Backpacking and whitewater rafting British Columbia and Yukon.

I'm afraid I squandered some of my time here in Haines this week and don't have much time to write this post, but I wanted to at least get something up before I head out again, which will be in an hour or so.  

So the course that I returned from on Sunday was backpacking/whitewater for 24 days.  Our group was 6 students and 2 instructors.  I knew one student, Chris Roots, from Sea Kayaking.  Myles (age 23) was from Massachusetts, Eli (age 18) was from Memphis Tennessee, Ron (age 40) was from Kansas City, taking the course to learn skills in preparation for leading hiking trips with his son and his friends with their kids.  Chris P (age 19?) was from Maryland.   We backpacked in British Columbia, about 90 miles north west of Haines, for the first 12 days.  The route that they usually do had too much snow and swollen rivers so we had to do a different, unexplored, area...which was also super snowy, but less so I guess.  Apparently, they had crazy, record snow levels this winter.  Anyways, about 90% of our hiking was on snow.  We made our way to a glacier valley with a deep river gorge and waterfalls.  It was some tough hiking...very little level ground, let alone trails.  

The second half of the course was whitewater rafting.  After hiking to the road at the end of the backpacking section, we got a ride from an IWLS driver up to Tatshenshini Expediting which is a rafting company in the Yukon.  After living with nothing but what we carry on our backs for 12 days, the rafting camp was a luxurious vacation spot to us.  The place was built from scrap wood, metal, logs, and salvaged school buses, but it had everything we needed.  We spent most of our time in the cook shack which had a roof, a woodstove for heat, and multiple coleman stoves and more dishes and utensils we could use...and a sink.  

Anyways, the first 3 days were swift water rescue where we learned about rope systems and methods for rescuing people, and ourselves, from rivers.  We also rafted the river every day, for good measure ;)  The next 4 days were guide training, where we rafted the river everyday, practicing guiding the rafts, sometimes with 5 paddlers, sometimes with only 2, or sometimes with only one other person in the boat.  I also spent a lot of time rowing the oar boat.  Next was a 3 day river trip where we learned what's involved in putting together a multi-day expedition.  Then finally, we went to a different river for the last 2 days and made two runs down some more extreme rapids.

My break in Haines has been great.  Weather is perfect...mid 60s or 70, sunny and clear and calm.  Been doing some reading about mountaineering, getting psyched up for my next 24 day course.  I have to go now actually...we are driving out shortly.  We'll be in the vacinity of Flower Mountain, which is 30-40 miles west of Haines.  We'll be learning about traveling and camping on snow and glaciers, crevasse rescue, ice climbing, and we'll be climbing some peaks.  I will be back on August 13th :)  Sorry this hasty post sucks...

Glacier Bay Sea Kayaking

Campsite at McBride Glacier.

I woke up this morning in my own tent, by myself, as slowly as I wanted to, urged only by the warmth and brightness of the sun. Thanks to perfect sunny weather, and nine glorious hours of sleep, I felt like a million bucks—the fatigue, discomfort and structure of the last three and a half weeks finally shed. I never thought it would happen, but after paddling over two hundred miles around the entirety of Glacier Bay, working as part of a team--on a schedule--from wake-up to evening debrief, I finally got just a bit too much of a good thing. Usually a glutton for punishment when it comes to living in the outdoors, I got my fill over the past 24 days. The experience was priceless, and I loved it...literally enough natural beauty—and fun—for a lifetime. But there is a toll for experiencing such a wild place so intimately, for so long. With temps in the 40s and rare sun, cold-and-wet was the norm...and usually sandy to boot. My hands were icy from morning to night , rendering my hands partially paralyzed and useful only as hooks for carrying things and latching onto a paddle. I developed painful blisters/swelling on my hands that was eventually diagnosed as a cold injury, called pernia or chilblains (kind of like a mild, frostbite), yesterday at the clinic in Haines. Due to space limitations, we all basically had 2 sets of clothes for 23 days, no way to wash them, and rare opportunities to dry anything. I was usually able to dry a few things each night by keeping them in my sleeping bag overnight. Body heat slowly vaporizes the moisture and it gets drawn into and through the sleeping bag. Thanks to the magic of synthetic materials, a damp sleeping bag still insulates effectively, but there's no avoiding the unsavory feeling of being wrapped in a wet trash bag and the smell of a sauna powered by body heat and damp, smelly clothes. There was one opportunity for a cold shower in a waterfall that I passed on since I was already shivering with all of my clothes on, thus, all but two of us had no shower of any kind for 24 days. 

