrospectively, was a poorly-chosen route from the Dalton Highway to Anaktuvuk Pass. A million dangers and me trying to navigate them, alone.

Terrifying. Affirming. Elemental.

Frigid shooting stars bobbing in mid-morning light, Itkillik Valley

No, there was more than that. There were flowers—everywhere I stepped, colorful, delicate little Arctic blooms. Fuchsia-colored frigid shooting-stars rising up and arcing bashfully back down. Creamy bell-heather ringing out across entire hillsides. Tall, pink-stemmed wintergreen boasting a dozen greenish-white blossoms. Blue-purple narrow-leaved gentians barely beginning to bud. Bright yellow Arctic poppies eagerly following the summer sun as it circumambulated the sky. Dozens of species, hundreds of thousands of individual plants. How many did I crush underfoot, just trying to keep trudging, to make it across the ridges and through the ravines?

Woolly lousewort and mountain avens overlooking Limestack Mountain

And there were animals. Every now and then, I registered the anxious chirping of ground squirrels or anxious cheeping of, um, black-bellied plovers? (I’m not very good at bird identification, especially when I’m tired and hungry and want nothing more than to not be where I am.) Snipes sniped from the marshes. Ravens laughed from the ridges. A couple of moose loped languidly through the same stretch of sedges and brush that had taken me a full day to fight through. Surely, bears and wolves were watching, waiting to pounce; they’d left their pawprints everywhere, signs telling interlopers to be wary, be aware.

Black-bellied plover?

And of course there were rocks (usually my favorite part of a place, other than the clouds). Thick ledges of limestone, glinting scarps of schist, great cobbles of conglomerate, stacked on top of one another at precarious angles with dubious stability. The mountains only pretended to be solid, intact, timeless; erosion was the true master here. I lost count of the number of fresh-looking talus-fields I had to negotiate, much less the frequency with which boulders shifted underfoot. Riverbanks gave way. Rockfalls reverberated through rain and mist. One afternoon, without warning--crash...crashcrashcrash whoosh; a chunk of mountainside gave way, just across the Itkillik River from me. (I wasn't comfortable with that distance. Elsewhere on the Itkillik, at some point within the last decade or so, judging from the vegetative regrowth, half of a peak rising 3,000 feet directly up had slid off and crashed all the way down to the other side of the valley, damming the river and leaving great piles of debris. The scar is so enormous that it’s visible from satellite imagery on Google maps.)

Massive debris slide, west of Oolah Pass

Other than that, there were bogs. Meadows. Hidden pools and rivulets. Perilously steep mountain “passes”. Waist-deep rivers considered mere side drainages, not even worth a name on the maps. Add to that the wind, the rain, the ice and snow. The mosquitoes.

Good god, the mosquitoes.

That’s what I went for, no? To feel tired and cold and hungry and afraid. To feel grateful for little miracles—a break in the clouds or a stretch of solid ground. To soak in the silence. (There was never any silence. Water, always running water, usually wind, and those rockfalls.) To live consciously, putting effort into every step. (Just getting water was an ordeal: paying attention to when the bottle was running low, keeping an eye out for an appropriate stream—deep enough, not too deep; clear, not silty or sandy; with enough of an accessible bank; preferably, little vegetation around and thus lower concern for bears or moose—taking off the pack, getting out the pump, assembling the pump, being careful not to let the clean hose get in the water, pumping, being careful not to tip the water bottle, careful again with the clean hose while disassembling the pump, repacking, and—the hardest part of the whole ordeal—convincing myself to heft that awful pack back on again and continuing.) 

To be self-sufficient, comfortable with silence and self and that huge, wild world.

Alone in a tent, waiting out the rain and ice near the very headwaters to the North Fork of the Koyukuk; preparing to cross the Arctic Divide; wondering why on earth I'd chosen to do this, what I'd hoped to find

Traveling alone, I had to be self-sufficient. If I wanted a sip of water, I couldn’t just ask someone to please grab my water bottle; I had to stop, take off the pack. If my stove was slightly temperamental, I couldn’t just borrow someone else’s. If I wasn’t sure where I was, I couldn’t pore over the maps with another set of eyes. If I wasn’t sure whether a river was safe to cross, I couldn’t talk it over with someone else. I had to pace back and forth along the bank for a while, plunge in, sometimes retreat, then plunge back in again, knowing that I had to get across, even if the current was stronger than me.

