Running the Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim

Late last September my friend Gail and I escaped Juneau's rain and hiked the Grand Canyon from the North Rim to the South Rim.  The following day I ran from the South Rim back to our campsite on the North Rim. The distance each way was 25 miles.  We loved the dry, non-technical trail and the cloudless sky!  Here are a few photos from the two day event (and the best photos were taken by Gail):

Our view off the North Rim the afternoon before our hike across on Day 1

We started around 6:00 a.m. off the North Rim.  It was windy and in the mid-30's.  We quickly encountered a few other hikers and runners as we descended several hundred feet into the canyon towards Cottonwood Camp.  A few hours later as the trail flattened out we had stripped from fleece to only shorts and t-shirts.  The canyon was beautiful with the middle third of the traverse relatively flat.

Cooling down near Phantom Ranch

We stopped near Phantom Ranch for a 45 minute lunch. The weather was warm and dry which felt wonderful to those of us who reside in a rain forest.  Also, this was the last weekend where the camping areas had running water spouts, and we sure made use of them!

The temperature at the last rest stop four miles below the South Rim 

We crossed the bridge over the Colorado River about an hour after our lunch stop and watched some rafters navigate the rapid current. The elevation for the river crossing was 2400 feet, so we knew we had a big climb ahead of us since the South Rim sits at 7260 feet. We took our time and set a steady pace in the sun.

Here's Gail as we near the South Rim



Riders on mules passed us and the closer we climbed towards the South Rim, the more people we came across.  

Almost done with Day 1

We reached the trailhead for Bright Angel shortly after 5 p.m. and we were both tired but felt pretty good (Gail is an amazingly robust hiker and outdoors woman).  It didn't take long before Gail and I were toasting each other at the bar.  It took us 11 hours and 18 minutes to hike the 25 miles from the North to the South Rim.  Yee ha!

Gail and I on the South Rim at the end of our hike

In our day packs we had carried t-shirts for the overnight at the hotel.  We were asleep by 10:00 p.m. I woke at 5:30 a.m. and within 30 minutes was heading back down the trail on my return trek to the North Rim.

A photo from the South Rim towards the North Rim

I felt pretty good during the morning, mainly since I was running downhill on a beautiful, sandy trail. In Juneau we're so used to slippery, technical trails, that R2R was a runner's dream.

 Running down from the South Rim - Day 2

I met a few people throughout the day.  One woman, about a mile after Phantom Ranch, was so startled as I ran past her that she swore at me and took a swing at me with her hiking pole!  I also ran past a couple of deer and past the mules at the ranch stables.

 



I peered down at the switchbacks ahead

I felt good despite the hot sun and yesterday's long hike across, but climbing up to the North Rim was a challenge in the heat.  I traded off between hiking and running and took one long break in the shade with two female hikers.  The North Rim is at 8250 feet in elevation, so there was an additional 1000 feet of climbing this time across and I felt every inch of it with the hot sun on my back.  But, the rocky landscape was so stunning and I was so focused on reaching the Kaibab Limestone layer that I forgot about the heat and just thought about how fortunate we all are to share this amazing public land.  On that note, it is astounding that the Grand Canyon National Park is not designated as "Wilderness" land by Congress.  The Wilderness designation would offer the Canyon the highest level of wilderness protection.  At the bottom of this entry I've footnoted a paper on this issue and if you're concerned about protecting one of our nation's greatest natural resources, let your Congressperson know.

A large hole in the rear of my 10 year old running shorts  -lovely 

I arrived at the North Rim around 1:00 p.m. (6 hours and 55 minutes) and showered and relaxed and waited for Gail to join me (she had taken the bus around the canyon after going on a shorter hike in the morning).  I had split my ragged running shorts about halfway across, stretched over a small stream and trying to douse my face in water.  Probably I looked like an extreme, sweaty mess to the tourists I tromped past during my last uphill mile!

