The O-Zone

I started writing a book a little while ago, and time does tend to get away from us quickly.  I’ve not gotten very far on my writing.  Life interferes to some extent, and we have a nice car to go driving!   Who knows, I might even get this published someday, if I’m good enough at writing, and if I finish it.  This is a project I’ve wanted to do for many years now.

Here is the first chapter.

WRONG LAKE

Chapter 1: The Beginnings of an Adventure

Mid-winter in Anchorage, the sun peeks over the horizon mid morning and disappears again in early afternoon. Lead gray skies over head, the threatened snow arrived, tiny flakes that filled the sky and streaked past the windshield, reflected in the headlights as streams of light as we drove home from work… warp speed ahead! We had planning to do.

We had decided to spend the summer in the Alaskan Bush, and we were looking at maps of wilderness 250 air-miles due west of the largest city in Alaska. Across the Alaska Range was to be our destination. Homesteading opportunities in Alaska were over at the end of 1976, but there was nothing to stop us from a lengthy camping trip on what was to be my first backpacking adventure. The concept was exciting, but would the reality of the experience match expectations – that remained to be seen. I had never tried anything remotely similar. Dan had; he had been to the Bush already, spending a year building a wilderness cabin on a homestead. I had been looking at pictures and hearing stories for the last 18 months.

I was almost 19 years old when I first met Dan, and had never been outside of a city except for brief car-camping trips in established campgrounds. The next year, the call of adventure was strong, andafter six months of planning we were ready to go.

Planning for an extended trip was exciting; we would have to take everything we would need to survive for three months. There was no “going to the store” to get forgotten items, and so we checked and rechecked our lists. Our financial abilities were also very limited. Fancy backpacking packaged meals, while weight-saving, were extremely expensive and out of our budget, except for very small quantities of things intended as “goodies.

We categorized the supplies we would need to take with us into basic needs that would need to be met over three months time. Clothing. Food. Cooking. Building/hardware. Housing. Traveling was an important item as we planned on back packing. Entertainment. Protection from wild animals. Miscellaneous. Then we started making lists under these categories.

Food.

The largest category was food. We decided our best option was to go with bulk foods, less expensive and more suitable for preparing a variety of meals. We included basics ingredients – dried beans and lentils, whole brown rice, whole wheat flour, corn meal, dried milk, dried eggs, white sugar, brown sugar and honey, black tea, dried fruits, and spices. Goodies were things like cheddar cheese, crackers, peanut butter, canned tomato sauce, chocolate, oils and margarine, jam, maple syrup, and dehydrated potatoes. With these ingredients and some good recipes based on them, we figured we would not get too bored.

A lot of math was involved. We needed to calculate our own calorie requirements for strenuous activity, which we anticipated having, multiplied by the number of days we would be out in the Bush. A rough outline of meals was planned for each day. We calculated the calorie content for our ingredients based on recipes for those meals, to see if we were meeting our daily calorie needs, and then adjusting the meal plan if it was too high or too low. Once we had those figures, then we could calculate the quantity for each ingredient we would need to take with us. Planning a menu for three months was necessary, utilizing these calculations. And once we had those numbers, we could estimate the total weight of our food supplies. Because we were flying out to the Bush in a small plane, weight limitations were a large consideration, and food supplies were only part of our calculations.

Cooking.

Our cooking gear consisted of utensils for back packing and utensils that would remain in our base camp, notably a cast iron pan and a dutch oven for baking. A heavy metal rack for campfires would stay in base camp and a light weight rack would be for back packing. We took lightweight plastic bowls and dishes, ceramic mugs for tea, silverware, and tea pots. Sierra cups would travel with us. And we took a plastic container for our sourdough starter to live in over the summer, since it would be a staple for baking and pancakes. Water jugs for hauling water and storing it.

Clothing.

Summer weather in Alaska can be anything from snow showers in higher elevations, rain, thunderstorms, windy, hot, drizzle, or merely overcast and cool, and any combination during the day. We needed to bring along sufficient clothing to meet those conditions. In addition to clothing, we also needed head-nets, a cloth hat with mosquito netting suspended below. Mosquitoes in the Alaskan Bush are legendary. We also had to take some real winter gear, down coats, warm gloves and hats, hiking boots, hip waders, and lightweight shoes for around the camp.

Travel.

Because we would be based on a small lake we had picked out on a map, we took a small inflatable raft, and fishing equipment. The fishing pole and lures would also be useful once we were on the river which was our planned destination for exploration. We each had a back pack, and a small day pack for short trips around our base camp.

Housing.

A three-man tent, sleeping pads, sleeping bags, a ground cloth to protect the tent from punctures. We also took along a good supply of matches, a small amount of first aide supplies (aspirin, a prescription of penicillin and another of a stronger pain killer, bandages), toilet paper, towels and wash cloths, and shampoo and soaps, dish washing soap, and some laundry soap, and a metal basin for bathing and washing ourselves and clothing. Personal care items – combs, brushes, a metal mirror in a small cloth bag, toothbrush, toothpaste, etc.

Building/hardware/protection from wild animals.

