alaska v2.2 – glacier water is fun

the second unit was half way on the road and another 2 hours on the bus. when we caught the bus to go to the next unit, in the toklat river valley, we ended up on a tour bus. basically, when you get to the road and need a ride you just start hiking in the direction you would like to go and when a bus comes by, and they have room, they will stop and pick you up. even if it isn’t a camper bus. so for the next 2 hours we were riding a bus full of people who had showered that morning. you can imagine how excited they were to see us climb on.

our second unit was along the toklat river which is fed by three glaciers. this is an amazing site to see. the river bed was constantly changing and braiding. every night the water would receid because it would cool and the glacier melt would slow. during the day the water would rise as the heat would melt the glacier faster. because the water level was always changing, the flow and speed would change, and so would the path of the water. these rivers and streams were truly alive.

as we hiked up and over a ridge off of the river bed, we realized that we took what could have been one of the more difficult paths to where we planned to camp. however, we didn’t have much of a choice because of the water level along the ridge. we were running low on water so after we set-up camp we put all of our nalgene’s and bladders into one pack. knowing we couldn’t filter the glacier water because it was too silty, ren decided to braved the river. the closest safe drinking water was just on the other side of the toklat river, coming off the mountains snow melt.

this was one of the more stressful parts of our trip. knowing that the biggest killer in denali were not the bears or any of the wildlife, but the rivers because of their shear power and unpredictability, we took all the precautions we could. finding the best places to cross each braid of the river, ren safely reached the other side despite the nerves each of us had. it took him about 45 minutes to filter and fill everything with clean water and put it back into the pack. then he had to ford the river again, only this time he had 50+ pounds on his back. this pass didn’t go as smoothly as he lost his footing and went in head first. for the next 10 seconds my heart rate would fly. he floated down maybe 6 feet, but in these freezing, rushing waters, there is no telling what could happen. thankfully he quickly got his footing and came out cold and wet. shortly following we were laughing about it, but in the moment i was terrified.thanks to ren, we had clean water for the next day and a half.

that night we just sat, played some cards, and waited for the wildlife to come out. the later it got, the more caribou we saw. first one, then two, then a herd of over 15. beautiful. as the sun would go over the mountains behind us, the dall sheep in the mountains across from us would slowly make their way in to sleep. thinking we could stay up later than the sun, we finally decided to give in around 1am.