What should we do tomorrow?

 That evening Gail and I toasted each other, perched on the North Rim.  We chatted with others about whether the Government Shut-Down would occur the next morning and whether the park would actually be closed (the answer was "yes" to both questions and Gail had to do some quick thinking to re-plan the remainder of her camping trip).

The start of Le Grizz in tiny Polebridge, Montana

Still feeling the runner's high from R2R, two weeks later I ran Le Grizz, a 50 mile ultra in northern Montana.  This race was also impacted by the Government Shutdown, and the course had to be re-routed outside of Glacier National Park (big thumbs up to the race director who set up a stellar course on short notice).  Le Grizz was mainly run on dirt logging roads.  I finished in 8:55 and qualified for Western States 100 (when will that ever happen again?!).  And then I returned to the autumnal rain in Juneau and snuggled in with Kari and the dogs for the winter.

Note: Peter Jacques and David M. Ostergren, The End of Wilderness: Conflict and Defeat of Wilderness in the Grand Canyon. Review of Policy Research, Vol. 23, No. 2 (2006).

Traversing Alaska's Lost Coast Lituya Bay to Yakutat

One month ago six of us Alaskans (five strong-minded women and one really great guy!) departed from Juneau on a sunny Thursday morning in a float plane heading 120 miles northwest to Lituya Bay for the start of a six day hike and pack rafting trip on Alaska's outer coast.  Our destination was Yakutat, approximately 100 miles up the coast, where we had seats the following Tuesday evening on the Alaska Airlines flight back to Juneau.

Thursday, May 23, 2013  - our float plane departs from Juneau

In the days prior to our departure, I had been warned by two Juneau locals (whom I respect) that our trip was virtually impossible in six days, they didn't know anyone else who had traversed the remote coast in such a short period, and we were more or less being reckless.  The two had traversed half the distance in eight days the prior year.  They described the brown bear "highway" as rocky and impassible in parts and requiring multiple trips inland to locate better bear trails.  They warned me of the amount of time and energy it took to find good routes through the forest.  They reminded me that we would not see a soul on our journey and southeast coastal weather is notoriously unreliable and potentially unrelenting.  They finished by stating that the numerous glacier outflow crossings would be fast flowing in the spring and all maps were basically worthless because of migrating rivers and glacial retreat. I emailed this information to our intrepid trip leader, Dea, and she immediately emailed back: "Too funny.  I knew they would say this."  Okay...we'd been duly warned and let's hope this turns out to be too funny.

La  Perouse Glacier - a view from the float plane

The weather was wonderful on Thursday as we departed around 10:15 a.m., and the outer coast forecast looked good for the next several days.  As we took off I recalled the advice of one of the my hardy co-workers at the Department of Natural Resources who was also concerned about our aggressive itinerary.  He suggested I carry several days worth of extra food and then sell the provisions to my starving companions at a usurious rate when we found ourselves far short of our mark next Tuesday.

The plane departed at 11:15 a.m. on Thursday

Our pilot dropped us off a few miles into Lituya Bay.  Due to heavy winds and the notoriously unpredictable tidal flow into the bay, he declined to drop us near the mouth as planned.  The T-shaped bay is an ice-scoured tidal inlet with a depth of over 700 feet.  There have been four recorded tsunamis here since 1850.  Most recently, a large earthquake struck the Fairweather Fault in 1958 with a reading of 8.3 on the Richter scale.  The quake caused a tremendous rock landslide into the bay (30 million cubic meters of rock), creating a megatsunami.  The sudden displacement of water resulted in a gigantic wave of 1,720 feet; the largest known wave in modern history.

Trimline left by 1958 tsunami wave

For some background on Lituya Bay, I read "Wildest Alaska" by Philip Fradkin in the days prior to the trip.  The book details the Tlingets occupation of the area and the subsequent arrivals of the Russians, French and Americans, along with a complete recounting of the area's now defunct gold mining history.  

