Alaska - Gates of the Arctic

Around the time of morning we were walking up this hill (show looking back down it in the next pic) we heard (and then saw) a light plane. Not just passing through though, but circling low, repeatedly. They flew over us at one stage, but we on time and in the right place, and they went back to flying low over the mouth of Arrigetch creek area. We later found out that our favourite rangers at Bettles had gone out for a trip, and gotten separated, and one of them had called in a search on the other one. Lucky Them.

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Looking back down (N) the hill towards the
Brooks Range from (010) Mick walking
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Self Portrait from somewhere near (011)
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Looking north over our lunch lake, just SSW of (011)

On this leg of walking we all got ridiculously spread out. Scott with his super ligth pack way out in front, mick with his super heavy pack way out back. We got not only spread out, but totally out of sight and earshot. We just sort of thought we'd meet up for lunch at the lake. Scott stayed high, I stayed fairly low, and mick was nowhere to be seen. Soon scott wasn't either. I got around to a point where I was still well above the lake, but hadn't seen scott yet, and had last seen him well above me, headed off towards nowhere land according to the map. I stopped and yelled a fair bit, and got no response, and sat around, and scanned the hillside above me for a flash of red amongst the green from scott's jacket, or any movement at all. Nothing. Eventually, much later (time always stretches when you're waiting) I see Mick coming around the hill, about my level. He hasn't seen scott either. We make our way slowly down the hill to the lake, and just before we get there see Scott pop out of some shrubs and start coming towards us. He's still up high, but he must have stopped moving as he was behind us by this stage.

Turns out he'd falled asleep sitting on a rock waiting for me to come up to him. We'd yelled at each other a bit earlier, trying to point to the where the lake was, (which was hidden until you got pretty close to it) and he'd concluded that I was coming up to him, and lay down to wait for me. One mystery solved.

This was an odd lake. It was borderline which way it would flow, being right at the top of the saddle, and seemed barely contained, and very shallow across the whole area. It was also very dark, not the pale blue water of the aquarius lakes, obviously less flow and more sitting, letting silt fall out of it.

This was also where we got to see our biggest animal of the trip. This then became the running joke of the trip. Also, what the hell was it? Scott said it was a prairie dog, which seemed a bit ludicrous, but as our native guide, we took his word for it. It had quite a taste for licking the salt off my pack straps, and was quite unafraid of us. Prior to this I had briefly seen a small rodent on our walk up the creekbed, but we'd not seen any large animals.

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The critter
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Scott and Mick heading off across the beautiful alpine meadow ESE from the lunch lake, towards (012)
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Me, looking up the next valley, WSW from (012)
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Zoom in on head of valley
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A bit more alpine meadow, then it gave way to this wonderful stuff down towards (013)
There was a bit of a path of sorts that I managed to follow for a little while.
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I wonder where this rock came from. It was decidedly out of place. (Glacial erratic?)
This leg, from about (012) to (014) is where maps of alaska fell to pieces. I can't remember the scales exactly, (all horrible imperial anyway) but Alaska isn't covered by small scale maps like the rest of America is. This gorge we were descending looked steep, but the best way down on our map. (which was the best you could get) But our map still only had a 20m contour interval or something (maybe it was 40') Anyway, it neglected to mention the rather large cliffs halfway down this gorge. They weren't big enough to blip the contours, but quite big enough to make us not want to continue down the creek bed as we'd planned. We found a variety of tracks leading all over the place, and I eventually managed to follow a fairly useful one down and around the southern ridge and down into the valley proper. We had been making good time, and I was ready for a good rest at this stage, but this valley was the most unknown to us, and we wanted to get as much covered today as we could. We had a plane to meet, and that was that. Stopped for chocolates and water, and took off again. (This is about where scott thinks he left his camera, so if you see a grizzly with a very nice looking contax compact, smile for the camera)
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Camp 3. A bit of high ground amongst the rocky creek floor
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It snowed overnight, and I tried to take pics of the snowcapped peaks in this pool
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Taking off the next morning down the valley just E of Camp3.
It snowed overnight here, which made all sorts of weird sounds on the outside of the tent. Scott woke me up because he thought he could hear a big animal outside. I grunted and went to sleep again. I was tired. Mick apparently stuck his head out and got a picture of the campsite with snow everywhere. By the time we got up at 10am or so, it was pretty much gone, and it was all gone and the ground was dry enough to sit on even by the time we left camp.

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