Caribou Bar Creek
Some of my last hours in my seven-month
trek across the Brooks Range.
Instead of continuing around on the
ridge, I come right off it on a direct course toward the mountain hoping to
save some time. It’s lower in elevation and likely brushier, but shorter. The
terrain turns out hellish. I get right into the thick of ten-foot high brush
and boggy ground for hours, and then a burned area miles long that has left
tall grass and swamp in place of what used to be a lush spruce forest. I have
to step up a notch again to match the difficulty of the terrain. The only thing
that keeps me going is my clear view of Shaltah Mountain to remind me how close
I am to Old Crow. I’m almost home, so I plug away, staying calm and exerting
the same constant effort. I continue to
make progress though, and keep at it, step after step, sloshing through the
arctic swamp and weeds. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and this
gives me motivation to keep going.
At Caribou Bar Creek grass and brush are everywhere. It’s swift and over
my waist from all the rain in the last week. Later I will learn that this has
been the wettest summer on record. I set up camp for the night. I cook black
beans over an open fire until close to midnight, but just as I finish a hail
storm starts so I take the pot of beans into my tent for the night. The hail
storm is the worse I’ve ever seen and the ice particles hit my tent so hard I’m
afraid they’re going to punch holes in it and tear it to shreds. I wait and
worry, and start gathering up my gear in case everything gets wet and I have to
spend the night without a tent.
And I wait, sitting up and not sleeping until the storm passes, with
Will curled up in a ball watching me. “Enough already,” I yell at the top of my
lungs. The hail still falls hard, and lightning flashes over my tent with a
bolt touching down one hundred yards away. I duck down, covering my head with
my arms. It’s like the earth is shattering and ripping apart in a thundery
volley of mega bombs and spraying shrapnel. The hail falls for a solid hour,
and then suddenly, it’s all over. To my relief my tent is still intact. During
the night it gets so cold that I have dreams of shooting down an Olympic
bobsled course on my belly.
When I wake up the next morning my tent is now at the creek’s edge. It
has risen a foot or more during the night, and the sides of my tent are buried
in a foot of hail. I have to dig out. I start out the day in my rain gear,
wading the creek to my waste in some rapids, which is the shallowest place.
Then I hike for three hours through more brush, tall grass, and swamp. My feet
are soaked from the first few steps of the day, and within an hour they started
hurting from the wet cold and ice - swamp grass, and frigid water for several
miles. I pass a duck looking for her baby after the storm, and a minute later
the baby waddles right by Will and me in full view, like he’s too cold and worn
out from the storm to be cautious. I leave the baby in peace so the mother can
find him.
Later in the day as I climb up what I thought was the last pass before
descending the other side into Old Crow, I start to warm up and stride out. I’m
hiking fast like I’m doing a day trip in the mountains of Oregon when I was
twenty-five. It feels great to finally be slim and in shape and to now have a
light pack, almost empty of food. I’m almost home and nothing can stop me now,
or so it seems. After days of despondence, suffering, and self-doubt, I’m
invincible now. “Get out of my way,” I keep saying. “I’ve just hiked the Brooks
Range. What you think of that.” I’m talking to all the obstacles I’ve crossed
in the last four weeks, and even the ones on my previous trips: rivers, lakes,
bogs, brush, grass, mountains, cliffs, wild animals, starvation, exhaustion,
biting insects, and forest fires. I’ve beaten them all, becoming the kind of
person I’ve always dreamed I could be: a man of the mountains and forest,
walking to Old Crow.
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