Fradkin's book also relays the story of numerous ship wrecks, including two men in the 1890's whose vessel sank at the mouth of the bay.  The men decided to hike the 100 miles to Yakutat and carried supplies for six days (hhhmmm....just like us).  Fradkin wrote that the trip "actually took eighteen days, and the men would have starved to death except for the fact that they were aided by Tlingits, from whom they stole a canoe for the last leg of their journey."  This passage along with my friends' warnings gave me a healthy dose of apprehension.  But, as we flew towards our drop-off point, I reminded myself that at least we wouldn't have to steal a canoe; we had our own pack rafts.

Night one - our first bear visit

On Thursday, day one, we hiked along the black sand beach where a little over a century ago miners mined the placer deposits of gold.  Now there were only bear tracks.  We came across two federal surveyors, their puppy, and their fixed wing plane.  They were heading back to Juneau. The six of us hiked on and set up camp by 6:30 p.m.  While I was imagining the surveyors back in Juneau eating pizza and drinking beer at the local pub, we were greeted by our first, large brown bear.  Delightful.  This also proved to be the one and only night we tented by trees large enough to hang our food.

The omnipresent bear highway

Friday dawned sunny again.  We continued along the sand hoping to get past the outflow to the Mount Fairweather glacier within a couple of hours. But, we soon came upon the large boulder fields that we had been warned of.  The sandy beach became rock as far as the eye could see.

Day two - 5 hours of rocks

We headed into the woods in search of a bear trail that would parallel the coast and allow us to avoid the rocks. As my Juneau friends warned, we soon lost a couple of hours bush-whacking in the forest in an unsuccessful attempt to find a good bear route.

One of several inland journeys in search of bear trails

Think like a bear...where's the bear trail?

We had little choice other than to head back onto the rocks where we stayed, hopping from rock to rock for over five hours.  Some of my companions enjoyed the balancing challenge posed by traversing for hours over thousands of different shaped, multi-colored, very hard rocks.  I found it tedious because it required continuous and prolonged concentration - not one of my strong points.  However, the boulders were a colorful mix of igneous and metamorphic rock, highlighting the area's fascinating geologic history.

Days two and three prior to Dry Bay - boulders and more boulders

Despite all of the rocks, we made fairly good time and the clouds rolled in for our second evening.  Here we camped near an easy crossing and spent time drying out our clothes.

Night two - yes, it's a sock not a marshmellow

While we dried out, we watched a moose easily cross the shallow outflow we had just maneuvered in our pack rafts.  The next morning, Saturday, was overcast.  Soon after we emerged from our two tents a brown bear ambled towards our camp, but it ran away after we shouted at it.  By this time, after walking on large bear prints for hours along the bear highway, we began to expect a few large visitors.

Saturday turned out to be a treat.  Once again, we left the beach and trekked inland through dense, rolling forest replete with Devil's Club.  This time we were following, in reverse, the route taken by another party, Roman Dial and his crew, a few years earlier.  Following the GPS, we headed several miles inland and upwards hoping to find the lake in front of Grand Plateau Glacier.

Pack raft crossing - day three

The boggy and prickly hike was worth it and we emerged on the shore of a large lake filled with ice bergs.  Grand Plateau Glacier was visible in the distance.  It was stunning.  We quickly unloaded our rafts and prepped for the crossing.

Crossing the lake beneath Grand Plateau Glacier was magical

A trip highlight and worth the 3 mile bushwhack

Julie rafts through numerous icebergs

Crossing the lake was magical and a trip highlight.  Later I read Roman Dial's blog about their reverse route crossing of the lake and learned that his crew experienced a small tsunami wave following a five minute glacier calving.  Wow...our experience was pleasantly uneventful.  If you want to read about his mountain biking excursion along the Lost Coast check out: http://packrafting.blogspot.com/2012/01/yakutat-to-glacier-bay-lost-coast-south.html

Once across the lake, on the north side, there was a clear trail.  We exited our rafts as we entered the small western bay and heard the waterfall we had been warned of by my friends.  We headed down the trail and back to the beach.  We exited the forest ideally near the end of another long boulder field and were pleased to soon find dark sand.

