Fishing for Water

We all need water, and one way of retrieving it from a deep hole in a frozen river is to pull it out with a Nalgene on a line. Thats precisely what Jeremy is doing here; fishing for water.

Lenticular Night

Night-time. I still love the night, and I awoke at 3 am on a full moon to take some pictures of our campground at the confluence of the Savage and Jenny.  Check out the lenticular clouds in the background; they are indicative of high winds aloft. We weren't really harassed by wind during our trip, though  a few days after our departure they did kick up to 55mph in the mountain passes. That would not be pretty in freezing temperatures; it would more accurately be a dangerous scenario at best. Anyway, it was still and beautiful the night I took these pictures and I really wanted to strap on the skis and take a long jaunt. I didn't because I thought it dangerous to travel around at night on a frozen river alone.
     There was one point during the night that an extremely noisome and furious wind passed OVER the tent without touching it. I felt as if I had just eluded the Nazgul.

Overflow

When you reach the confluence of Jenny Creek and the Savage River, head north to avoid a steep cutbank blocking your progress westward. Thats just what we did, and when we got to the micro valley that feeds a small stream into the Savage we were met with overflow. This overflow had forced water up the edges of this small valley and turned it into a half-pipe pf sorts with ice clinging to the upper edges. I had never seen this before.

Snow and Wind at 69 Degrees North Latitude

This is a photo taken on the Beaufort Sea Coast a few days ago. It reflects the amazing diversity of snow and ice, quite different from the Savage River scene but surprisingly similar too.

Pressure Ridges and Open Water

The Savage River had lots of open, deep leads in it. The water itself wasn't necessarily deep in all spots, though there were some dark holes, but the dropoff into these holes was impressive. i imagine that the ice freezes on top of the river and then pressure builds up, breaks out and overflows onto it. This probably happens hundreds of times during the winter, with lower layers breaking off into the river until the river ice is literally suspended above the flowing water in many places. As I said, the water is quite shallow in places, but falling into one of these holes or breaking through the ice could be a devastating experience. I am naturally cautious on ice, and these rivers were no exception; they are dangerous places if you are careless. They are also quite beautiful.

Parts of My Lung

 When I wasn't shaking from imaginary fever, or blowing imaginary beachballs out of my nose, I was coughing up balls of this....imaginary bloody phlegm. This is a tame photo compared to the piles that were accumulating in the small vestibule of the tent. Just the mere fact that I stopped to take a picture of this is a small indication that I was feeling well at that particular moment. Those moments never lasted long. I leave for work tomorrow and believe that out of 21 days off I was pretty sick for 16 days. The worst of those days were in Denali. Trust me when I tell you this: there is nothing worse than being 20 miles from your truck on  a winter camping trip when you are this sick. It sucks.

Making a Move

It was time to get out of the treeline, if nothing more than just for my morale. It was a short trip out of the campground to the confluence of Jenny Creek and the Savage River. The panoramic views and open-ended horizon made camping here a big bonus after a tough couple of days. We camped right on the edge of Jenny Creek, nothing more than a rivulet, really. But she provided us with instant access to running water. We wouldn't have to melt snow for our meals; we didn't care about the fuel consumption at this point, but the time saved was considerable. It was time to take stock in our situation, poke around a little, and hopefully come to grips with our current predicament.

The Savage Road

Day two started out okay, I thought i was feeling pretty strong considering the illness that was surging through my body. Jeremy was, once again, incredibly upbeat and optimistic. I can't really say I felt the same, and credit alot of it with being sick.  We discussed the potential round-trip to Toklat as we broke camp and did our chores. There was no alarm set for the morning, so we didn't get out of camp until well after 10am. If we were to be serious about making miles this would have to stop, in my opinion. Thats when it dawned on me....this wasn't serious in that manner anymore.
     We pulled out of camp and started heading west out the road for the Savage River. Things were better today in the elevation department as the road leveled out and a few minor downhill dips were encountered. On the few uphill pulls that we had I found myself extremely weak. At this point I was feeling quite feverish and had started to cough regularly and uncomfortably; it was quite challenging to be outdoors in the cold under circumstances like this.........I was not having a good time. That's bad.
 A few miles into it, I turned around to look for Jeremy. I was going to hold up and tell him that I wasn't going to make it to Toklat, only he wasn't in sight. I waited a few minutes, but then I started to get quite cold in my sweaty trail gear so I dropped  all my gear on the road, pounded some water and skiied back down the trail. As I turned a bend in the road I saw him sitting on his sled. He had hurt his knee. His exact words were, " My knee is killing me." WOW, was all I thought....we are falling apart fast. We exchanged a few words and decided to proceed to the Savage River Campground, a sheltered drive-in campground with about 50 sites. The gates were closed, which was a pain in the ass to negotiate in the deep snow of the trees, and we went downhill into the campground and chose the "group site" with its multiple picnic benches and large food locker. We set up camp, Jeremy took some prescription pain killers and a nap. He was experiencing some debilitating  pain while in the prone position. I stayed awake and formulated multiple plans: I was sure that this was the end of our endeavor and that his knee injury was going to be the turn around factor. One of my ideas was that he stash his food and perishables in the food locker to lighten his load, and we ski out and report this to the rangers. I wasn't sure how they were going to accept this prospect, but it didn't matter. When I mentioned it to Jeremy he was incredulous that I was suggesting we leave on account of his knee. At no point in all of our negotiations were we disrespectful or rude to one another: I have been in wilderness situations where that was not the case. We decided to sleep on it, under a full moon. It snowed an inch or two that night--dry, icy snow with no sticking power whatsoever. The slightest wind sent it running. We both experienced broken sleep and bizarre dreams, and in the morning we made another decision; lets make a move down to the river, camp by running water, get a view, and do some reconnaisance. My coughing was getting worse and was now joined by bloody phlegm. It was a depressing day for me, and it was time to make a move out of the trees.

