8/1, Thursday
Sleep poorly. Up @ 8AM. Raisin bran & biscuits. I dump some left over oil into my raisin bran and find it tastes great - extra calories YUM YUM. Biscuits YUM YUM
On river @ 10:30. Line canoes past 1st rapids then paddle rest. After 1 hour the river mellows. [Heading NW with mostly with the wind through some wide, calm sections of river. We often raft our canoes together to talk and drink the hot lemonade in Pete's thermos. Round northern bend and face head winds again. In a short distance we pull up on a gravel bar.]
Lunch @ 1PM during rare sun breaks. Otherwise cloudy w/ periods of rain. Cold. Head winds. Some desperate stretches paddling into strong wind & rain. Stop @ 5:45 PM. Est 20 land miles & 30 river miles. This has been our first "big day" on the river. Still 10 hours to Cutler river. We are camped on a non-descript bit of flat tundra on a bank 10 ft up from the river. A cold wind is whipping across the tundra today. Try to make a wind block for the bug tent with a canoe and Pete's tarp - only moderate success.
Pizza w/ Soup & noodles. Soup & noodles is basically soup w/ a few noodles. An appetizer. Something to cut the hunger. Would be very. grim w/o pizza.
We calculate we can bake every day + desert every other day. This improves everyone's mood. Except we are 1 dinner short & look to Peter to provide fish.
In talking about the missing dinner Richard says that he expects that our last day will be a long day, arriving in Noatak village sometime past midnight. Andrew and I, however, plan to be there before the stores close so we can buy lots-O-food for dinner that day.
8/2, Friday
RAIN. HEAD WINDS
Alarm at 6AM Up by 8:15 sharp. Pancakes cooked big for speed & efficiency. On river by 10:30. Our neighbors, the only other party sighed, still abed.
3 hours through rolling tundra to lunch @ 1PM. 1.5 rolls of Ritz crackers + cheese. P-butter & Jelly then 1 cookie each. A fine snack.
After lunch the river turns SW, into the wind. Several stretches of strong head wind w/ driving rain. River much bigger & flowing fast. Watching the map I'm surprised by our progress & propose Cuttler river by night.
2 gravel bar rest stops. These are never very long. Walk around on cold wet ground while being pelted by rain. We all take on a chill after 5 min and are ready to push on.
Most of day spent in canoes. With a strong wind, most of the time in the canoe is spent paddling. As we stretch out for Cuttler river I start leaning forward and pulling back with each stroke to get more body working. Despite less training Richard is still gong strong.
6:15, beach on a gravel bar at Cuttler river confluence. 35 land miles in 7:45 hours, including breaks. It is raining so we take a rest in the tents.
At dinner we discover that the river is rising at a significant rate. Our position on the gravel bar is not secure. Pete and Andrew scout the hill and report good sites. Andrew and I drag my tent assembled through brush & up hill. Sure is pretty up here.
Sleep well.
8/3, Saturday
Wake at 10AM. Discover we've camped on a blue berry patch & pick berries for an hour. Blueberry pancakes (with out syrup, save it for latter). A little bitter but food of _any_ flavor is enjoyed. YUM YUM.
Richard and I read in bug house till drizzle threatens to get more serious. Wash some socks (feed cold for past 10 days). Retreat to hill. I sit out & take in scenery till gnats cover me 2 deep then retreat to tent.
Some map work shows 1st 3 days @ 12 miles/day, 1 rest day, the 10 mile day with 2 swims, then 20 and 28 for 94 miles. 165 land miles yet in to 10s. Can do this in 8 20 mile days + 2 rest days. Gotta move.
But we are 2 dinners short. Rivers have all been in flood with a load of silt and prospects for more fish are slim. Gotta move.
Andrew and Peter return from their trip
to the lake (no fish) and report that the shack we saw coming in has some
food in it.
Clouds are breaking up. We take turns stripping down in bug tent and bathing in heated river water.
Dinner starts w/ cheese and crackers (from the lunch we didn't eat) & whiskey. The whiskey is so good. I think it is genetic with me. What ever reason, I decided that in addition to bread I will also drink whiskey in remote places.
As we work through our allotment of whiskey talk turns to supplementing our supplies from the cabin cache. Peter and Andrew go off (I'm busy rising bread on my belly). I'm glad the are going slightly inebriated, they may be more liberal with what they choose to appropriate.
Meanwhile, I put the bread on and Richard starts the Soup. Pete and Andrew return from raid with a box of instant spuds, 40 servings, & can of corn to make 1 dinner. A larger bag of calories brown sugar. And a fist full of spaghetti to supplement this meager soup and noodles we have been getting for most dinners.
A high pressure zone comes...And then goes. Light rain by 9PM as we get into the tents.
I can only think that who ever advised sun screen, of which I brought 2 tubes, must have mis-booked their flights and ended up in in the Bahamas and failed to recognize the difference.
8/4, Sunday
Rain in morning, cower in bed. Finally ask time. 8:45AM. Pick blue berries to go with grape nuts. YUM. On river by 11:30.