Days four and five - lovely landscape with the St. Elias Mountains

Thousands of birds migrating through

The terrain changed north of Grand Plateau Glacier from the typical wet Southeast Alaska landscape with an abundance of Sitka Spruce and Western Hemlock, Devil's Club and giant Skunk Cabbage to a drier, sandier terrain with pine and grass.

Monday morning bears

The views from Dry Bay to Yakutat were incredible

The views began to open up once we crossed Dry Bay, the outflow of the Alsek River, on Sunday just before noon.  At this point we were behind schedule.  We also knew we were facing an increasing number of crossings.  Because of our time limitations, we made no attempt to time any of our crossings with slack tide.

Crossing the Alsek - we were greeted by Sea Lions

Sunday's crossing of Dry Bay was windy and the longest crossing we had attempted so far.  A wave crashed over my raft as I began, so I crossed sitting in a puddle of water.  I have to admit the small pack rafts are sturdy, and I felt like I was sitting in a bathtub half full of cold water and hoped it would help with my ankles that were swollen from the rocks.  It was a gorgeous crossing; we were paddling vigorously.  There were a dozen curious seals popping up around us and another dozen, seemingly irate, sea lions waiting for us on the far beach.  As the first paddlers landed in their midst, they made a vociferous retreat into the water.

The endless beach was ours

Now we were on a march and had to make up some serious time.  We all had blistered feet after a few days but, hey, we were on a beach and were enjoying our own private paradise.  I started to think we would actually make it to Yakutat by Tuesday evening.  But, Monday proved to be the most difficult day.  A strong wind was blowing in from the ocean and we had numerous crossings - although at the time we really had no idea how many crossings were ahead of us as we marched along on the increasingly narrow sand spit.  The pack rafts are a necessity on this trip, but they are also a time sink because it took us about 90 minutes each time we unpacked our six pound rafts, inflated them, traversed across the water, deflated and de-sanded them, and packed them and the paddles away again.  And, on this day, we got to do it all in heavy winds with a sand storm.  You gotta love it.

Hours of beach walking - notice the continuous bear trail

Also, at some point on Sunday my GPS died.  Our replacement batteries proved defunct and lasted only an hour.  Without a reliable GPS, on Monday we lost one viable option we were considering which was to navigate inland six miles or so prior to crossing Dangerous River, to an airstrip and forest road.  We could have hiked the gravel road Tuesday all the way into Yakutat.  Hhhhmmm...let's think about that...if we'd had a working GPS we could have bush-whacked a bit and then hiked a gravel road all of the rest of the way to Yakutat.  Too funny.  

But, instead we found ourselves sitting two miles out from land on a narrow sand-spit that was quickly disappearing with the incoming tide.  The wind was blowing about 30 miles per hour (note to self: not good for contact lens wearer - me) and, oh yeah, we were rapidly running out fresh water which was somewhat paradoxical given that we were now surrounded on all sides by water.

Crossing Dangerous River - several times in a sandstorm

We had six crossings on Monday and hiked for over fourteen hours.  The above photo shows our last crossing across the Dangerous River outflow around 5:00 p.m.  Notice how far we are from terra firma?  The tide was flowing out, the wind was blowing in, and some crazy currents were running between the shrinking sand spits we were navigating to and from. The crossing was thrilling, but don't ask me whether it was good thrilling or bad thrilling.  And, don't ask me how many times I thought about the gravel road to Yakutat that was maybe six miles from our present location but not a plausible option because we didn't have a working GPS.  But, hey, we'd been duly warned and at this point we were all equally determined to be on that flight tomorrow night from Yakutat to Juneau.

