Back in civilization after 8 day absolutely fantastic days in wilderness. This leg was intense in all aspects: stunning, breathtaking nature, endless beauty, wild life, remoteness — and it was hard, truly exhausting at times.
Leaving Wrangel, Jacob and me made our way through an extensive area aptly named Dry Strait. Done at the right tide level (meaning: at max tide) it’s a pleasant spectacle watching those extensive tidal flats disappear. Done at the wrong time, you’ll get beaches (and eaten by mosquitos) until the next tides sets you free. We timed well!
(Stopped on a disappearing sand bar for a while to watch the spectacle for a bit)
Not a place though to hang out for longer — this is definitely mosquito country. Time to bring the stupid hat and head net out ;)
Next destination: LeConte glacier. Wow! Plenty icebergs swimming around, piling up near our camp site. At low tide, many of them got beached, slowly melting away, preferably into our pots to fill us up on freshwater supplies.
(Honestly, for the next days our water would however mostly be rather brown-greenish as we often had to fill up from swampy streams often now running well due to the current heat have here).
Next day, we headed deep in to inlet leading down to the mouth of the Le Conte glacier, passing big waterfalls and working our way through between icebergs and sections of denser ice pieces, sometimes even needing to “cut” a way through. Fantastic. Saw seals and pups chilling on ice flats too.
Eventually, seeing the actual glacier field was one of those moments where you freeze in awe and your eyes tear up and you have a hard time to believe that this is real, that you’re able to see this with your own eyes, you came there by own power, you’re in this alone, no motor boats, no noise, just this endlessly magical moment…
(later, of course, some motor boats of sight seeing companies did come, but luckily we were already on our way out)
The next 3 days are best described by physical effort and exhaustion, going up Frederick Sound against solid and persistent headwinds (and who knows that this current did, but certainly it didn’t help). We were basically crawling along slowly working our way through, paddling for 10ish hours every day. Spring tides and big tidal flats in this area made camping quite a challenge. Carrying out kayaks up the slippery but barnacle-covered rocks above the high tide mark at the end of a solid kayaking day ensured the completion of a full-body workout. That high tide mark was often hard to find, and we ended up pulling the kayaks all the way into the bushes, in parts through stretches of grass. To do so, we basically put ourselves likes horses in front of the kayaks to drag them. The next step would then be to find a spot for the tent. This meant branching into the thick forest (never mind, Mr. Bear), cutting out a little den if needed.
Can’t beat those views though. Big mountains all around us, gorgeous sunsets, and endless waters keeping spirits up (chocolate did it’s part with the spirits too).
After 3 of such 12–16hr days, we were seriously ready for a rest day.
Kootznoowoo Wilderness (Admiralty Island), being our next target. Kotznoowoo named so by the Tlingit and meaning “Fortress of Bears”, claims to have one of the highest brown bear densities in Alaska with about 1 bear per square mile. It’s also promises (and very much so delivers!) extensive wilderness (there is only one human settlement, on the western shore, far away from where were). The Forest service has a few cabins there, one of which we could call home for 2 nights and recover our worn bodies.
We spend 2 more days in Kotznoowoo, traversing it south to north, just enjoying the quietness, we saw barely any other boats, camped on one beautiful little island, saw plenty whales frolicking and playing around (think: whale watching from your tent, from the beach during dinner, from the kayak…). Finally also got to see Orcas. One night they just swam by our camp site, pod of 3 or 4. We saw them again the next day from the water (assuming it was the same pod). Magical.
It’s been warm! Accordingly, we started kayaking very early in the morning, to at least get a few hours before the strong headwinds would kick in (I mean… this whole leg was basically headwinds with only a few hours of mercy).
So far, despite being on the quintessential bear island, I still hadn’t seen a single bear on my whole trip. We did a little detour to the Pack Creek Bear Observatory, the most low key and in that aspect amazing observatory I can imaging. After being lucky enough to snatch a walk-in permit, the moment we sat down with the ranger at “ranger rock” two grizzlies decided to walk right by and forage on the beach for the next hour (sorry no real good picture, kinda hard to do with a phone only)
A day is only over when night kicks in and so we pushed for another 20ish miles that day (yes, of course against massive headwinds) to make it all the way up Seymour Channel into the armpit, staged for the train supported portage the next day. So cool and so much fun to push cart your kayak through muskeg for 2/3 of a mile.
Just don’t step off the blanks (which I did), as you’ll sink in deep…
Not so much fun was getting the kayaks from the end of Seymour channel towards the beginning of the trail, pulling them (fully loaded and again at the end of a long day) through 3ft high grass and brush. I found that grunting helps me pull — but yeah, this was f*** hard and no fun (yes there were millions of mosquitoes of course).
Once done with the train portage, you magically pop out in Oliver Inlet, before connecting back to Stephen’s passage and then going up north through Gastineau Channel all the way to Juneau.
We hit Oliver Inlet at max ebb. Just before it opens into Stephen’s passage, I had the most bizarre water spectacle so far on my trip. As I was kayaking I could see rapids form and it felt like I’m going downhill. Pulled over to scout the situation and indeed, the ebb was running quickly. I judged it as an class I WW rapid, very easy to run even in a loaded sea kayak. As I got back into my kayak and steered into the middle of the stream, I could see the water become steeper, rapidly change, and some pour overs were forming, sucking me through with some gentle 8.5mph. Yihaaa.
Getting into Juneau felt very rewarding. Passed by cruise ships and landing float planes, almost pushed backwards Gastineau channel, we arrived in the early afternoon, lucky enough to get hold of the harbor master just before they’d close down operations for the day, leave the kayaks at the harbor, hop on a bus (yay public transportation in Alaska!), and find a room in the quirky old “The Alaskan Hotel”, making our way straight into the next bar, filling up on beer, whiskey, double dinners, desserts.
What a cool stretch of this journey that was. Exhausted to the bones, my mind is filled to the brim with amazing memories!
