Friday, June 17, 2016

Slept really well last night and awoke to more bluebird skies. Started hiking around 10:00AM. Walking is surprisingly good! Our Gates of the Arctic trip last year had lots of muskeg tussock. Here, one has just as much walking on dry tundra, perhaps more, than on tussock. There were still a few mushy spots where our feet got wet, though.

Matt walking up the Sheenjek River valley

Glacial stream

 We continued up the Sheenjek, spotting a few caribou here and there. Matt and Matthew can spot critters unlike anyone I know, they're incredible, always stopping to glass the hills. We had three binoculars and Rob's monocular to look around. Just before noon we spotted a large herd upriver and made a plan to sneak up on them to watch. Once we crested a hill opposite the river from them, we settled in to watch and eat some lunch. It was a herd of about 150 with lots of stragglers further up river. They were enjoying the hot weather: half of them laying out, the other half munching away. We spent two hours observing them slowly move by before we decided to start moving too.

We take a break to watch caribou take a break

Lunchtime over, time to move on

 After lunch we ran into more small groups of caribou, probably about 150 more all spread out into groups of 10 or so. Sometimes they were on our side of the valley and would run back and forth before crossing the smallish river to the other side. We started to see some sheds as well, both caribou and moose. The valley got narrower and boggier while the temps rose and the wind died down, all of which really zapped our energy. 

Continuing up the Sheenjek River Valley

Easy walking on the river bed

Moose shed

Eventually, we made it to our goal of the first possible valley over the continental divide. We wanted to camp here and spend tomorrow day hiking to determine if the pass was good but there were no campsites. The alternate route further west looked more inviting so we decided to keep following the main Sheenjek. Plus, if we can't cross into the Jago, another option would be to hike down the Hulahula river which we could pass into further west from our current location. We eventually found a nice, open flat spot along the river a further bit upstream and set up camp around 6:00PM.

Aufeis on the upper Sheenjek

Camp along the upper Sheenjek 

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