Jay H
New member
OK, If you haven't noticed the rash of photos from me, this was actually the FIRST of 3 whirlwind trips from me. The original impetus was I was going to get together with my good friend in Idaho who I met doing the Fairbanks to Alaska AIDS Vaccine ride back in 2001. We would go out on a flyin to Wrangell St Elias which I've always wanted to go to after hiking in Denali twice already. Planned this back in the winter of '04/'05. After giggy's post on Rainier and Ed's fixture of dates (Mind you, we fixed dates for Alaska before I had the proposed dates for Rainier/Hood). After completely realizing that the dates for Rainier/Hood meshed perfectly with my Alaska plan, I said what the hell and signed on for that.
Anyway, forget the boring stuff... After visiting another good friend in Anchorage, we drove the 4.5 hours east of Anchorage on the Glenallen highway to the small town of Chitina (pronounced "Chit-Nah") for our hour long flight from there to McCarthy to avoid a 3 hour long 60 mile dirt road drive. After arriving in McCarthy and settling in, we did a 1/2 glacier tour through St. Elias Guides on the Root Glacier (If I had crampons, it would be an easy hike, but alas, i didn't bring them so we did a guided trip including the rental G10s). Then after that I did a tour of the mill building of Kennicott. If you are any bit interested in the history of the Kennecott Mines, I'd recommend the book Ghosts of kennecott By Elizabeth Tower. It is a fascinating history of the place and Stephen Birch (who coincidentally has a history in Northern NJ where I am from and also of Ramapo State University in Mahwah, NJ).
Anyway, the first series of photos I have on WS is of our hike on the Root glacier and of the Mill building there.
The day of the actual fly, was cloudy, after dropping off a geologist at Peavine, the pilot took off for the short jump to drop us off at Wolverine. Our intended hike would be the 27 mile point to point from Wolverine to Skolai which would take us around Wolverine mesa, joinging up with the Goat trail that parallel's the Chitistone river and then going over 6000' Chitistone pass before taking a left up Skolai creek to the backcountry airstrip.
After the pilot landed at Wolverine, it started to shower and never stopped til the next morning. Took some nice shots before it really got wet and just absorbed being dropped off in the middle of nowhere. Anxiety would rule the day for day one. I had the most experience in the backwoods out of my friend and I, I was also 20 years younger. I had all the navigation skills, the GPS, the tent, the sat phone (which my friend's husband paid for). I tried to share all my navigation skills from bushwacking in the catskills and elsewhere to my friend, I of course, had her carry a compass and a map and would talk to her of my intentions of what gullys to go around and which to go over.
However, nothing prepares you much like necessity. This trip would be a very good test of one's ability to navigate under a truly trailless park. The Goat trail is somewhat pathed out by being a classic route through the park, however, since we were doing a variation of it, our path would take us not in the valleys and the path, but above treeline, far from most herd paths and even human paths.
I cannot describe the feeling of anxiety as the plane took off and flew away! It's something that every one of us should experience as for most of us, most of us do not hike by being dropped off by a plane. You lose the comfort of knowing that you can always bail out, head to the car and escape back to civilization. Not us!
Anyway, the first day was mostly a showery hike and we did not make it far between heading towards Contact Gulch and going up and over numerous gullies leading to the gulch, we camped about 3 miles from our drop off next to a stream and holed up for the night. We didn't even fire up our stove to make dinner and simply ate some snacks that we had rather than make dinner in the rain. Boots were soaked already and it was just fairly miserable.
Day 2 had us waking up to clearing skies but not much better. It wasn't raining but neither was it looking like a better day. However, I managed to make a breakfast and eat some oatmeal and get everything going. Boots were still soaked.. And would remain soaked til probably day 4!
This day turned out a bit better but not by much. It did avoid raining for most of the day as we continued following my bearing, this time away from Contact Gulch and headed towards the 6200' pass that we had to hit.
At this point, my friend's pack was bothering her a bit. I don't think she is used to packing these heavy loads (even though I had a much larger load, I was night and day faster and stronger.) We did not make it far before she mentioned she had to stop. So we set up camp around 5800' just below a really nice pass that overlooked a bunch of glaciers on Chististone Mountian. It is here that we could hear a TON of rock and icefall coming from somewhere, perhaps a morraine or just off the high peaks.
I went off after the rain stopped which was on and off throughout day 2 and explorered Chististone peak. At one point almost doing a really bonehead move. Hiking further away up towards the 6800' summit without a map, compass and even water. The fog would roll in and I would lose sight of my bearing, back but I was calm enough to read the fog coming up the valley and knew that I just had to head magnetic north to get back to camp. So without much visual bearings, I downclimbed back to camp, stopping at a glacial pond to drink and back to the tent.
