As in most adventures in Alaska, the pre-trip fretting over weather is unsecesant. What do the models show? When will it roll in? What is the cloud ceiling? At a certain point, there’s not much else left to do but either go or stay home. With a so-so weather forecast over 4th of July weekend, and my last weekend in Alaska before returning to the lower 48 for the rest of the year, we decided to go.
Waking up at 4:45 am to the manic sounds of “He Ya!” by Outkast was not the ideal start to the day, but it set the tone for the next 12 hours. “What’s cooler than being cool? Ice cold!” My long time partner Joe and I had spent the night at the Hope Point trailhead in the back of my Honda Pilot and started up the trail at 5:30 AM. I had been part of the Forest Service trail crew to build the trail in 2015 and hadn’t been back since so it was special to see the trail in its completion and how it had changed.
By the time we reached treeline, we were fully engulfed in the ping pong ball. Little did we know that we were going to stay this way for most of the day. We quickly reached the summit ridge of Hope Point where we said goodbye to smooth trail and turned South for our first pass of many. As we climbed up a high point, I asked Joe what his watch said our mileage was. He laughed in despair and asked me if I really wanted to know. We had covered less than 4 miles in 3 hours with over 5,000 feet of climbing. We both laughed at the realization that this was going to be more of an endeavor than we realized.
We bopped along in the fog, mist coating our eye lashes and hair, cell phone in hand to navigate. At a couple points we caught ourselves starting down the wrong ridge but quickly course corrected. The pace was incredibly slow as we constantly referred to the map and tried to get our bearings in the thick fog. We were able to follow the occasional goat trail as it side hilled through scree, a welcome respite from the constant ankle twisting. The everpresent fog was icey even in July and we wore all of our layers. Continual movement was necessary without risking cooling down from the damp on a break.
Around noon the fog started to lift just enough to look down into spectacular valleys, tarns and cirques on either side of the ridge. To our left lay the valley of Resurrection Creek and the Chugach National Forest; familiar territory to both Joe and I who grew up within the Forest. To our right stretched the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. It was clear that we were within prime habitat for many of the classic Alaskan wildlife. As the fog lifted, we started to find signs of caribou and goats, and spied our first black bears of the trip, all not too happy to see us as they galumphed across the tundra away from us. We laughed at their fat rolls jiggling with each stride. Caribou antler sheds revealed themselves glistening white on the tundra.
The route has only one “simple” bail point to the Resurrection Pass trail by Caribou Creek. But even this bail involved a 3 mile ridge line, followed by a 2000 foot bushwack followed by 7 miles of trail to get to 6 more miles of road walking back to the car. Bailing anywhere else would require more of the aforementioned misery on top of fording Resurrection Creek. In the mid afternoon, we found ourselves at this bail point. We had just had our only water refill of the trip thus far at a pothole lake followed by the largest climb to our highest point and I was feeling it. Remarkably, we both made no mention of bailing, but merely made a mental point of crossing an invisible line knowing that it was easier to keep moving forward than to turn back.
We continued to move slowly yet steadily, in and out of saddles, across lush green hanging valleys and up scree strewn slopes. The progress was constantly enchanting as the fog had lifted and every hillside and valley was new to us. More black bears munched on grass contentedly below us. We tried to circumnavigate as many of the peaks as possible to avoid excess elevation but the hours of sidehilling were starting to take their toll. Our knees and ankles were tired.
After a fun encounter with a curious young caribou who followed us for a few hundred yards, finding a few more massive sheds too heavy to carry out, and getting sight of a cow and calf caribou, we made it to our second water stop during 12 hours on the move. A beautiful valley just at brush line with a picturesque pond greeted us. Joe and I wondered aloud how many people had been here before as the only trails were those made by hoof and paw. We ate, refilled water and continued up another climb.