Cold and cloudy, but a supreme spot to spend the night nonetheless. 

We got out of the boats and did some hiking in a few spots. 

THAT SAID....the photos will probably say more than I can about how insanely wild and beautiful of an expedition it was. Everyone agreed that each day was more incredible than the last, although it always seemed like that would be impossible. Within one 12 hour period, we had a humpback whale cruise within 100 yards of our beach, then circle (words) around, feeding on the surface as we watched from the cliffs less than 50 yards. Then the next morning as we paddled away from that campsite, we stopped and watched 2 mother brown bears right near the water, one with 2 yearlings, the other with 3 tiny cubs. The day before that was special thanks to particularly glassy water and an enchanting mist and stillness early in the morning followed by a challenging paddle across a choppy channel with whales breaching in the distance. The following day would raise the bar once again as we entered a glacial inlet that seemed to have epic waterfalls every hundred feet, and I (as leader of the day) found our coolest campsite to date, with two glaciers in view, and waterfalls roaring down the cliffs right behind us. That evening the mountains, and fjord lined up perfectly with the sun which illuminated the softest clouds imaginable with the most vivid red and orange, producing the best sunset I have ever seen.

I hope my introduction didn't make it sounds as though I was physically miserable the whole time. I was pretty well equipped, clothing wise, so I was able to get reasonably comfortable most of the time and was always warm at night...it was just a constant challenge due to quickly changing conditions throughout the day. One day, I under dressed and got colder than I have ever been in my life—shivering uncontrollably, unable to think straight. But other times, I wore one too many layers and overheated. Overall, you get used to the discomforts, and since everyone is in the same boat, the mood was almost always lighthearted and we had a blast every single day, despite the conditions. If the going got rough, spirits were easily boosted by a nearby whale sighting, a “raft” of dozens of sea otters, a curious sea lion pursuing us for a mile or more--or a whole gaggle of them rough housing with each other right in front of us. Other times we were stoked by spotting a pair of brown bears running down the beach, or catching a glimpse of a baby seal on an iceberg before slipping into the water behind its mother...

Gaggle of sea lions. 

Whale "in camp". 

In the rare times when we weren't astounded by some amazing wildlife encounter, there was always some ridiculous Lord of the Rings-type landscape to inspire awe...a hole in the clouds illuminating a monstrous, snowy and jagged mountain range that didn't even look real, a gigantic glacier calving witnessed from less than a ¼ mile away, 500 foot waterfalls coming into view one after the other as we paddled our way up an inlet toward yet another glacier. Sometimes a handful of trail mix was all it took to bring us back to life after a long stretch of paddling against a headwind. Overall, the rough days made us appreciate the handful of idyllic days we had. As a bonus, those luxuriously sunny days seemed to be well timed. We spent two nights near McBride glacier where we had perfect weather along with a 300 degree view of John Muir inlet. The beach was a sculpture garden of glacial ice, some the size of trucks, dropped off by the tide. The glacier, in view less than a mile away, thundered regularly as it calved ice into the channel, and we watched excitedly as all the ice from the glacier eventually rushed past our beach in a strong current, a few house-sized bergs comprising the main event, as they slowly crashed into each other, rolled, or broke apart.

After 24 days of total immersion in a sport in which I was a complete novice, I feel like I know sea kayaking at least as well as any of the other sports I have done over the years, thanks to expert instruction and lots of  miles. We learned and practiced a dozen+ different strokes and other handling skills, I can self-rescue in a number of different ways, in case of a capsize (yes btw, despite 40ish degree water temps, we spent more than a couple afternoons in dry suits, rolling over, climbing out of, and back into our our kayaks—it was surprisingly fun, albeit frigid), and I can rescue or tow others. I learned about tides (which sometimes ranged over twenty feet in a matter of six hours), currents, navigation, and expedition planning. With a bird and plant of the day, every day, I think I learned nearly all of the plants and birds of Glacier Bay. Most dear to my heart—I learned how to cook good food in the back country! Although, due to my voracious appetite, I often felt like I did not get enough, the food was excellent. I can't wait to make a lot of the recipes in the future on my own, whether I'm camping or not. 