Day 3 was getting even better, the late day showers would at least show a pattern so we would try to get up early, hike, set up camp, and then wander and explore. Day 3 we wound up making a navigation error that was my fault. Without a good visual of the right turn we had to do, I turned too early and wound up going up into the Mesa too soon and up to 6300' where we should of been at 6000'.
After realizing my mistake, I scouted out the area to see if the best correction would be to 1)turn around, 2)head for the WP that we needed to hit or 3)downclimb a steep gully to regain the trail. Now I had a GPS with me but stoutly never used it other than to mark my campsite and occasionally I would check our Altitude. The one big problem was the haze that would obscure all landmarks this day. Very very fortunately, it cleared out enough so for 2 minutes I could study and memorize the entire surroundings and determined that I knew where I was and that we could do choice #3 and not lose any time or distance other than about 300' that we didn't need to climb.
So I headed directly for the path, cutting the corner so to speak. It involved some serious boot skiing though down a snowfield to descend a steep 300' gully to the morraine that we needed to get to. It was this morraine that we heard at Camp 2 the previous night all night long!
Anyway, after that, we simply followed the morraine up until camp 3 at a really pretty lake, albeit a really buggy lake. Not the biting kind, just the nuisance ones.
Day 4 had us waking up to a beautiful day, finally! We headed across the morraine and towards a saddle between the mesas at about 5800' which was slow as the scree was bad and slippery. Did not want to slip here, being far away from a rescue site!
I would add that the rest of the hike was fairly uneventful, we camped on the other side of the saddle on Day 5, then headed towards Hole in the Wall glacier for 2 more nights. One day doing a dayhike about 8 miles round trip to Chitistone Falls and back. This is also where we came across the crashed plane as you'll see in the photos.
After the daytrip, we headed back towards where we camped on Night 4, to continue around Wolverine back to the start. We decided with our slow pace, we would be pushing it to get to Skolai as we would only do 2-4 miles each day. Doing a lot of basecamping and exploring though of each area.
So we headed back to the start and on the last full day, did see 4 guys who landed there that morning.
Collected a bunch of rocks and watched dall sheep all day the last day while relaxing and enjoying the views. Days 5-8 were great, sunny and beautiful and warm.
Pick up was uneventful, I would highly recommend Wrangell Mtn Air as a flight service, it's somewhat family run and the family are really cool, Kelly and Natalie Bay are friendly and easy to speak too and they are knowledgeable about the park.
Wrangell St Elias pictures
Enjoy... I would of took a LOT more photos but I think my camera was accidentally left on after day 1 and since then, it was giving me Low Battery indicators so I had to conserve, hence the low amount of photos for the trip.
Jay
Anyway, forget the boring stuff... After visiting another good friend in Anchorage, we drove the 4.5 hours east of Anchorage on the Glenallen highway to the small town of Chitina (pronounced "Chit-Nah") for our hour long flight from there to McCarthy to avoid a 3 hour long 60 mile dirt road drive. After arriving in McCarthy and settling in, we did a 1/2 glacier tour through St. Elias Guides on the Root Glacier (If I had crampons, it would be an easy hike, but alas, i didn't bring them so we did a guided trip including the rental G10s). Then after that I did a tour of the mill building of Kennicott. If you are any bit interested in the history of the Kennecott Mines, I'd recommend the book Ghosts of kennecott By Elizabeth Tower. It is a fascinating history of the place and Stephen Birch (who coincidentally has a history in Northern NJ where I am from and also of Ramapo State University in Mahwah, NJ).
Anyway, the first series of photos I have on WS is of our hike on the Root glacier and of the Mill building there.
The day of the actual fly, was cloudy, after dropping off a geologist at Peavine, the pilot took off for the short jump to drop us off at Wolverine. Our intended hike would be the 27 mile point to point from Wolverine to Skolai which would take us around Wolverine mesa, joinging up with the Goat trail that parallel's the Chitistone river and then going over 6000' Chitistone pass before taking a left up Skolai creek to the backcountry airstrip.
After the pilot landed at Wolverine, it started to shower and never stopped til the next morning. Took some nice shots before it really got wet and just absorbed being dropped off in the middle of nowhere. Anxiety would rule the day for day one. I had the most experience in the backwoods out of my friend and I, I was also 20 years younger. I had all the navigation skills, the GPS, the tent, the sat phone (which my friend's husband paid for). I tried to share all my navigation skills from bushwacking in the catskills and elsewhere to my friend, I of course, had her carry a compass and a map and would talk to her of my intentions of what gullys to go around and which to go over.