Long days and short nights in late May

By the early evening on Monday, we seemed to have completed all of our crossings.  We kept hiking along the beach for several more hours and stopped sometime around 10:30 p.m.  We were fortunate because at this point we really were out of water (and dealing with numerous blisters) and suddenly the black sand spit opened up to tidal flats on the inland side and we found salty but drinkable water.  My tent-mates, Ann and Julie, and I all fell asleep within minutes of zipping up our tent, but the other tent (Dea, Ben and Heather) was treated to an amazing visit by several wolves just short of midnight.

On our final day, Tuesday, we broke camp by 7:30 a.m. on a mission to make our 6:00 p.m. flight. Personally, after the windy, rough crossings the day before, I was on a mission to time at least one of our raft crossings with slack tide.  From the tide schedule I had scribbled on the back of my map a week earlier, it looked like slack tide for the Situk River (our last crossing) would be around 10:30 a.m.  

Day 5 - 7:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. (let's make that plane tomorrow!)

We made good time hiking along the beach and at 10:00 a.m. Tuesday we peered over the spit and got our fist glimpse of civilization since the prior Thursday morning.  There were half a dozen cabins on the shore a couple of miles across the river.  And, the Situk looked calm at low tide!  It was an easy crossing and we found a well-maintained gravel road about a mile inland from the river and headed northwest towards the airport.

No need for pack rafts here

Several hours later, around 3:30 p.m. we arrived at the Yakutat airport.  I walked into the airport and headed straight to the bathroom thinking only "water source...fill up."  Seriously.

Well, there you have it.  Despite the nay-sayers in Juneau, we made our six day trek from Lituya Bay to Yakutat.  It was an invigorating adventure and we had almost three full hours to spare before our Alaska Air flight departed for home.  Having worn the same clothes continuously and not having showered for six days, I was thrilled to see Kari at the Juneau airport.  Wow, my girlfriend sure did look clean!  Postmortem: I will say that the group dynamics on this trip were terrific given some of our challenges, and we were also fortunate that we experienced no major setbacks. In retrospect, if I made the sojourn again, I would take at least two more days, bring my own back-up lithium batteries and a back-up compass, time the larger crossings with slack tides, and maybe bring a sack of food to sell to my companions at a usurious rate should our luck ever run out.

Google Map - orange markers are past earthquakes

Border to Border Finland 2013

The English translation for the Finnish phrase, Rajalta Rajalle Hiihto is "from border, to border, ski"...and that's what I did in March 2013, along with 70 other Nordic skiers.  The Border to Border Finland event offers 450 kilometers of tracked classic skiing across northern Finland, just beneath the arctic circle, from Russia to Sweden in seven straight days. This was the 30th year of the longest tracked ski event in the world. Sound good?  It was.

I flew to Helsinki, took the city bus downtown from the airport and toured the city for a day.  I found Helsinki to be a delightful city with both Eastern and Western European influences apparent in the architecture, and  I experienced my first truly Finnish sauna at the Yrjonkatua Swimming Hall (the oldest pool in Scandinavia).  It was Wednesday, one of the female-only swimming days, and I must have looked like a tourist because soon several blonde, Finnish women, both young and old, were standing around me in the water al naturale asking about Alaska and my impression of Helsinki since my arrival (four hours earlier).  The women were so welcoming that I already knew I'd enjoy the long ski ahead.


I  read-up on Finland. It is the home to Nokia (and perhaps that's why we had flawless cell reception in the remote northern woods).  Wedged between Russia and Sweden, over the centuries the Finns have become notably adept at keeping peace with larger neighbors while maintaining their culture identity.  As a whole, the Finns are very fit, they drink more coffee than any other nation, and they love to sauna.  The Finns have a strong social welfare system, including national healthcare, and their educational system is among the top internationally. Impressive.