(Swollen with rain and turbid with silt, the rivers were so very, very much stronger than me. But I had to cross them. Alone.)

Rain, rain, rain = raging rivers, soggy tundra, tendrils of mist

On the plus side, no one else was around to watch me crawl up onto a bank, post-river-crossing, and lie on the mud and rocks, sobbing with terror and gratitude. No one saw me swing my trekking poles wildly through the air, swatting and swearing at mosquitoes. No one could tell me that I was an idiot for crossing the dangerously steep snowbank, or laugh when I fell in the bog. Or laugh even harder when I fell in the same bog again. No one made me get out of my cozy tent, pack up, and start hiking when it was cold and rainy out. Instead, I was responsible for making myself do that.

The best part was getting to stop whenever and wherever I wanted, then getting to stay put for as long as I wanted (or until I finished off my daily ration of m&ms). In general, I hit a routine of hiking for 40 minutes and resting for 20, but I also had some luxuriously long tundra naps, nestled into a warm carpet of lichens, mosses, and tiny shrubs. It was nearly as blissful to snuggle into my sleeping bag at night, feeling warm and safe against the rain and hail and wind outside. One long hazy evening--the only cloud-free stretch of the whole trip--I chose not to put the rainfly on my tent so that I could wake periodically to see the deep pink orb of the sun circumambulating the wide headwaters of the Anaktuvuk River, painting snowcapped mountains in fluorescent hues.

"Night", Anaktuvuk Valley. Numinous.

****

Bob Marshall’s Alaska Wilderness was all celebration, all beauty and exhilaration. Euphoria, not fear of rockslides, not a stream-crossing every hour; no mention of him waking at 2 a.m. in the middle of a cold downpour with an urgently full bladder. Sure, some tussocks; sure, nearly getting swept down a few rivers. But bears? Shoot ‘em. Mountains? Climb ‘em. Sixty-five pound packs? All the more enjoyable. He made his mishaps sound fun, part of the grand adventure.

Retrospectively, I had fun, too. Certainly a grand adventure. But only because I survived. I went looking for the wildest of wildernesses, for beauty and meaning in the non-human world, but in the moment, in the place--over the passes, through the rivers, around the tussocks, across the snow, past however many bears that looked like boulders in the mist--what I cared about most was surviving, one foot in front of the other.

How wonderful, to be alive. And even more wonderful, to be alive in a world where a place like Gates of the Arctic still exists. Not just names in a book or squiggles on a topographic map, but a real place, a raw place, the ruggedy-est of ruggedy places, all immensity and freedom.

Arctic Divide at Peregrine Pass, looking toward Als Mountain. I think Al Retzlaf and Bob Marshall would be pleased to know that this place, which they first explored nearly eighty years ago, is still just as wild. 

Gates of the Arctic II (a.k.a. place-experiencing)

[T]o [a human being] just back from the source streams of the Koyukuk, no comfort, no security, no invention, no brilliant thought which the modern world had to offer could provide half the elation of the days spent in the little-explored, uninhabited world of the arctic wilderness -- Bob Marshall, Alaska Wilderness

(The following are excerpts from my field notebook / raw data from my grand experiment to experience Marshall's "Alaska Wilderness", now protected as Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve)

Oolah Pass, just before the storm breaks

Evening, Day 2, in the middle of an early-July hailstorm, hoping the tent will hold
How am I ever going to be able to lug this pack for ten more days, over more passes and through more rivers?
Good god, the rivers.
I'll never make it [on a solo traverse of part of the Brooks Range, from the Dalton Highway to the village of Anaktuvuk Pass]. Bigger, harder than I remembered or expected, how could I have ever thought this possible, much less necessary?
Why am I doing this?

[An hour later, the sun came out. I emerged from the tent for a hasty dinner between storms. Freezing cold, but fierce, beautiful, blazing.]

****

Afternoon, Day 3, having just (barely) made it across the turbid blue-grey rapids of the rain- and snowmelt-swollen Itkillik River, then crawled out onto the bank and sobbed until my heart stopped fluttering and stomach unknotted
I do NOT want to be here, do NOT want to be doing this, what on earth do I think I'm doing? Why?

[An hour later, curled up under my poncho to wait out another bout of rain and watch as the rest of the valley disappeared then reappeared under a glorious full rainbow, unexpectedly, the sky broke open to a pure Arctic blue.]

