Alpine Paradise Off the Richardson Highway

High above the forest, in a mountain meadow green

Far away from city life.

Where the warm embrace of pure sky sunbeams 

Lay you down to paradise.

I haven’t done much hiking in the high country for the past 10 years due to my bad knees.  I started doing more biking and then got into long-distance bikepacking.  So, even after my knees were replaced almost 5 years ago, I found myself training for long distance bike races every summer.  That didn’t leave much time for hiking. 

Yet hiking into the high alpine tundra is my true love.  It’s where I feel most alive and at peace with myself. It’s where my soul feels free.  I’m not a religious person but the mountains feel spiritual to me. 

After knowing Eric for just a short time, he wrote a song that captured my feelings.  I was already falling in love with him, but this song clinched the deal.  I knew I wanted to spend my life with somebody who really ‘got’ me.

Alpine paradise, deep greens and snow and ice

Sunshine carried on a breeze.

Here her mind can rest, relieved from daily stress,

And her heart flies free. 

So, we spent our last days of vacation down in the Alaska Range.  We base camped out of the Donnelly Creek State Recreation Site, which is a great campground although a little too close to the highway.  Very quiet until Friday night but even then, it was quieter than a lot of other campgrounds. (it even has a public use cabin!)

View from our campsite picnic table

DONNELLY TRAINING AREA BIKE EXPLORATION

We spent the first afternoon biking and exploring more of the roads and trails behind Donnelly Dome. We did some riding here earlier this summer and wrote about it in a blog post.   There was almost no wind and it would have been sunny except for thick haze that obscured the Alaska Range.  We found out later it was from forest fires in Siberia! 

We rode down to almost every lake that had a trail.  One four-wheeler trail, off of Twin Lakes Road, was everything I love about double track with ups and downs, and ridge riding past lakes with awesome views.  We were hoping this trail would connect Twin Lakes and Old Rich roads, but it didn’t, so we had to backtrack.  It was such a nice day that we didn’t really care.  

When we got back to camp, another biker, Richard, showed up.  Years ago, he had ridden with Eric on the FCC Tuesday Night Rides. He planned to do a bike tour from Delta, down to Glennallen, up the Tok Cut-off and back to Delta.  We had fun hearing about his different bike adventures.  At 72, he still does several tours every year with friends or by himself, usually in the lower 48.

Richard at his campsite.

BEAR CREEK LOOP ATTEMPT

The wind picked up that night and by morning was blowing about 15-20 mph.  We decided to try our planned hike of a high alpine loop around Bear Creek that we learned about from a friend.  We headed up the south side of Bear Creek, following a sometimes steep but nice social/game trail through the thick brush. 

Once we broke out of the brush, the views were amazing.  But so was the wind!  We continued to hike higher up the ridge and the wind continued to get worse and worse as the views got better and better. We had to use our poles to brace against the wind.  

Eric bracing against the wind so he doesn't get knocked down backwards

At one point, the wind tore my glasses off my face and sent them flying about 30 feet.  It took us several minutes to find them.  We decided that was a sign, so we hiked only a little higher, had a break behind some rocks out of the wind, and then headed back down.  We estimated gusts as high as 50-60 mph with sustained winds just a little lower. On the way down we saw a group of three caribou, one with a huge rack! 

Quick break out of the wind where somebody had made a nice stone wind break

These caribou don't seem to be having any problems with the wind

DELTA RIVER FLOODPLAIN HIKE

Back at camp we rested, but the day was still young, so we went for a walkabout on the dike and then meandered over to the Delta River, crossing several small side channels and seeing lots of bison poop, but, alas, no bison.  

Edge of the main channel of the Delta River

Richard was back at camp, so we went to visit.  He had headed south but was unable to bike without the wind gusts pushing him into the road, so he decided to hang out another day in camp.  

CASTNER-FELS DIVIDE HIKE

That night the wind died down considerably.  We had to decide between another go at Bear Creek or doing something different.  We decided on hiking the Castner-Fels Divide, which I had never done. Years before Eric had hiked it all the way to Triangle Peak, but he had since learned of a new route through the brush from Lower Miller Creek, so we decided to try that.  

After walking 0.8 miles down the gravel bar, we had to find a game trail that headed up and over a low ridge and down to a lake.  We then had to bushwhack up a 300-foot hill to access the ridge line.  Luckily, we found another game trail, but we still had to thrash through shoulder-to-over-our-head willows and alders.  The blueberries were amazing, and I kept grabbing handfuls as I hiked by, but the ridge was calling, and we kept moving.

On the tundra-covered ridge, the walking was a lot easier, though steep in places. We finally got high enough that we could see both Castner and Fels glaciers.  Amazing views.  An amazing day! We kept expecting to see sheep but no luck.  Where were they? 

After about 6 miles, we took a lunch break admiring the view. We contemplated going higher, but the route got rockier, and I had a big trip planned for the next day. 

We decided to try descending through the brush on the north side to Castner Creek, the route Eric had taken years before. The route looked shorter, but Eric said it had been a wicked bushwhack.  We were very pleasantly surprised to find somebody had cleared a trail through the alders. It was still rough but much better than the total thrash it could have been. (After publishing this, Eric heard from Stan Justice: "Tait Chandler, Chris Garber-Slaght and I cut that line last year.  We planned to find the old line Buck Wilson put in years ago but could not find it so started cutting. Not a great alignment but works. Then the dead spruce fell across the line and a mystery person chain sawed it out.")

We came up from the left but descended on the right

After about a half-mile, we hit Castner Creek gravel bars and it was an easy hike back to our car. We celebrated with cold drinks and potato chips before heading back to camp and relaxing by doing crossword puzzles from the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner together.

SEPARATE BIKING ADVENTURES

For our last day, Eric and I diverged paths.  I wanted to bike home (part of my summer project to bike all the roads out of Fairbanks) while Eric drove home, taking time to explore the Bluff Cabin Trail just north of Delta Junction.  

The weather forecast looked good with a chance of thunderstorms, but I was willing to take my chances.  It was a long day on the bike and my hard-tail mountain bike made it slower, but it was a good ride.  There was not much elevation gain, which actually made it more challenging.   I had almost no free downhill miles.  I had to keep moving the pedals the entire time.  And it was HOT and HUMID (for the Interior).  

Eric had a blast on the Bluff Cabin Trail, which has been worked on recently by the Delta Junction Trails Association. The lower part was hardened, so much less muddy. The rerouted sections in the hills had great views and fun swooping downhills. Eric had planned on spending an hour biking the trails but spent about two and had much more fun that he planned. 

On his drive home, Eric caught up to me just as I reached Birch Lake, so we took a small break together.  

 

I continued on, stopping at the Knotty Shop for a double scoop of ice cream and at the Santa Claus House for an obligatory photo with the huge Santa!  

World's largest mosquito?

Who needs reindeer when a bike can pull Santa's sleigh!

It wasn’t too much further to get home although the 2-mile bike up our road at the end was really, really hard.  I made it home after 11.5 hours and 139 miles of biking.  Eric showed up a few minutes later with Thai take out.  Yum!  A perfect end to a nearly perfect few days.

It has been a great couple of weeks off work.  Although it’s back to patients tomorrow, I made a promise to myself to get out hiking in the mountains more the rest of this summer.

For those wanting to hear the song that Eric wrote for me, you can find it here.  (It starts at 1:50 if you don't want to listen to the entire intro by Mike Flynn.) He sang it at on Folk Sampler on public radio back in 2003.