In a tiny wood frame Eskimo store a young girl looked up at me asking ìAre you an elder? You get a twenty percent discountî. As the small plane glides up and over the snow capped mountains I was gratified to rejoin humanity.

It is cold again when I crawl out of the cramped tent at 7 AM. Michael is brewing hot coffee although I did not know at the time that we were using the last fumes of our heating gas. The hot oatmeal breakfast is invigorating. I am slightly depressed when I learn that there will be no more hot coffee to lean on during the hard day ahead.

The continued nights of rain has melted the river ice and induced a swift current. In many areas the river is now waste deep. There are now no safe places to cross.
We meander up and down the river bank looking for signs that would show us the way back to Anaktuvuk Pass on the other side of the river. Ice bridges, with the river gushing below them, also been dominated the river’s surface. If one should collapse we would be sucked into the raging river below with no way to grasp a shoreline and escape.

Finally step-by-step we find the first crossing. We move slowly across the current facing sideways. I grasped Michael’s pack which helps us form a wedge as we slowly creep across the now knee deep water. Soaked and cold we continued this process time and time again. Ultimately we reach the far side of the river lifting ourselves five feet on to the snow-covered bank. Both of us are exhausted. We drain our shoes, changed our socks, and head up a steep embankment.
After our final lunch break, of hard cheese and crackers, we stumble up and up until the landing strip at Anaktuvuk is visible.

As we make our way back over the tundra I am startled again by the large number of caribou bones that have been strewn across the landscape. We surmise that during the migration over years these animals may have been killed by bears and wolves and more likely by local Eskimo hunters. I am on the lookout for a lone wolves and Arctic Fox. Their tracks had been left in the sand near our campsite just last night. A while later we saw the tiny carcass, and a handful of white feathers, of a bird that had apparently just been eaten by the sly fox.

It is clear now; however, that our route will be more difficult in reverse. Heavy rain the last two nights had further melted the snow and ice covering the Anaktuvuk River. Our first two crossings of the swiftly flowing Anaktuvuk and its tributaries are slow going. Moss covered boulders a few feet below the surface create an ongoing slipping hazard. I am determined this time not to get dunked again in the icy water so I move with extreme care.

Michael had carried a heavy, real, cheese which when pieced together with salted crackers made a wonderful lunch. As we sat on an embankment he suddenly jumped up shouting, ìDid you hear that too? It sounds like a big Moose is down on the river bank. But I am not going down there to investigateî. That promptly ends our impromptu luncheon and we decide, wisely I think, to head back to our camp site.

I may have noticed it first. Not long after I see the large grizzly sniffing its way along the frozen river bank. We both freeze just in case the large predator has already sniffed our scent. Fortunately he seems to be more interested in scouring for ground squirrels and meanders slowly up a steep slope on the other side of the river. Relieved we head back to camp and enjoy another cup of freshly brew coffee even though the gas for our mini stove is running low.

Early in the morning after a warm breakfast and an extra cup of hot coffee we make our way eastward but today we are carrying very light packs. Now I have an opportunity to observe the landscape. The Brooks Range dominates to our North and South as we walk through a valley on the Continental Divide. Intermittently we cross an n ATV track which the local Eskimos use as their hunting trail. Sadly, mixed in the murky water filling the carotid trail is oil which has leaked from the ATVs. Not a nice sight!

We camped on a creek bed with pleasantly soothing weathered sand which helped ease these aging bones into the narrow but ever more comfortable tent bed. M: expert Julie prepared freeze-dried spaghetti and meatballs which, to be honest, I had purchased as backup food from our pilot Matt. Given my wet and wild experience I had slept soundly. Yet due to my dreariness I do not recall having any dreams. I am looking forward to tomorrow where I have the signed and out and back route to. We will walk free difficult tundra miles but will return to this same campsite.

Sleep stimulates the magnificence of that time we called dawn even if the midnight sun precludes darkness making dawn only a new remembrance of other times in our universe.We break camp early. I am motivated although dissatisfied that my heavy pack distracts me from enjoying this fantastic lifetime of experience. But, of course in the end that was my fault.

The trek continues to be difficult across the unyielding tundra. Yet as many of my readers know after 45 years of walking I have the confidence to move forward. All I have to do is move slowly enough. In my mind I know that finishing this walking task is within my grasp.

Then, splash! I fall into the swift icy clear river current. As the water seeps ever upward, now tingling my throat, I know that I must get out of the raging river. The backpack pulls me down as my brain races for a solution. Using my walking stick as a lever, and with the confident helping hand of Michael, I pull myself out of the water and onto the frozen shoreline. After a quick change of socks, and not wanting to waste even more time, we push forward onto the tundra.

On landing the air was crisp and the midnight sun was already gleaming. Minutes later I realize that my back pack, newly stuffed with food and supplies, was very heavy. Michael’s pack two was jammed with even more debilitating weight. With no alternative we pushed up a steep grade on to the unforgiving tundra just as the evening wind began to rumble.

Up, down, pant, grimace, stop, complain, and sink in the mud perhaps describe best the next three hours. We made camp on a ledge overlooking the mostly frozen Anaktuvuk River. Michael boils my requested instant noodles. He briefly philosophizes about Alaskan anthropology sufficiently stimulating my brain to send me off to my first night of tenant sleeping in Alaska’s vast tundra.

The morning chill begged me to stay in my sleeping bag. But my legs were cramped from a night spent in the coffin like pup tent. I awoke to the pilots lament, ìthe weather is still bad up North. We may not get out today eitherî.

Ears covered with a fury winter hat, and fingers protected by thick gloves, I wander the little village of Beetles. Many small bush aircraft dot the little town which is no more than a landing field and refueling stop for adventurers wandering the high Arctic. ìJust bought an old aircraftî Jim from Seattle tells me. ìI’ve been flying most of my lifeî. We exchanged adventure stories and tales of our almost forgotten time during the Vietnam War.

It is 10 AM by the time my guide, Michael, and I began consulting maps searching for an alternative route for me to walk. We were betting that we still would not be able to fly into the far North along the Arctic coast to Lake Teshekpuk as originally planned. Being socked in at Bettles for another night would have put us too far behind schedule to meet the aggressive distance that we had set out to walk.

And then Anaktuvuk Pass, a remote tundra area by the river by the same name, meandering precisely along the Continental Divide, seemed like a good place to start this continuing phase of My Dream Walk from Point Barrow Alaska to Key West Florida. An hour later we were in the air again scaling the Brooks Mountains headed towards what seemed to be the majestic Anaktuvuk.

We meet our pilot early today. The guide, Michael, and I load into a very small, old, three seater bush plane. Quickly we are ascending out of the Fairbanks urban area and begin to encounter the lakes and forests leading into the Arctic far ahead. As we approach the re-fueling spot at Bettles one and a half flying hours north of Fairbanks I notice heavy cloud cover far ahead over the Brooks Range mountain peaks. This seems to be an omen. My pilot, Matt immediately goes to the weather station to determine how bad the weather actually is. Our proposed landing strip is on the Arctic coast. A large front has already moved in dropping visibility to less than one mile. The hours pass and it is determined for safety reasons that we will not be able to proceed to our planned landing at Lake Teshekpuk.

Oh well, we will have to spend the night camping near the little aircraft on the now dreary Bettles airstrip.