Go Play Outside!

JAY'S RANDOM MUTTERINGS ON THE THINGS TO DO OUTSIDE IN ALASKA, POORLY SPELLED.

Molly, Pearl, Eddy, and I slowly made our way up Trembly Creek.  Trembly started as a wide valley, but after a few miles necked down into a narrow, steep-sided gulley. 

Gradually, we were getting clipped out, until we found the way blocked by a landslide, where the creek wove around swiftly through a pile of rubble.  We were stopped!  Molly and I fiddled around a bit, exploring options, going back and forth trying to see if we could get around the cliff and over the rockfall, but eventually we gave up and started looking at going up and around.  Molly said we should go up river right, and I said river left.   After too much discussion, I overruled Molly and we headed up on river left.  Up the steep bank we went, pulling the dogs up when it was too steep for them.  Eventually, we had a nice view of a well-defined bench on river right that looked like good walking – and of the cliffs ahead of us on the left side that we had to go up and around.  Duh!   A lot more up later, we could see the nice walking on the other side, well below us, taunting me for my poor decision.  Molly only said “I told you so” once.   Sigh.

Scene of the poor route choice, dramatized by Molly.

In mid-spring someone emailed a paddling email list I am a member of, asking for volunteers to join in a packrafting trip on the west coast of Alaska to perform stream samples.  I checked with my family, and with their ok jumped on it.  A few months later, Molly expressed some sadness that she couldn’t come along, as her birding work was done for the summer and she had lots of free time.   After some discussion, I bailed on the sampling trip (they were able to find someone to replace me immediately, as it is a really neat trip in a very interesting and infrequently visited area) so I could do a trip with her.  Lizzy still had two jobs and Nancy had work and theatrical commitments with a local Shakespeare group, so they didn’t get to join us.

We waffled a bunch on destinations, and I ended up planning three trips in different parts of Alaska, in hopes at least one would have good weather.  A few days before the trip the weather looked good in the Brooks Range, so we headed north, spending the night at the Marion Creek campground near Coldfoot. In the morning, we continued north to just before the road climbs up to Chandlar Shelf, and started hiking.  We crossed the Dietrich River, and we were on our way! 

The trip was an adventure in a lot of ways.  A week beforehand, we adopted a new dog, Pearl, from a nearby dog team and she was joining us on the trip with Eddy.  Additionally, there were lots of stream crossings on the route and it wasn’t clear how much rain the area had seen recently.  I was a bit worried about doing this trip with my daughter Molly – the route was pretty remote, and I felt more responsibility than “normal” trips.  I wouldn’t have been that worried if I was solo, or with one of my normal trip partners, which was a new, odd feeling. 

Regardless, the trip was a blast!  We spent the first night on Trembly, where Pearl got a crash course on the world outside the dog yard. 

Her first lesson was that you can fall off of things – she slipped off a small cliff and fell into a pool of water, which caused me to panic, but she emerged unharmed, only very wet.  She also learned that the little interesting holes in the ground have things in them when she st