I woke up in a daze on our second day in Gates of the Arctic National Park in Alaska. I thought to myself, “this is incredible, I am so lucky to be here.” It still hadn’t quite hit me that after Zach had asked me in the climbing gym a few months ago about potentially doing a trip in Gates, and after all the trip planning, that we had finally made it here. We seemed so far away.
We had oatmeal for breakfast and continued West along a big river for the first few miles of our day. It was sunny and beautiful out, I was only wearing my sun hoodie and I hadn’t even pulled my rain jacket out of my backpack yet. The peaks, covered in a loose talus, gleamed under the strong summer sun. We found all sorts of tracks in the mud along the river bank. Big grizzly prints the size of my foot, big wolf prints that were about half the size of my foot, and dozens of other unknown and non-threatening critters that called this place home.
Eventually we left the river bank and began climbing up onto a grassy plateau and stopped for a break. I broke out my lunch which consisted of one tortilla, one packet of Justin’s almond butter of various flavors, a handful of banana chips, and a handful of chocolate chips to form a sweet wrap of sorts, a few handfuls of pistachios, a few strips of dried mango, and a few gummy bears. Not much, but an honest ration.
As we were packing up, Yusuf looked up and spotted a wolf up on the ridge that we were heading towards. Zach pulled out his binoculars and each of my friends took turns gazing up at it. It was black and looked huge way up there on that ridge. I was handed the binoculars, and the wolf stared back at us, at me, into my soul, wondering if I was something that would be worth fighting in order to make a meal out of. Its eyes were piercing, stunning, like eyes I had never seen before on a wild animal. It was mystifying and slightly terrifying.
The wolf must have decided that we were not worthy of its next dinner and it disappeared over the other side of the ridge, never to be seen again. We continued on our path, towards its general direction. The air felt a little eery and we were all certain that it was still watching us.
It was only our second day of the trip and we had already seen a wolf, the most elusive creature in Gates of the Arctic??? A park ranger in Fairbanks had told us only a few days before that most people who travel through the Park never see any wildlife. I wondered what else this trip would have in store for us.
On our sixth morning in Gates of the Arctic National Park in Alaska, I opened the rain fly to big snowflakes landing on the Arctic tundra surrounding us. The day before, we had gone over our highest point along our route, Peregrine Pass, which lies at about 5,500 feet, and it was snowing. We couldn’t see much at the top of the pass, a disappointment for each of us, and we descended into our next valley with the hope that we would get a break from the weather. That break was yet to come. Everyone saw the snow, and our moods instantly tanked.
It was supposed to be our rest day, but after receiving weather updates that called for more snow from Zach’s wife Katie over his inReach, we agreed that we’d all rather hike to stay warm through the cold, rather than sit in the tent all day. So on we went.
I got out of the tent first—I was sick of being horizontal. The sun never seems to really set or rise in the Arctic summer, but we would crawl into the tents each night right after dinner, usually around 7 or 8:00 since we were cold, wet, and tired. The tents were our only shelter, our only way to get warm and dry after a long day. But getting into the tent that early meant that we all fell asleep pretty early, so there was no shortage of sleep in Gates. But I’d wake up in the morning and be anxious to get off my inflatable sleeping pad after 10 or 12 hours, even if that meant putting on wet clothes and going out into the cold. I walked away from our tents towards the bear cans and took a baby wipe bath (my first time I’d done any form of bathing in 5 days), combed my hair, brushed my teeth, and washed my face while braving the cold. But the snow had stopped, it seemed to warm up a bit, and I felt instantly better after being semi-clean.
By the time we started hiking, around 12:30pm, it was much warmer out. The clouds lifted a bit and we were able to see most of the valley that we were making our way through. The peaks were still covered in low clouds, and there was still a crisp to the air, but it was bearable. Almost enjoyable. In our first few hours on the trail that day, we walked through what seemed like endless blueberry patches. Every fifty feet or so, we would all stop and kneel down to grab some berries, then continue on. At one point, we found ourself surrounded by blueberries and spent at least ten minutes picking berries non-stop!
Down the valley we could see clouds moving in and realized it would likely storm soon, so we decided to take a quick lunch break in a field of short willows. This wasn’t the best spot—when we were all sitting down we couldn’t see over the tops of the bushes, making it hard to see any approaching wildlife. Someone mentioned that we had been walking on a game trail through lots of berry patches, and Zach found some bear scat nearby. So I enjoyed my lunch standing up while all my friends sat on the ground. I felt like someone had to keep watch.
It wasn’t long after we continued hiking that Yusuf turned around and sternly said, “BEAR.” I looked up and saw a mother grizzly and three cubs on the slope, probably about a quarter-mile in front of us, in the same direction we were headed. It all made perfect sense—the berry patches, the game trail, the bear scat—and there were four magnificent creatures on the Arctic tundra, on the side of a hill in a massive valley in Gates of the Arctic. How lucky were we to have seen these creatures. But we were downwind of the bears, and the wind was blowing hard, so as we stood there for only a few seconds and as I quickly snapped a few photos, the bears didn’t smell, hear, or even see us. They had no idea that we were so close.
Yusuf said we needed to get out of there as quickly as possible without disturbing Mama Bear, so we all retreated down the steep slope to our left onto a wide shelf high above the river at the bottom of the valley. Once on the shelf, we could see the bears again. I looked up and there was the Mama Bear high up on the slope, peering down at us, watching us move through the valley. She and her three cubs were probably enjoying the berries and the temporary break in weather just as we were. I wondered what she was thinking, and what we must have looked like. We probably seemed so out of place in the Arctic.
We moved quickly along the shelf, trying to get out of her view while giving her as much space as possible. We ended up adding nearly a mile and 800 feet of extra elevation onto our already long day. But once she was long behind us and out of our sight, we stopped, all sighed a sigh of relief, and began talking about how perfect our first grizzly bear encounter had gone. We were glad Yusuf saw her when she was still a ways out in front of us. Being downwind from her, we could have easily snuck up on her, startled her, and could have had a much more dangerous encounter. We were all filled with respect for that bear. It was possible that she and her cubs had never seen a human being before.
Throughout the rest of the trip, we continued to see dozens more bear tracks and wolf tracks in the mud along river banks. We spotted a few herds of sheep on steep and loose slopes way up in the valleys. There were hundreds of caribou antlers scattered across the tundra and occasionally we’d notice a pika or small ground squirrel moving between rocks. Like the desert, the Arctic initially seems like a barren wasteland, but soon it’s obvious that it’s brimming with life.
I feel so lucky to have had both a grizzly and a wolf encounter on the trip. How many people can say they’ve seen a grizzly bear or a wolf not only in the wild, but in the Arctic?
Our trip in Gates was difficult to say the least. I found myself constantly wishing I was warm and dry and sometimes anywhere else but there. But it was those moments where we were up close and personal with nature, in its truest sense, whether it be a within sight of a grizzly bear or a wolf, where I felt my love and respect for the Arctic grow. The Arctic is truly a wild place.
Wolf tracks