Clouds, but no rain. Round first bend and we see large party of rafters. This is the 2nd other party sighted.
Good progress with some pleasant drifting till lunch at 3PM. Ration of 4 pilot bread, cheese and peanut butter. Sufficient.
Round Okak bend and put head down and paddle into wind. Several LARGE meanders. Stop at 21 land miles on nice tundra plane. Clouds breaking and sun on hills is beautiful. 2 carabao trot down near by ridge and pass near us. When Pete stands up one stops and tries to smell us. What are we?
Dine on mashed potatoes, corn, and satey sauce. YUM. But don't try this at home.
Decide to paddle another 5 miles to a tributary, the Anisak river. Weather improving, wind down, birds out. Landscape inviting. Most pleasant stretch so far.
Tributary clear and beautiful. Andrew immediately tries for fish. No luck. Tents up. Bug house up. I sit back to relax and reflect.
Andrew joins me to make some hot chocolate. We sit and watch the light change. Rain starts as we enter the tent.
Letter to the Alaska tourist beaurow:
Just back from 2 weeks on the Noatak river. Love the river and love the state. However, am writing to inform you that you have a severe bug problem out on the tundra. Understand how you may not have noticed as few people go there. The bugs population is _way_ out of proportion. Out of control. Hampered our enjoyment many evenings.
Many thanks for your prompt attention to this problem. Will return when we receive word the bugs are under control.
-- 1996 Noatak River Expedition.
8/5, Monday
Back to work! For some people at least. Andrew is up early but I lay a bead to some unknown hour.
Breakfast on Oatmeal. I'm coming to dread oatmeal, not because of the taste which I still enjoy, but because I get only 2 for my meal then nothing till lunch.
On river at unknown time. Here the river runs WNW with fewer meanders than before. Make good time over land with many sections being floated. In this sense, floating involves laying back on the canoe stern and watching the clouds and banks spin past. At lunch Pete and Andrew report seeing a lone bull moose while floating a very long straight stretch.
We watch rain clouds around us but feel nothing more than a few wind blown drops till half way through the afternoon paddle when one of those clouds passed overhead.
Banks are lower here and distant scenery is spectacular. There is a lot of open country up here. Each day we get up and travel through a chunk of it. I like these long days of covering lots of ground. I look at distant mountains and know I'll camp at their base by evening.
Easily make our goal, the nimucktuk river. The river's water is clear and I see several fish jump. Up river are distant peaks, range up on range.
Signs other have camped here: a tent pad and an old rope. Pete and Richard swing the rope and I run in and jump. Andrew tries to join me but misses the timing.
Pete catches a salmon: reaches in and picks it out by hand just like the bears do. Easy because it is near the end of its life and looks old and tired. Pete cooks it any way but reports the taste is poor.
Meanwhile, freeze dried lasgna, fresh baked calzone and brownies. A real feast. More like how we _should_ be eating.
8/6, Tuesday
Andrew's alarm goes off and I have to wake him. He hikes up a knoll for a view.
See a fox out the tent. COLD out.
Oatmeal. Count breakfasts and find 1 extra. who knows... 3 packets each this morning!
Weather is changing with wind from N which means a nice tail wind most of this day. Fast progress on stretches of the river. Much time spent reclining on the stern of canoe. This section of the river winds more or less S. Rest while we can, who knows what the future will bring.
Even though there are 7 days left I feel like we are in the home stretch. The troubles are behind us. 3 days of paddling can get us out. Talk frequently turns to what we'll do when the trip is over. That mainly means we talk about what we'll eat first.
By evening we camp on a gravel bar at a tributary river flowing in from the S. After dinner Andrew and I canoe across the river to explore the gravel bar there. See many moose track and returning see bear tracks a day or 2 old.
Encouraged by the sun. In the tent I strip down to my underwear, first time I've had the leggings off in 1 week. And that was just to turn them inside out. But after the sun "sets" the combination of the cold wind blowing through our tent and my naked body beneath my open sleeping bag nearly proves fatal.
Sometime during the night, which there is really an extended sun set merging to an extended sun rise, I get up to pee. In the near by side river backwater I see a moose and child which spooks me as they can be surly and dangerous animals. Especially one so large. I watch from the safety of the tent.
8/7, Wednesday
| Morning comes clear! Rest day so we sleep late. When I really wake up we are in fog. Wind back to the west with high clouds and a new front moving in. Breakfast on crepes with brown sugar and lemon juice YUM YUM. But tedious to make and consumes much fuel. Richard and I sit, face to the wind reading while mosquitos buzz around our ears. I count bars enough for 1 a day plus 1.75 extra. We survey fuel: 2 quarts plus some. Enough? I do a small load of laundry so I'll have something clean when we arrive in town in 7 days. Cold in evening. As we sit in the bug tent making dinner we use Andrew's watch to measure the air temperature. Low 50s. Doesn't sound that bad but it feels quite cold living in it. By 11:30pm clouds fill sky and rain shuts down our evening of lingering in the bug tent. Some themes from this trip:
|
  |