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June 14, 2024 - Day 7 - A Week Down and a Long Way to Go

The good weather continues. We’re still heading up the big river deeper into the mountains, alternating between gravel bar walking and walking above the river bank on the tundra when the brush is too thick. Gravel bar walking is easier than mushy tundra walking, but sometimes the willows are thick on the river bed which makes it easier to surprise a bear or moose. When the brush is thick, we like…

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June 11, 2024 - Day 4 - Frozen Skies, Caribou and the Pleistocene Era

June 11 on the North Slope is not like June 11 in most places. We both woke up around 3 am cold in our sleeping bags. They are rated to 20° and we were bundled up in wool from head-to-toe, so it must have dropped well below that. The world was covered in a light film of ice this morning. My long johns, hiking pants, sweater, rain gear, heavy mitts and ski cap felt under-gunned even while moving.…

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June 10, 2024 - Day 3 - Polar Bear Habitat, Bowhead Whales and Varied Walking

Good news, my sore throat was gone this morning. Glad to have dodged that bullet. Our walk from the Beaufort Sea to the Brooks Range continues, and today, surprise, the sun came out for a brief spell and the cold north wind decided to take a hiatus until the very end of our hiking day. It dawned on me that this upstream walk from the ocean to the mountains is the way the native Inuits who lived…

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June 9, Day 2 - Sore Throat, Fog and Birds Galore

While day one was a true thriller, day two was pleasantly benign. Good. Thrillers make stories and we’re bound to have a few of those, but it’s no way to sustain a long expedition. Speaking of expeditions, Elaine shared a fun story with me today. I was inside the Fairbanks post office sending some stuff home and she was outside unloading boxes of food and such, when a lady in her 70s in a beat-up…

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June 8, Day 1 - Drop-off, Beaufort Sea and Falling in a Frozen River

“How does it feel to give up control?” These were some of the final words our pilot imparted on us before leaving Elaine and I alone in the big, big wild. The Alaskan coast on the Beaufort Sea is an intimidating place to get dropped off. Hours earlier we’d been in Fairbanks, a delightful little city but a city nonetheless. We said goodbye to Kirk and watched as he bounced down the tiny tundra…

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June 13, Day 6 - Inuksuks and Crossing the Big River

There was a big sigh of relief this morning when I woke up and the feet didn’t hurt at all. We had some drier walking yesterday, and we gave each other foot massages last night to loosen up the tendons. That certainly helped. Our good weather window continues. We headed up and over a small pass to the big north-flowing river. We anticipated this being a difficult crossing but it was well braided…

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June 11, 2024, Day 5 - Into the Mountains

Last night was a rough one. My left foot stung this morning, very reminiscent of the pain I had before I got trench foot on the traverse in 2021. And yet, there is no visible mark of skin damage. It’s certainly been wet and cold, but the systems I use now worked in 2022 and 2023 and are completely different from what I used in 2021. The only thing I can think that was different this year was that…

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Brooks Range Journals - June 10, 2023 - Snow!

I woke up around 2 am this morning, the shelter bright as day, to the sound of something pitter-pattering on the walls. It wasn’t the sound of rain, but a more glancing, lighter blow. I crawled out of my sleeping bag, put on my shoes to go pee and was greeted by a world of white. A few inches of snow had fallen and more was coming down. We’re certainly not easing into this trip. On June 10 at…

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Brooks Range Journals: June 9, 2023 - Drop off day

Today is drop in day for this year’s Brooks Range excursion. After driving 3,000 miles from Colorado to Alaska and sifting through gear in a dillapidated AirBNB in Fairbanks, spending hours in line getting Alaska plates so our car is legal and what seemed like endless packing, here we are. The journey up here could be a story unto itself, but as I write in this journal in our shelter, I want to…

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The Quiet Snow of Spring

The Quiet Snow of Spring

It’s the night of May 3rd, less than 50 days till the summer solstice, and it’s 27° F and lightly snowing lightly. It’s a bit ridiculous, but at the same time not unusual. May is the third snowiest month of the year here and that snow tends to come in bunches in the beginning. For newcomers, it’s a rude awakening to life in the high mountains, and the old-timers tend to laugh and tell stories…

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Northern Wilderness: A 2019 Thru-Hike on the Great Divide Trail

Northern Wilderness: A 2019 Thru-Hike on the Great Divide Trail

In 2019 my wife Elaine and I hiked the Great Divide Trail from close to the U.S/Canada border to Kakwa Lake in British Columbia. We were unable to start at the exact Waterton National Park border due to the massive 2017 forest fire that closed the trail in this area (as of June 2020, this section is now open to hiking). We started at a place called Yarrow Creek a few miles north of the border,…

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Stargazing and the North Star

Tonight we decided to look at the stars. In this crazy world we live in, that of mandatory lock downs and face masks and the six-feet rule, it’s good to look at the stars to gain a little perspective

To the west, Orion hangs on strong, her belt glistening above the trails at the ski resort up valley. Orion, the winter constellation, won’t be with us much longer, but while she is, we’ll enjoy her…

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Affordable, Simple Joy in Solitude

I think it’s important, in this time of trial and tribulation, to remember that there is great beauty surrounding us everywhere. Like this cup of tea I’m drinking right now. A Vanilla Sleepytime concoction, with a fair bit of honey, and a touch of milk. Truth is, no matter how bad things get, no matter how long we’re out of work, we’ll have tea. And with that, we’ll have at least one good thing…

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First Day of Spring

30° and snowing this morning on this first day of spring. About an inch of new snow fell last night, nothing too much to write home about, but it’s currently coming down hard and is supposed to last all day and night. Time to head out on the skis and take stock of the situation.

Decided to head up towards Center Mountain with Elaine, enjoying a nice, steady wet snowfall that got progressively…

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March 18

Our home base, the village of Eldora, Colorado looking west. Our cabin is one of those down there in the valley. Above and beyond lies the Continental Divide, with 13,397 foot tall South Arapaho Peak being the prominent sharper peak on the right side (north) of the horizon.

I figure this as a good a time to start back up writing as any. The news outlets have gone full-bore with Coronavirus…

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2019 Expedition Amundsen Recap: Across the Stormy Hardangervidda

2019 Expedition Amundsen Recap: Across the Stormy Hardangervidda

Getting To the Start: From Eldora, Colorado to Haukeliseter, Norway

Expedition Amundsen touts itself as the “World’s Hardest Expedition Ski Race.” The first year my wife Elaine and I competed in the event, in 2017, we felt a little bit cheated. Before the race we were told stories of blinding white-outs, being marooned in camp for days, of the ugly side of the Hardangervidda, the stormy side,…

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9/19/09

“If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow” – Ancient Chinese Proverb

Ten years ago today, September 19, 2009 was the worst day my life. We’ll all have one someday, and for me, thus far, that was it.

I remember the clarity of it all. I’d gotten myself in a world of crap, some prodded by others, but mostly a result of my own ability to, as the proverb…