****

Midday, Day 5, having fallen in a creek, slipped again on wet mossy rocks, begun to shiver uncontrollably in the pouring rain, pitched the tent early and crawled into my sleeping bag for what would be a very long tent-bound afternoon / night, time punctuated only by the echoing crash of ice and rock falling off the cliffs on the other side of the valley

Nearly 24 hours feeling cold, lonely, and afraid in a tent at the headwaters of the North Fork of the Koyukuk. But pure wildness.

What am I doing here? What brought me here? What had I hoped to find? And why is so much beauty, so much wildness only making me feel cold, tired, in pain? Where's the wonder, the joy, the sublime?
Nothing but dread for tomorrow (good god, Peregrine Pass), and the next day, and the next.
How I wish I had a warmer hat. A dry suit. A GPS. How I wish I wasn't here, that I hadn't come. I wish life had worked out so I wouldn't have felt whatever it was that made me think I needed to come.
How I wish it would stop raining.

[The next morning: woke to ice on the tent and a glorious fog-bow.]

****

Evening, Day 6, while eating dinner under a sky rippling and roiling with clouds
What am I doing out here, so far and so alone?

Asperitas. NOT the clouds you want to see on day 6 of an 11 day wilderness trip, dozens of mountain-toothed, river-laced, and bog-riddled miles from any semblance of civilization.  But breathtaking.

****

Midday, Day 7, during a luxuriously long tundra nap
To be honest, I don't even care.
I'm sure it's beautiful—the photographs will attest to that, belatedly—but right now, I have neither the energy nor the inclination to appreciate it. In fact, except when I stop to unstrap my ungodly heavy pack and collapse down to rest, sprawling across the tundra, I can’t look up and drink in the scenery -- the soaring mountains, the sweeping valleys, the churning layers of sky. All of my attention has to be on the ground. Step by every single step, I have to focus on my feet, never sure whether I’ll sink knee-deep in wet moss, tilt sideways off a tussock of grass, slip into an icy-cold stream, or jiggle a rock in just the wrong way and send a whole mountainside of scree tumbling down the precipitous slope I'm gingerly trying to traverse. 

And yet, lying here, nestled into the soft (lumpy, wet) mosses and sedges, mosquitoes feebly failing to get through the headnet, sun weakly trying to shine, well: This is bliss.

Ernie Pass. I could have stayed here forever

****

Evening, Day 9, sitting on a hillside eating dinner as moose go browsing by and a rainbow arcs off to the east, a worthwhile end to an otherwise miserable day

Nearly got swept away by what was supposed to be an unnamed side drainage--an opaque brown mass at least a foot higher than usual, judging from how it swallowed shrubs and branches along the shore.
Should have waited. Shouldn't have crossed where I did--just one wide channel, thigh-deep, no respite. Legs weak, weaker, right calf popped halfway across. I had to stop, lean in, pray that the rocks wouldn't shift under my feet and that I'd still be able to walk. Inch by inch, numb with cold and absolute fear by the time the water shallowed to knee-deep. Just when I thought it was over, proceeded to slip on the mud-coated bank, fall in the river, soaked.
Tomorrow: another drainage, with an even larger watershed than this one. I'm really not sure I can make it. But I have to. I don't have any idea why I came here, but since I did, I now have to keep going, somehow.

Won't it ever stop raining? Mist ever stop swirling? What happened to Marshall's promise of mountains that are sharp and absolute?

****

Afternoon, Day 10, having summoned all of my willpower and then some to pack up and march toward the drainage, against absolute dread
Miserable, cold, wet, far edge of exhausted. But across.
Rain, mosquitoes, bogs. Freeing, to not care about wet feet any more.

****

Morning, Day 11, still in tent. Crying, if only to keep warm
Really, world? Really?
Fog. All fog. Can't see a thing. No idea which way to go. Map and compass are useless when the world is invisible. Yet again, what was I thinking, to refuse to bring a GPS? Idiotic wilderness purist idealism. Amaze me, wilderness!, I ask; I came to you alone, over-laden yet under-equipped. Humbled, open. Yet I demand, Give me hope, meaning, joy!
In reply, fog.

Stumbling blindly through nothingness for several hours, navigating by the sound of airplane engines echoing out from Anaktuvuk Pass, my dubious sense of direction, and a mix of stubbornness, desperation, and raw hope. Apparently, that's all I needed.

Gates of the Arctic I (a.k.a. place-dreaming)

This is how it begins: with the name of a place, boxed off on a map. A distant place, a wild place, a place that seems more mythical than real. “Gates of the Arctic,” this place is called, as if a portal to another world.