After a much shorter flight to Kuusamo the next morning, I arrived at the ski center in Oivanki.  There I met a dozen smiling skiers in the wax room and heard several different languages as I stared at numerous wax tables and skis.  A sixty-something Finnish women, ironing glide wax into her skis, peered up and greeted me in English by saying, "Hello  - it's International Women's Day today!"



During our introductory meeting and dinner I met six wonderful skiers from Seattle and several younger men from New York who were skiing the ultra-event as an extended "bachelor party."  One of the guys had his first experience on skis two weeks earlier!  Each skier received a well-organized booklet complete with maps and data regarding each day's ski.  We were also given plastic name tags with our national flag next to our name with the phone numbers of the Border to Border organizers on the back.  We were told to pin the tag onto our backpacks and use them if we ever got lost along the route.

The Oivanki ski center was terrific, and we dined on reindeer stew and toured the impeccably groomed trails, trying out our cold, green kick wax.  The next morning we took a bus to the Russian border and began our journey on hilly, single track with a temperature of -10 F.  The first morning was the hardest for me mentally because I was jet lagged and intimidated by the long days ahead (generally about 60 kilometers per day more or less).  But, as the day wore on and we skied into a lovely ski center and the tracks widened to include local skate skiers and later families skiing home from work and school, I began to loosen up and appreciate the quiet beauty of the white rolling hills and winter forest.  I ended the day by skiing across a lake to a plush ski resort with three of the Seattle folks.  A few hours later we learned that one of the women from Seattle had lost her way as night fell, and indeed her name tag with the Finnish phone numbers may have saved her from a night in the frigid tundra!

Evening Briefing 

End of Day 6 - One more to Go!

Each day was similar with cold, crisp sunshine and kilometer after kilometer of groomed classic tracks through the woods.  We saw a few reindeer, skied through another large and beautifully tracked ski area called Ranua, and were served berry soup, pickles and chocolate at noon by local Finns, including the Native, Sami.

A welcoming bear at the schoolhouse

We spent two enjoyable nights in old school houses, sleeping on mattresses on the floor, swapping stories about other adventures, eating tons of food, and washing off with buckets of water after hot saunas.

                
The last three days were even colder with the temperature dropping to -25 F for the starts.  Having spent many of my training days running or skiing in a mix of rain and snow in Juneau, I loved the clear, cold weather!  We all dressed in layers, and surprisingly I was never cold.  We stopped for lunches and breaks that at times included grilled reindeer or brats and once even crepes.

A lovely break spot

Evening Briefing

During the evening briefing prior to our final, seventh day of skiing into the border town of Tornio, we were told that because this year was sufficiently cold, the river we would be traversing towards the Baltic Sea was stable enough that we could ski on the ice (a mix of fresh and salt water) right up to our last hotel on the opposite shore.  So, we were lucky because that added another 15 kilometers of skiing and instead of the normal 60 kilometers we were going to get to ski 75 kilometers!  This statement was followed by a pregnant pause in the dinner hall as everyone mentally calculated how far they'd already skied and how tired they were...and then the room broke out into collective laughter.



Day seven was beautiful just like every other day, especially the last 15 kilometers along the river, past the brightly colored, increasingly urban homes, past the local Finnish skiers and skijorers with their slender dogs, and across the wide, crystal-white river with Sweden in view, and up the bank to our final hotel and our finishing celebration  (post-sauna of course).  

That night each nation gave a short skit about themselves and the skiing experience.  Many of the skiers were Finnish and had skied the route before.  There was also a large contingency from Germany.  Probably the most beautiful skier was a young man from Moscow.  There were also skiers from Sweden, Brazil, Spain, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, and Slovakia.  The Border to Border Finland event is run each March with four groups departing daily and ranging in size from 70-100 skiers.  I would encourage anyone who loves to Nordic ski to give it a go!  For information here's the event website: http://rajaltarajallehiihto.ranua.fi/In_english/Frontpage.iw3

Laskettulu Suomi!