Trial and error,
Failure and terror,
The truth of the matter at hand.
Death in a whisper
Is so much to weather
For the life of a
Wife and her man.

Costa Rica
December 2014

Pseudo-Haiku Notebook

We went on a bird-watching centered vacation last Spring Break (2017) in Arizona, following a route mapped out for us by Brad Meiklejohn.

We were struck by all the Border Guards and other birders we saw on our trip, hence the focus.

Redstarts, midway down
Cool canyons, stop their songs when
Dogs guard our borders.
--March 15, Ramsey Canyon


Birders and border
Guards chase wary immigrants
Crossing dusty roads.
--March 16, Border grasslands


Where migrants pass
"David Roberts, is that you?"
Nancy breaks her arm.
--March 17, Sycamore Canyon, AZ-Sonora border

The Firn Line

Many years—maybe like two decades ago in the 1990s—Anchorage entrepreneur, Bob Kaufman, started his Alaska Channel and began tinkering with video.

He and I once discussed how great it would be to document all the amazing people we knew back then. Unrelated to our musings, something like an audio archive sprang up at University of Alaska Fairbanks  as “Project  Jukebox”.

That UAF project is great, but when I look at the photos of the people they’ve interviewed I see very few of the faces of those who I know (exceptions are Andrew Embick, Art Davidson, Paul Dinkewalter, Doug Geeting, Dave Johnston, Knut Kielland, Ian McRae, Ralph Tingey and others from the Denali Mountaineering project) but it’s all very NPS and UAF centric and seems more archival that anything (although archival is still important!).

Enter Evan Phillips’ entertaining podcast “The Firn Line”. 

This is the one I like more. It's about people I know and admire and with Evan's great music, too.

There are (so far) 18 episodes in the First Season, but the stories and production quality are like audio frosting on a story-telling/philosophizing cake and it's Evan’s music that really makes The Firn Line worth listening to. So far he's interviewed mountaineers including Carl Tobin, Brad Meiklejohn, Luc Mehl, ClintHelander, Katie Strong, Dusty Eroh, Charlie Sassara, Sam Johnson, Marc Westman, Vern Tejas, and most recently Jack Tackle.

The Firn Line is really worth our support. Unlike the UAF Jukebox sponsored by State and Federal dollars, The Firn Line is supported by people like you and me and done by a member of our community.

Have a listen to the Firn Line and you’ll see what I mean. And if we all sign up as patrons on Patreon we can be sure to get a Season 2 with more great interviews and music.

Now, look, full disclosure: I did a Firn Line interview with Evan last Saturday, live at the Alaska Rock Gym and greatly enjoyed it. 

Peggy said it was like I got my own, personal version of “Artic Entries”, but instead of 7 minutes and one story I got 70 minutes and maybe a dozen—and six of those were about Chuck Comstock alone!

So, have a listen to the Firn Line and then sign up as a subscribing patron to keep Evan going and to get adventurers who have been too irreverent for UAF and the NPS documented on a most entertaining venue.

Kanger-roo

Earlier this month I flew from Anchorage to Keflavik, Iceland and then on to Nuuk, Greenland.

I'd never been to either country but always wanted to go, of course. Many of you readers have likely been to both on much longer, gnarlier, or more in-depth or important trips, so please be patient with my rather shallow visits to each.

Greenland has always been too far for me, dollar-wise, and Iceland never seemed wild enough to warrant recreational/travel trips. But for like $800 I could get to Iceland and back from ANC. Greenland cost a bit more, maybe another $1000 from Keflavik.

I went there for the 7th annual Polar and Arctic Microbe Conference. There were about 50 people at the conference and from all over the world. Many Euros and UK-folk, a few Americans, even some Asians and a colorful character named Craig from New Zealand.

Ganey was presenting his recently completed masters thesis. We re-worked it and wrote a new paper we had published this week on line. It got some press that I keep telling Ganey about. He says maybe I should just get a Twitter account.

Maybe I should, but probably I won't, but I have been  psyched to have the recognition for our work.

Why? Well, first Ganey did a great job hiking up and down to the Harding Icefield and skiing in with APU ski-team members like every couple weeks a few summers back to manipulate snow algae and measure melt. He solved all kinds of problems and collected all kinds of data and used R and GIS and GPS and spectrometers and microscopes and satellite data to produce a super-neat, comprehensive project.