We had a double-bit axe for firewood and any building projects we might need to do, We took several rifles, pistols and ammunition, heavy knives, and rope. Mustn’t forget the rope! Tarps for building shelters, and plastic for the same purpose were also put on the list. A folding shovel was a necessary part of our hardware.

Entertainment and Miscellaneous.

Both of us are avid readers, and that meant taking along a whole box of books. We were concerned it wouldn’t last a whole three months and so we were careful in our selection. Field guides to birds and plants were required. We took along a couple of notebooks and pens in the book box, and a small thermometer to record temperatures.  A deck of playing cards, and a cribbage board tucked into a small empty space.  A couple of typographical maps would help us figure out where we were and possible routes to travel.

We included a small portable radio, though it was doubtful any signals would be heard, and a plane location beacon for use in an absolute emergency. While illegal to use such a beacon without a plane to go with it, it was comforting to have such a device along with us. We figured we would deal with any consequences of having to use it if they arose, if it meant saving our lives.

We took camera equipment and film, a small tripod for backpacking, and a larger tripod for use in our main camp. Binoculars, a flashlight and extra batteries were also necessary.

In addition to space limitations, a float plane has weight limitations based on the distance to be traveled and the amount of fuel required for the round trip. Our plane needed to be completely full of fuel to make the round trip from Anchorage through Merrill Pass, and then return. We choose to take a de Havilland Beaver as they had the best payload for small single engine float planes, and shortest takeoff and landing requirements among the small float planes with enough range and weight carrying capacity to make the trip.

We weighed everything we intended to take with us, and packed it into small boxes which could be stowed into the floats on the plane, and behind the seats. And we double-checked with the float plane company to make sure we weren’t exceeding any weight limitations. The rest of our belongings were put into a small storage unit in Anchorage. We took a set of plat maps with us, and an extra map on which we intended to mark the location of the lake we ultimately landed on, to send back to friends in town so that the float plane service would know where to come pick us up at the beginning of September.

Finally, at the end of May we were ready to begin our adventure. We quit our jobs, sighted in the rifle by shooting our alarm clock, an exercise with great symbolic meaning to us, and camped out at a friend’s house while we waited for the weather to cooperate.

Leaving Anchorage was a matter of waiting for the weather to clear enough to allow a safe trip through the Alaska Range and for the pilot to be sure that ice had gone off the lakes in the Interior. On the morning of June 7^th the day dawned bright and clear, the forecast was for sunny skies on the Anchorage side of the mountains, and the Alaska Range wasn’t building clouds. We collected our belongings and headed to the float plane base in Anchorage to begin the three hour flight across Cook Inlet, through the mountains, and then to find the lake we planned to stay for three months.

There is no sound in the world comparable to the thrilling sound a de Havilland Beaver makes while taking off from a lake, except perhaps a Formula One race car. The Beaver had so much power, it pushed us back in our seats as it took off from Lake Hood, and a stream of water cascaded off the floats and fell back into the lake like crystal pearls and diamonds. A profound sense of freedom and adventure flooded our spirits as we became airborne, followed closely by intense butterflies in my stomach. I felt like dancing, but had no room to move even my feet, I was so surrounded by our supplies and packed into the back seat of the plane. Dan turned around from his seat in the front of the aircraft, and we grinned at each other.

Then we settled down to watch the world go by while we traveled back in time to an era where the world was new and untraveled by other people.

Flying through Merrill Pass is an adventure all by itself. This pass through the Alaska Range was first discovered in 1927, and the mountains have claimed many small airplanes over the years. There are specific turns which must be taken, and one wrong turn will put a plane into a narrow mountain valley that terminates into a solid wall of mountains on three sides, that go straight up, with no room to turn around. The scenery is absolutely spectacular, dark rock protruding through ice fields and snow banks up high where we flew past. The glacier fed rivers were far below us, silver-blue ribbons braided in rocky sandbars, reflecting light and dark from the surrounding mountains. It was an alien and forbidding landscape, so beautiful it made my throat ache.

As we emerged from the Alaska Range next to the Revelation Mountains, the pilot dropped altitude from 10,000 feet cruising height, down to only a couple of thousand feet above the ground, so we could see more details. We were both very cold and our ears were tired of the roar from the engine.

Finding a lake on a plat map is easy to do. You simply point your finger at it, show it to the pilot and say, “We want to go there.” Actually finding that exact lake from the air, at an elevation of 1,500′ above the ground while traveling near 100 miles per hour, well, that was a little harder. A three hour flight to get to the area where the lake was located meant, obviously, a three hour return trip for the pilot, giving us less than an hour to locate the lake.

Initially a lot of the lakes we crossed over near to the western edge of the Alaska Range were all still frozen, becoming only partially frozen the farther west we ventured from the mountains. After circling around for around a half an hour, the pilot was getting antsy to drop us off. A small lake which seemed to be the one we had picked out was off the right hand side of the plane and Dan made the decision to set down on it. The pilot flew over the lake at low elevation a couple of times, looking for depth of water and any obstacles within it. Finally, he pronounced it acceptable for landing and he swung the plane around, and prepared to land.

Moments later, we were down and headed towards the outlet creek side of the lake, where some Black Spruce grew on the banks. We had arrived!