This has to go down as one of the best trips we ever took. It started innocently enough, some Alaska Airline travel credits from a cancelled trip (not even sure to where) that would expire in a short time. The first idea was to fly to somewhere in Alaska where we could see the Northern Lights. That idea slowly morphed into a full-blow ski trip across the Gates of the Arctic National Park.
The trip involved flying to Anaktuvuk Pass, a native Alaska community north of the Arctic Circle. From there we’d ski about 120 miles, up the Anaktuvuk River, over Ernie Pass, down the Koyukuk River, turn right over Delay & Glacier Passes and out to Wiseman and the haul road that goes to the north slope. There was even scheduled flights from Fairbanks to Anaktuvuk Pass and Coldfoot (just down the road from Wiseman). We expected the trip to last about 2 weeks
We had done cold weather camping on Denali and skiing with sleds in Yellowstone but this trip was committing as we didn’t expect to see many, if any, other people along the way. We did take flares along with us in case we thought we needed to wave down a passing airplane.
One quandary was whether to take a firearm in case of a hungry brown bear along our route. When Marcia asked a NPS ranger for the park that question, his response was that the bears “would be the least of our problems.”
Despite those ominous words, everything about the trip clicked well. The scenery was spectacular, the weather about as good as we could ask for, and the route not too difficult to follow. We saw three sets of people along the way: a group of local hunters on ATV’s on day 2; a group of skiers going the reverse of our route on day 5; and, a two miners on snow machines on day 8. When we reached Wiseman at the the haul road, Marcia knocked on the door of a cabin that had smoke coming from its chimney and we were invited in for hot tea and able to get a ride the 8 or so miles to Coldfoot which had a motel and an air strip for the flight back to Fairbanks.
Skiing along the big open valley bottoms, in sun, at a temperature in the low teens with no wind was magical. It was utterly quiet except for noise of my skis, sled and breathing. The solitude was so complete it is difficult to describe.
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