And second, the idea is about how red-snow algae melt snow and I have had the idea for many years, and always got pushback-smirks from earth scientists about the idea--which is common worldwide I learned at the conference from other biologists with the same idea.

So getting it published in Nature Geoscience gives the idea some credibility and maybe gives me some future traction in getting funding to continue doing glacier ecology with APU students, something I have been doing for about fifteen years now, including ice-worms and bacteria as well as red-snow algae.

So this Greenland conference was good excuse to go to Greenland and I brought my packraft, too, of course. Tom Diegle says I should write a book with the title "My Carry-on is a Packraft."

I overnighted in Iceland and rented a car for two days and drove around to see the Geyser Basin and the nearest super cool gigantic waterfall.

It felt like Europe--both the birds and the plants are European, even though Greenland is closer than Europe--plopped down on a big ole' Aleutian Island or like a Scandanavian version of New Zealand set in the North Atlantic instead of South Pacific. There were neat looking sheep and little horses and cows and the animals always hunkered together like they must in mid winter, staying warm, surviving gales.

At first I wasn't too thrilled about the place, but taking the car back to the airport I drove along the south coast and thought, "wow, what a cool place."

I want to go back with Peggy and hike tundra and float glacier rivers without bears, especially after about messing my pants in June when a burly grizz charged within thirty feet of me before turning when I threw a boulder at it to stop it.

The people in Iceland spoke English and had real Alaskan-like independence. There are more people in Anchorage than the whole country, but it was WAAYYY to expensive for me. I bought food to take to Greenland, thinking Greenland would be like the bush and Iceland like Anchorage, but no. I think food prices were actuall cheaper in Greenland's Nuuk.

The flight to Nuuk was three hours long in a little two engine Dash-8. I wanted at least four engines, since we were crossing hours of ocean and ice.

I'd intended to go farther north from Nuuk to do a little trip by Kangersuluuaq from the Greenland Ice Sheet to the ocean, but found out it'd cost me $1,000 more! So I balked.

Besides Nuuk and it surroundings were simply amazing.

Nuuk is the biggest city in Greenland. It has like half (so about 17,000 people) of countries 35,000 people. It sits on a wee craggy peninsula at the tip of a 100-mile peninsula in a deep complex of fiords on the west coast of Greenland.

It's about the same latitude as Fairbanks and Nome. It feels like Nome climate with Arrigetch Peaks on growth hormones set in Glacier Bay, if you'll indulge me in some mixed geographic Alaskana metaphors.

You can walk from one end of the road system to the other in like an hour. It has a wonderful sheltered port that's the central hub for shipping and ferries that go up and down the southern half of Greenland's west coast, from Disko Bay south really.

I only visited Nuuk and loved it's colorful houses and even the big appartment buildings. Lonely Planet online pans the place, but I was utterly fascinated. Utterly!

Most of the people I saw as I walked the streets in, by turns, windy drizzle or crisp blue sunshine, were Greenlandic People. They don't call themselves Inuit or Innupiaq. They said they were Greenlandic People and even the high school kids I met spoke Greenlandic, Danish, and English. They were beautiful people and I loved the feel of northern Alaska in a European urban-like environment. Easily the neatest place I went in the last 18 months of my extended sabbatical.

Ganey and I ate at a Thai restaurant where you could have whale sushi made from narwhal. I bougth musk-ox sausage I took on my "Kanger-roo Tour".

No, that's no typo (I know how to spell kangaroo -- the coolest animal I saw this sabbatical -- maybe the second after the Peruvian jaguar on the banks of Madre de Dios River -- was a tree kangaroo sliding down a tree-fern bole like a fireman on alarm at the station).

"Kanger" is Greenlandic for fjord and paddling a packraft with the winds and tides then hiking over the intervening passes between fjords in Greenland--fjord hopping--is a kanger-roo tour.

There are two hut to hut peninsula walks that I know of. One on Nuuk's peninsula from Nuuk to Kapisillit and the other between Kangersuluuaq and Sisimiut (which you can get to by ferry from Nuuk). Boats go to Kapisillit on thursday.