9 Mile Drainage

We made camp that evening at the 9 Mile Drainage on the park road. I had definitely been on autopilot the entire day; it was cold, windy, and my enjoyment level was low. We worked as quickly as possible to stomp out a landing zone for our tent, brew water, and get into our bags. At some point I took off my sweat soaked clothes and put dry warm capilene and down on. After eating and drinking we climbed into the tent. That's when I started to shake. I would say that I was shivering, but I wasn't; I was shaking uncontrollably throughout my entire body. Even my legs were getting into the act with convulsions. This was not good.
    I do very well in the cold, so for me to be laying in dry clothes in an extremely warm bag in -20 temps shaking like a leaf in the wind was scary. Jeremy kept a close eye on me, and I rolled out of my bag and donned my down jacket. I then grabbed my nalgene with boiling water in it and tucked it into my jacket. Its warmth was unbelieveable and I forced myself to relax my body. This seemed to work--I had to calm down and force myself to stop shaking. Sleep came soon afterwards, though I do remember waking up a few times that night in a sweat and being chilled. Morning came and we proceeded to break camp: more boiling water, eating, drinking, filling our thermos.....it took two hours, as anticipated. I was weak, sick, but warm. It was time to make a move further into the park.

Pint-Sized Culprit

This is my 10 month old daughter Fiona holding her inhaler. It appears that she aquired viral pneumonia from the local day care center, brought it home, and handed it out lovingly and generously. I had just gotten home from the slope, having worked 21 nights in a row, and letting this sick baby sleep on my chest while I reversed my schedule and tried to catch up on some sleep seemed like a pretty good idea at the time. Of course, we didn't know she had pneumonia then, just the sniffles. At any rate, this cute little pipsqueak infected me with a serious case of adult flu. In essence, my daughters' illness was about to fully manifest itself in me and proceed to kick my ass.

KickOff

Well, after a long drive to Talkeetna and an even longer night at a local roadhouse--seems we walked right into a musical fundraiser-- we were finally at the park. The snow cover at the entrance was excellent, and there was lots of it. We went to the winter visitors center and were discouraged to hear from the rangers that only one musher had been west of the Toklat River and he was rewarded for his efforts with broken sled runners from bouncing off rocks. Not good. They listened to our plans, we filled out the necessary forms, went over our gear list, and paid our fee. They made it clear to us on more than one occasion that we were completely on our own out there. Having traveled in Denali's back country during winter before I was expecting this frank talk. Its what makes the trip worthwhile; self-reliance. We then spoke with another ranger who had been out mushing recently and she gave us some more info: the trail to Toklat was doable, but beyond that it was questionable at best. She informed us that the mountain passes were barren. We left the center knowing right then and there that Kantishna was completely out of the question, but a round trip attempt to Toklat sounded reasonable.    We saddled up our sleds and gear and headed through the kennels and out the trail. Almost immediately the dog trail crossed another older trail that headed downhill....that was the trail through the Hines Creek drainage, only they weren't mushing on it. The trail we were on ran uphill and directly onto the seasonally-closed park road. We thought it best to stick to a freshly packed trail and proceeded to slog uphill  to the 9 mile drainage. The temperature was hovering right around zero that day, with a breeze that held the windchill at about -15. Did I mention that I had the flu? I blew bubbles out my nose for the next 6 or 7 hours as we climbed nonstop. It was a grind, though not unanticipated.  There was new snow on the road; untrodden and windblown. Fresh moose tracks crossed the road in multiple places, along with a few sets of large , deep-set wolf tracks.

    By the time we stopped at dusk to make camp my throat was raw from sucking frozen wind all day. We made camp, boiled lots of snow to eat and drink. I filled Nalgenes with boiling water to put into our sleeping bags. The temperature dropped to about -20 that night, and my flu was about to go from bad to worse.