Sunday, August 16, 2015

We woke to high overcast and started hiking by 9 AM, continuing our way up Koyuktuvuk creek. For all the wolf tracks we saw yesterday, we were surprised there wasn’t any howling last night. But, after a few hours of walking, we spot our first grizzly bear, a blond on the tundra above us about a quarter mile away. We notice him lumbering along, munching on berry bushes, and suddenly flop down on his belly. Apparently, he decided it was too much work to stand while eating so, instead, he flops down on his belly, chews on some berries, gets up and moves to the next bush before lying down again. Pretty entertaining. He caught sight of us and walked a number of yards parallel with us as we moved up the creek but he eventually decided we weren’t that interesting and continued on with his berry eating. 

Blonde grizzly

Dall sheep

 We made it to Oolah pass on the continental divide by 12:30 PM and sat at the tarn for some lunch. It didn’t last very long because the clouds that had built up over the morning decided to release their rain. We donned our rain gear and started down the Itkillik drainage, which drains into the Arctic Ocean. The wind definitely felt much colder coming up this valley. We were walking down the drainage when we came across a landslide that had blocked the way with large mounds of slippery rock surrounded by pools created by the creek trying to flow through. We were slowly picking our way through this treacherous maze when we heard a single, low, melancholy howl. We stopped immediately and whipped our heads up in search of the source. Mat spotted it fairly quickly: a lone white wolf about a few hundred yards out. It threw up its head and howled at us again before trotting off up the tributary creek into a small enclosed valley. Very cool!

Looking down Koyutuvuk drainage from Oolah pass

Oolah Pass

We continued down the valley but didn’t get very far when, cresting over a rock ridge transecting the tundra bench we were walking, we saw a dark grizzly about a quarter mile down the bench, head to the ground, running back & forth or in tight little circles. We realized he was hunting ground squirrel! He had no idea we were watching him since we were downwind. His hunting activity was in the center of the tundra bench we were walking so, to get around him, we would have to cross the creek to the harder-to-walk side then hike for another hour or so to make sure we were far enough upwind for comfort. Rain started coming down heavier so we decided to backtrack a few hundred yards to a flat spot with good drainage we saw and set up camp. As soon as the tent was up, the clouds swallowed the valley and heavy rains opened up. Guess we’re eating our ziplock dinner in the tent tonight with a hunting grizzly upwind and wolf downwind!

Walking down the back side of Oolah pass

Rainclouds building

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