However, nothing prepares you much like necessity. This trip would be a very good test of one's ability to navigate under a truly trailless park. The Goat trail is somewhat pathed out by being a classic route through the park, however, since we were doing a variation of it, our path would take us not in the valleys and the path, but above treeline, far from most herd paths and even human paths.
I cannot describe the feeling of anxiety as the plane took off and flew away! It's something that every one of us should experience as for most of us, most of us do not hike by being dropped off by a plane. You lose the comfort of knowing that you can always bail out, head to the car and escape back to civilization. Not us!
Anyway, the first day was mostly a showery hike and we did not make it far between heading towards Contact Gulch and going up and over numerous gullies leading to the gulch, we camped about 3 miles from our drop off next to a stream and holed up for the night. We didn't even fire up our stove to make dinner and simply ate some snacks that we had rather than make dinner in the rain. Boots were soaked already and it was just fairly miserable.
Day 2 had us waking up to clearing skies but not much better. It wasn't raining but neither was it looking like a better day. However, I managed to make a breakfast and eat some oatmeal and get everything going. Boots were still soaked.. And would remain soaked til probably day 4!
This day turned out a bit better but not by much. It did avoid raining for most of the day as we continued following my bearing, this time away from Contact Gulch and headed towards the 6200' pass that we had to hit.
At this point, my friend's pack was bothering her a bit. I don't think she is used to packing these heavy loads (even though I had a much larger load, I was night and day faster and stronger.) We did not make it far before she mentioned she had to stop. So we set up camp around 5800' just below a really nice pass that overlooked a bunch of glaciers on Chististone Mountian. It is here that we could hear a TON of rock and icefall coming from somewhere, perhaps a morraine or just off the high peaks.
I went off after the rain stopped which was on and off throughout day 2 and explorered Chististone peak. At one point almost doing a really bonehead move. Hiking further away up towards the 6800' summit without a map, compass and even water. The fog would roll in and I would lose sight of my bearing, back but I was calm enough to read the fog coming up the valley and knew that I just had to head magnetic north to get back to camp. So without much visual bearings, I downclimbed back to camp, stopping at a glacial pond to drink and back to the tent.
Day 3 was getting even better, the late day showers would at least show a pattern so we would try to get up early, hike, set up camp, and then wander and explore. Day 3 we wound up making a navigation error that was my fault. Without a good visual of the right turn we had to do, I turned too early and wound up going up into the Mesa too soon and up to 6300' where we should of been at 6000'.
After realizing my mistake, I scouted out the area to see if the best correction would be to 1)turn around, 2)head for the WP that we needed to hit or 3)downclimb a steep gully to regain the trail. Now I had a GPS with me but stoutly never used it other than to mark my campsite and occasionally I would check our Altitude. The one big problem was the haze that would obscure all landmarks this day. Very very fortunately, it cleared out enough so for 2 minutes I could study and memorize the entire surroundings and determined that I knew where I was and that we could do choice #3 and not lose any time or distance other than about 300' that we didn't need to climb.
So I headed directly for the path, cutting the corner so to speak. It involved some serious boot skiing though down a snowfield to descend a steep 300' gully to the morraine that we needed to get to. It was this morraine that we heard at Camp 2 the previous night all night long!
Anyway, after that, we simply followed the morraine up until camp 3 at a really pretty lake, albeit a really buggy lake. Not the biting kind, just the nuisance ones.
Day 4 had us waking up to a beautiful day, finally! We headed across the morraine and towards a saddle between the mesas at about 5800' which was slow as the scree was bad and slippery. Did not want to slip here, being far away from a rescue site!
I would add that the rest of the hike was fairly uneventful, we camped on the other side of the saddle on Day 5, then headed towards Hole in the Wall glacier for 2 more nights. One day doing a dayhike about 8 miles round trip to Chitistone Falls and back. This is also where we came across the crashed plane as you'll see in the photos.
After the daytrip, we headed back towards where we camped on Night 4, to continue around Wolverine back to the start. We decided with our slow pace, we would be pushing it to get to Skolai as we would only do 2-4 miles each day. Doing a lot of basecamping and exploring though of each area.
So we headed back to the start and on the last full day, did see 4 guys who landed there that morning.
Collected a bunch of rocks and watched dall sheep all day the last day while relaxing and enjoying the views. Days 5-8 were great, sunny and beautiful and warm.
Pick up was uneventful, I would highly recommend Wrangell Mtn Air as a flight service, it's somewhat family run and the family are really cool, Kelly and Natalie Bay are friendly and easy to speak too and they are knowledgeable about the park.
Wrangell St Elias pictures
Enjoy... I would of took a LOT more photos but I think my camera was accidentally left on after day 1 and since then, it was giving me Low Battery indicators so I had to conserve, hence the low amount of photos for the trip.
Jay