At about 7 pm Joe and I both simultaneously hit a low. We had 3 more large passes to cross and the fog was starting to descend on us. Joe pulled up some mid 2000’s pop on Spotify and we trudged along to Taylor Swift, Usher and Justin Bieber. The clouds thickened and made the sky dark, even in the Alaskan summer. We dropped down into the headwaters of the astounding Great Northern Creek, an area more resembling Denali than the Kenai Peninsula. We followed a well worn game trail up the valley toward our next pass, both of our heads on the swivel. Joe was charged by a sow a few years back and I, having grown up along the banks of a salmon river, this area had both our bear senses tingling. The valley felt like prime bear country: piles of berries and grass, remote valleys and clumps of shrub willow big enough to hide a bear. Sure enough we spied an enormous brown bear sow and almost fully grown cub across the valley from us. Likely a half mile away, they laid and ate grass but we could make out almost every detail of them. We hastened our hiking pace and gave them extra room. I’m sure they knew we were there but they never made any sign of acknowledgement.
After the bears, we summited our 2nd to last off trail pass of the journey to a stiffening wind and thickening fog. At this point 16 hours into the outing we were getting pretty creaky and tired. We knew that if we could make it to our last off trail pass, we could take a longer break before continuing the final push to the Resurrection Pass trail. We sidehilled for a couple more hours in heinous rubble before descending into the festively named American Pass at 11 pm.
At this point, the fog was the worst we had seen yet. Knowing we had a complex exit to the trail, we decided to try and wait it out for a few hours. Joe had brought an Ultimate Direction Tarp and I a single space blanket. We set up the tarp and wrapped ourselves in the thin blanket. Joe and I miscommunicated on how many blankets to bring so we shared heat under the single blanket as we laid in our shoes and fully layered up on the tundra. Sleep, if you can call it that, was fitful and soon the mosquitos were so bad, we collapsed the tarp and fully burritoed ourselves in it to seal out the bugs. The combination of our condensation on the tarp combined with all day in damp tundra meant we were soaked and lying shivering in the tundra. After about 4 hours of this nonsense, with the fog not getting any better, we decided to push on at 3 am on the 4th of July.
Coming to the summit of Abernathy Creek, we knew the end of the off trail was close. I knew of an old trapping cabin nearby at the bottom of Abernathy Creek where we would rejoin the Resurrection Pass trail and be back on familiar turf. We started down Abernathy Creek but were quickly greeted by shin deep swamp, overhead willows and wet vegetation. Not wanting to deal with that awfulness for a few miles, as well as any large animals presumably hidden in the brush, we made a 1500 foot climb up to a ridgeline that would bring us to our destination without any bushwacking. This final ridge was both beautiful and brutal. In better spirits and energy levels, it’s craggy spine and steep sides would have been a blast. Instead, Joe and I grunted our way across it. Building a cairn out of caribou antlers on our last summit by an old repeater station before dropping 1800 feet down to the cabin.
We quickly joined the popular Resurrection Pass trail and headed up to the pass on what felt like a super highway. Our elation at being back on old and familiar trails quickly gave way to exhaustion as we surpassed the 24 hour mark of this adventure. We took a selfie at the pass just as the clouds started to break. Blue sky laughed at us for the final 9 miles of trail on familiar ground out to Summit Creek. Where had this weather been when we needed it?
After Harry’s Pass, the descent into East Creek and the final pass at Summit Creek, we were happy to descend the 3.5 miles to the trailhead. I have been going to Summit Creek since a child having grown up a few miles away and it holds a special place in my heart. We saw people for the first time the entire trip and marveled at how fresh and happy they looked. A couple wished us a Happy 4th and we laughed at the idea of barbecue and beers. 30.5 hours after starting, we kicked off our shoes at Joe’s truck. We stopped for ice cream at the nearby Summit Lake Lodge, then burgers in Hope before retrieving my car at the start and heading home. I made it 3 miles down the highway before pulling over falling asleep awoken only by the need to eat more food.
Overall this was a fantastic outing right at the edge of both of our abilities and through an incredible place. We have heard of other people doing this route as a backpacking trip but never all in one push. While I am in no hurry to repeat it in fast and light style, a 3 day backpacking trip would be phenomenal. I hope more people give it a try.