Then the idea—impossible! Absurd!—to visit that place. To see the mountains, to ford the rivers, to fight the tussocks. (To stay far, far away from the bears.)

Wholly impossible? Entirely absurd?

The dream begins to take shape. You study the maps more carefully. There are airports, roads, your own two feet. Oolah Pass, Peregrine Pass, Ernie Pass. Anaktuvuk, Naqsraq, a pass, a river, a “place with no mountain” nestled in the heart of the Brooks Range, opening to the vast North Slope. You can envision yourself climbing the ridges and camping by the creeks. Mile after mile of tundra and rocks; day after day of rain, snow, ice. Mosquitoes. That glorious midsummer light.

Before long, it doesn’t just seem possible, but necessary. Yes, you must visit this place, you need to feel the cold pull of the rivers, the cold push of the rain. You need to spend a week or more alone with the caribou and the wolves. More than anything, you need the 7.2 million acres of wilderness through which they roam.

A different sub-Arctic wilderness--the Alaska Range, Denali National Park

You’re not sure why you need this place—what is it you seek there? What is it you’ll find? It’s a pilgrimage without a destination, a quest without a task. It’s a Snow Leopard without a Crystal Monastery. And without a snow leopard, for that matter. (“Have you seen the snow leopard?” asks Peter Matthiessen, “No! Isn’t that wonderful?”) It’s a Mount Analogue without a ship or a crew. (“And you, what are you looking for?” was to be the last chapter of Rene Daumal’s allegory.) It’s not at all an Into the Wild. (Dangerous, yes, but not foolhardy, not reckless. You’ll bring maps and food; you'll follow all Leave No Trace principles; you’ve backpacked in Alaska before, just not this far north, this big, alone.)

Maybe you're just trying to escape from your daily routine, to find something more pressing and real than your life of quiet desperation. Rather than sitting here comfortably under a sturdy roof, you'd prefer to be out there, packing up a tent in the pouring rain. You'd rather be crossing a river vs. crossing the street. Facing bears vs. watching squirrels. Eating oatmeal, more oatmeal, only oatmeal vs. frying eggs and bacon. You know you’ll later regret saying it, but--you claim now--you’d rather be walking over tussocks than skipping down sidewalks. (You've never fared well in places with sidewalks.)

Or maybe you're searching for something bigger, wilder, more meaningful. Something you've glimpsed in other wilderness areas--a sense of a world that is, for all of its cities and farms, dams and fences, still dominated by non-human forces. In his thrilling account of his first trip up the North Fork of the Koyukuk, Bob Marshall--the man who put "Gates of the Arctic" and more than a hundred other toponyms on the map (and who was the first to explore the area and draw the maps, for that matter); also a "peripatetic ecologist" who devoted his life to exploring and fighting to preserve big, wild places; co-founder of the Wilderness Society; author of Arctic Village and Arctic Wilderness; eponym of the Adirondacks' Mt. Marshall and Montana's Bob Marshall Wilderness; and, it seems, an all-around adventurous, indefatigable guy--wrote of the landforms and the landscape, the wildlife and the weather, the experience of being in such a truly wild place. Perhaps his most important discovery / realization: "Man may be taming nature, but no one standing on the bank of the North Fork of the Koyukuk on this gray morning would have claimed that nature is conquered."

McKinley River, Denali National Park

Now it's your turn to see this, to remember this. Your turn to splash your way across the Koyukuk (hopefully under more favorable conditions), your turn to (try to? maybe?) clamber up to the summit of Alapah, for what Marshall promises is a glorious view of "fog, and, for an instant, two barren, snow-clad peaks in the shifting mist." Finally, after years and years of perusing a now very tattered, scribbled-in and dog-eared old copy of Barry Lopez's Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape, you're going to go “walk...slowly over the land with an appreciation of its immediacy to the senses and in anticipation of what lies hidden in it.” You'll “listen…to what the land is saying.” You'll experience a “beauty you feel in your flesh," even if or perhaps because "it is sometimes terrifying to approach.” 

If all goes well, you may just find yourself sitting high on a ridge one day, far from the sea, in miserable weather, amid swarms of mosquitoes, with miles of tussock ahead, and you'll think to yourself: ahh, Gates of the Arctic. This place is real. With that knowledge comes “the familiar sense of expansiveness, of deep exhilaration…quviannikumut, ‘to feel deeply happy.’”

Caribou, Primrose Ridge, Denali National Park