Pictures

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It was certainly interesting, if not downright scary, to see what racers were (and were not) carrying when they showed up at the starting line, about to embark on a 180-mile wilderness race across the eastern Alaska Range. Hyper-competitive, multi-time AMWC winners like Roman Dial (left) and Bobby Schnell (right) were essentially carrying daypacks containing, um, a packraft and a satellite phone -- the only two mandatory items -- some food, and maybe a rain jacket and/or emergency blanket. I certainly caught the fever too, leaving behind "essential" items like a shelter, sleeping bag and pad, and even a PFD; and about 30 minutes before the start I dumped about 2 lbs of food out of my pack "because everyone else looks like they are carrying less than me."

There were 28 racers at the start, a good turnout by AMWC standards. (A good indication of the difficulty of the course is the number of finishers: just 12.) There's almost more character on this starting line than Alaska can contain -- I felt right at home in this community.

I raced with two Anchorage-based Air Force pararescuemen (PJ's), Bobby Schnell and Chris Robertson, both multi-time AMWC winners. There were a few routes to reach the first and only checkpoint at Donnelly wayside on the Richardson Highway, and we decided to follow a maze of ATV tracks around the northwest side of Granite Mountain. It generally was fast and easy going, but occasionally (like here) we lost our way in the maze and had to improvise to get back on track, i.e. we had to bushwhack through thick willows.

Bobby and Chris prepare to ford glacier-fed Jarvis "Creek." I was happy to have my trekking poles during this and numerous other crossings -- they not only provide stability but they also allowed me to "feel" the river bed since the water is too silty to see through it.

We briefly followed the Trans Alaska Pipeline before dropping down to the Richardson Highway and the Delta River flats (the gray/tan area just below the mountains). The Delta River offers a natural corridor for people, wildlife, and oil to cross the Alaska Range, home to Denali and other huge peaks -- it is just one of three rivers that cut across the range.

Even though we were racing I often stopped to observe the beauty around us, including this sunrise over the Delta River.

We encountered a ~50-head herd of caribou near the Trident Glacier. We were all envious of how they easily pranced across the spongy tundra ("sponga") that was sapping our energy.

Mount Moffit (elev 13,020 ft) and the Trident Glacier. We cut directly across the glacier (right of this photo), where it was "only" 1.5 miles wide. A sliver of Mount Hayes (elev. 13,832), after which this portion of the Alaska Range is locally known (the "Hayes Range"), is visible just the foothill on the right side of the image.

Our route took us across two terminal moraines, which are jumbled, sloppy, treacherous mixtures of bullet ice, rock, sand, and standing and running water.

Chris and Bobby hike across sponga between the Trident and Hayes Glaciers under an amazing sky resulting from a weather system that was trying desperately to move north over the range's gigantic peaks into the Alaskan Interior. We were blasted by the 50+ mph winds that accompanied this weather system transition.

High temperatures had turned the glacier-fed Hayes "Creek" into a raging Class VI torrent of filthy snow- and ice-melt. Fording or ferrying across in our rafts were not options -- death by drowning was almost inevitable, especially since we didn't have PFD's. We decided to hike upriver and climb into the glacier, thinking (rightly, as it turned out) that we could cross the creek above where it emerged from the bottom of the glacier. The man in the suit was added for scale.

The terminal moraine of glacial lobe that descends down the West Fork of Hayes Creek

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