Buffet line for breakfast burritos...bacon, beach greens and goose tongue (foraged), avocado, scrambled eggs (from a carton), cheese, re-hydrated beans, and hash brown potatoes. 

One of Natcho's specialties...back country pizza.  Faces visible from left to right--that's Shockey, Natcho, and Melissa.

After several close encounters with black and brown bears, I feel much better about camping in bear country, and dealing with them. One evening, a young brown bear snooped through our camp, tent by tent, and ended up browsing around in the grass near our kitchen area. After five minutes of ignoring us, he finally trotted back into the woods after our whole group of thirteen bunched together and started approaching him. He visited again in the morning as we were packing our boats, again not appearing to even notice that we were only thirty feet from him. At another campsite, a similarly sized brownie (600lbs?) surprised us by strolling down onto our beach from a steep rock mound and strolled down the beach as if we weren't even there.

Patrick brushing his teeth, unphased by our surprise visitor.

The bear that pawed at my tent at 11 at night...as well as the tents of others', as I wrote a letter home.  We named him Jorge. 

Jorge visited us again in the morning...Nick posed for a pic with the "brownie". 

We saw thirty bears total...more than enough for every letter of the alphabet; we gave them names like Annalise, Bailey, Dexter... Queenie with her two cubs Preston and Robert, and Finally Zeus, and then over again with Arnold and Betty who surprised us by running right towards us one morning as we were breaking camp. Apparently we just happened to be in their path because they turned and disappeared in the woods before they got too close.

As is often the case, it was the people who really made the journey so special. We started out as a group of eleven students and two instructors, Nathaniel (Natcho) and Kyle. "7day"-Chris (age 25?, from CA) actually left on day 7, then Shockey (age 27, from Chicago), Megan (age 31?, from Fairbanks), and the other Chris (age 26, from CA) left on day 12 with Kyle (age 23, from CA), the assistant instructor.  So from day twelve it was Natcho and six students...me, Nick (age 20, from military family...Florida/San Diego/Japan), Alan (age 25, from Florida), Melissa (age 35, from Michigan), Patrick (age 21, from Minnesota, now Bellingham, WA), and Mike (age 49, from Texas).  I couldn't have asked for a better group of people to share the experience with...everyone was unfailingly positive and motivated.  I don't think I've ever encountered so many understanding and selfless people in one place.  We took a bunch of group pictures, but they were with other people's cameras so I don't have those photos yet. 

Sorry, no time for a proper closing...I am leaving for my next course this afternoon and we have to meet up in half an hour.  I'll be backpacking in British Columbia for 9 days, then learning swift water rescue and rafting for the next two weeks.  Be back on July 18th or 19th...

Haines, AK

It's been over three weeks since I left Joshua Tree for Alaska. Wounds incurred from climbing the rough granite have healed, scabs have fallen off, and callouses have come and gone from my hands and fingers. I've recharged my mental batteries with excessive solitude and I miss all my climbing friends from Joshua Tree. I had 6 days in town before class started, so did lots of reading and went on a few savage runs and hikes and took a couple pictures. 

Battery Point...just a couple miles from camp.  I wish it was this clear more often.

Out for a run...This shot gives you an idea of what it was like when I ran out of the woods and was surprised by this sight. 

