Learning to drive my 2022 Jeep while running my errands to get food and fuel, I find that there has been a run on white gas. I went to 4 different places without even finding a single can or bottle of the stuff. If I had a cannister stove, I'd be in luck, though.
Finally, at REI of all places, I find a quart and buy it. I learn from the cashier that a big group of hunters just came in and bought $9000 in freeze dried food and other supplies. I find that hard to believe, but maybe 15 guys on a 2 week rafting trip for caribou and moose could need that much food. Hmmmm.
I go to the AKDFG office and buy my license and locking tag. A good handful of groups of camo clad guys who otherwise look a lot like me are doing the same. None of them are alone. The guy selling me my license asks if I'm going alone.
"Yep."
"You have an InReach?"
"Yep."
"Bear spray?"
"Yep."
"Well, good luck stay safe."
"I'll try!"
I could spend a lot of time looking at the natural history museum there. So many cool things to look at.
Next comes my contact, who offers up advice, local knowledge, specific affirmations of my plan, a tundra sled, bear spray, and a place to cut up and vacuum seal my meat if I kill something. Pretty wild that there are people like this out there still. This trip would have gone differently without all this kindness. The fresh grizzly skull and massive caribou rack in the back of the truck from a hunt that concluded the day prior is both a warning and motivation.
I grab a coffee and a sandwich for breakfast and tackle the frost-heaved blacktop on my way north.
Way, WAY north. So much north I get real tired of it. The scattered houses and towns give way to occasional shacks, the pavement turns to gravel, to mush, to gravel, randomly back to pavement, then gravelly mush for hundreds of miles. Signs update me on my agonizingly slow progress.
Passing trucks is a fun distraction, pull way over to the side, as far as I dare, and come to a stop, letting the truck slide their way by. They typically wave and toot their horn for my giving way.
I pass the Yukon camp, and grab a $20 burger. And some $7.50/gallon gas. Next stop might or might not be open.
I continue on, but stop taking pictures of the road, through the forests, up the hills, over the mountains, and finally to my predetermined parking spot. It's late, but I think there are a couple hours of daylight left. Did I mention the evenings last forever?
I pack up and start walking the tundra, crossing a few decent sized creeks, I make the top of a ridge and the walking gets easier. The bugs are pretty bad. Glad I brought the bug net, but since I can't remember where it is in my pack, I keep walking. Bugs aren't really biting, just crawling all over, getting in my eyes, nose, mouth, ears, beard.
It's almost 10pm. Sun is still up. I've passed some curiosities and some bear scat, colored bright blue by the berries. Apparently the berries have done well. Hopefully the bears are fat, happy, and shy.
When it gets dark enough to need a headlamp around 2300, I'm just getting to the edge of my prerequisite slog.
I pitch my tent. Carry my food bag 100 yards away to a spot on the tundra I can see from my tent, and toss the sled over it. Maybe I won't have any visitors, but I hope to hear them if I do. Even after midnight, the sun peeks through the clouds on the horizon. I have answered the first big question, my body is in pretty good shape considering 12 days ago I had to stop 3 steps into a flight of stairs to catch my breath. I had also called in sick to work for the first time in 5 years. My confidence is pretty high for the first time on this trip, and I get in my sleeping bag, too tired to worry about the critters outside.