My first night here I stayed at the first campground I found. I didn't like paying for camping, but I kinda needed a shower (after 10 days of driving), they had a building I could use to escape from potential rain/cold, plus, I didn't feel like searching around. I couldn't afford the 15 dollar fee for more than one night, so after that I decided to just find somewhere to park overnight and slept in the truck. Camping for free in/around town is tricky, especially since it's a small town (pre-tourist season) where you can't really be anonymous like in a city. I drove outside of town a couple miles toward the state park which is still closed for winter. I finally found a section of road without roadside residences and parked/camped on the side of road, next to 3 feet of snow. I spent the days hiking or in the library. After a few nights of that, I went by the AMG office(Alaska Mtn. Guides, which is the same company as IWLS) again and asked them if they knew of any better camping options, which led me to Portage Cove campground which is where I am currently residing at along with three fellow students. It's right next to the water, there are always bald eagles around, and it's technically still closed, so they aren't collecting fees...JAM! I didn't go there first b/c overnight parking isn't allowed, as it is for walk-in/bicycle campers only. But someone at AMG recommended tenting there and just parking at the boat harbor about a mile away, which has been working out.

Enjoying clear weather at my current campsite, Portage Cove.  Reading a book called "Surviving the toughest Race in the World", about the start of adventure racing, especially multi-day events like Eco-Challenge, and its precursor, The Raid Gauloises. 

I am a week and a half into class now, and I have gotten to know most of my classmates and they're a good group of people. There are fourteen of us. A few people are taking it simply as the first step towards becoming professional EMTs (emergency medical technicians—the first step towards becoming a paramedic), but most of them are like me; aspiring (some current) outdoor professionals. Two people, Melissa and Shockey (from Michigan and Illinois), are doing semesters similar to mine, so I will have other courses with them. Mike (from Texas), one of the older students (mid forties), will be doing the Sea Kayaking course with me at the end of the month.

The class has been interesting and intense. My knowledge of anatomy and sports physiology has come in handy, but I am learning tons of new stuff as well. These first couple weeks are spent in the classroom, covering everything that a regular EMT, in an urban setting, needs to know; as though responding with an ambulance unit. It's all about assessing patients, gathering info, taking vital signs, diagnosing and treating emergency problems including those related to diabetes, heart conditions, asthma, Emphysema etc, and then establishing airways, providing or helping with oxygen and meds, doing CPR, and transporting. Yesterday we learned about pregnancy and how to deliver babies...which was enough to scare me away from EMS as a profession! We also covered heat and cold illnesses such as heat stroke and hypothermia/frostbite, which are both very pertinent to wilderness. Most of the wilderness aspect of the class will come after we take the state exam to be certified EMTs, on the 15^th. We will be going on a backpacking trip to learn about wilderness emergencies in the field.

Class has been going from 8am to 6:30pm with just two days off so far. I've been studying for an hour or so most evenings, and for several hours on days off. It doesn't leave time for much else, but total immersion is definitely a good way to learn a ton in a short time. I feel like it's sinking in pretty well. Our instructor, Ray, is from Hoonah, Alaska and has worked as a firefighter/paramedic for twenty years. One of the most knowledgeable people I have ever encountered, he seems to know absolutely everything there is to know about emergency medicine.  And most importantly, he can explain it clearly. Plus, he keeps interest and attention with consistent humor and outrageous real life paramedic stories (war stories, as he calls them) scattered throughout the lecture.

On our first day off last Thursday, a local girl in the class named Tara had us all over to her house in the evening. She is house sitting the place, and she has a sweet deal. It was a unique and charming house that feels like a cabin inside, with art all over and a stellar view of the nearby mountains; we were lucky to be able to sit outside and enjoy the view, since we had the best weather of the last two weeks on that day. Various people cooked...we had smoked salmon, fried hooligan (a small fish that is currently “running” nearby...a run is a population of fish that is heading upstream from the ocean, to spawn), some stir-fried veggies that were picked from the yard, some fresh baked cookies, and a couple types of beer that several people brought from the local brewery. It was a great time and a much needed break from class.  

Now....back to studying.  I'll probably post again after getting certified, before heading out into the bush.  Thanks to everyone for reading :)  I've have really enjoyed this blogging biz...Everything is more fun when I know that other people are going to be able to enjoy it too.  

At the summit of Mt. Riley.  The town of Haines is visible below, in the center of the photo.  Chilkat river on the left, Chilkoot inlet behind me, on the right.

Hiking through snow without skis or snowshoes is hard... mad post-holing.  Fortunately only the second half of the trail was under snow.

The lower section of the Mt. Riley trail.