I only had 4 days left before the conference after spending 3 writing a paper in a wonderful hostel. I found an outdoor store in Nuuk that sold topo maps at my favorite scale (1:250,000) and fuel although I had an alcohol stove and just bought the Danish/Greenland version of Heet.

I hiked across town, over a mountain, and stayed in a couple huts, even camped out with a white Arctic fox visiting my mid in the full moon night. Paddled up one fiord with a tail wind on an incoming tide and out another with a down-fjord wind on an outgoing tide.

Saw an Ivory gull in the fjord with icebergs and a white gyrfalcon soaring above Nuuk. Watched a peregrine chase a huge white-tailed eagle and followed eiders who dove under the water en mass. The eagle was huge, bigger than bald or golden eagles with deep wings and a short broad tail.

Ravens were everywhere. A group of eight young ones followed me along in my boat. I watched one carrying a sea urchin in its bill, then drop it to break and eat it, solving the mystery of how all the sea urchin shells had got up on the tundra.

Like Iceland, there're no grizzly bears, or bears of any kind deep in the fjords of the south. I think the polar bears are out on the ocean coast, near ice mostly, hunting seals. The reindeer are smaller than our caribou and rarer, small herds, and sparse.

Greenland in September felt a bit emptier than Alaska's arctic with its blueberries, growing on acidic granite derived soil, not as sweet.

But I am saving my money to go back. And I am hoping that Alpacka puts together a pointy-bowed, long and skinny, zipper boat with a whitewater deck -- maybe even call it the "Kanger-roo"?

So I can go back and paddle into the wind and surf like a Greenlandic Person in a skin boat qayak.

InReach Fail?

Many of us carry and use InReach communication devices for safety and texting home or to people with other devices. They're expensive and even more so if they set off a false alarm for SOS.

Read the following and beware!

"Hey friends,

I'm writing to let you know I've had a problem with my Delorme inReach SE that has caused me and my parents a major scare and a large headache and put 8 Russian rescuers in a dangerous helicopter for no reason.  I'm hoping you might be able to help me out by testing the SOS feature on your own inReach SE and/or by passing this message on to others you know who use these devices and seeing what happens.  Here is the story in brief:

Earlier this summer, a friend and I were on an 18-day wilderness expedition in Kamchatka, Russia.  We were carrying an inReach as per our permit with the Russian government to travel independently without a guide.  On day 2, approximately 40 km from the main road where we were dropped off, a helicopter showed up and landed at our location.  After the initial confusion and scare--the second guy out was chambering a round in his rifle, thinking we might have had a bad bear encounter--we figured out that the SOS button on our inReach had been activated, though the lock switch was fully engaged.  In the meantime, my parents, to whom the device was registered, received a call from Delorme that no parent wants to hear--that their son had triggered a rescue.  The dispatcher surmised that this was likely a mistaken SOS signal, and indicated that this was not an isolated incident and that she had seen mistakenly triggered SOS signals in the past.  The Russian rescue team left, and we continued on our journey.  We assumed that a nearly impossible combination of buttons had been pushed on the device to turn it on and activate an SOS from the menu options.  We packed the device in a pot with a cut off bottle sleeve to protect from any accidental button pushes for the rest of the trip (which went smoothly and was delightful).  We were billed 4,400 US dollars for the rescue.

Upon returning to the US, we learned that the problem had not been a series of button pushes to turn the device on and activate the SOS.  Rather, with NORMAL pressure on the SOS button for 5-10 seconds, the SOS would trigger, WITH the lock switch FULLY engaged.  This was repeatable, and would happen every time the SOS was held.  I contacted Garmin/Delorme about this problem and requested reimbursement for the rescue cost, and received this reply:

"Hello NATHAN,

Unfortunately, we cannot offer reimbursement for the false SOS on the device at this time. This is stated within section 10 (Limitation of Liability) of our inReach Terms and Conditions found within the link below. We can certainly work with you in getting you into a new replacement if you choose, however with force and some objects, even when the lock is snapped in, can trigger in SOS. It would be a good idea to put the device separate area to ensure other objects do not bump into the device causing the SOS to be triggered. 

https://files.delorme.com/support/inreachwebdocs/TC_inReach_Consumer_Global.pdf"

Learning that the "lock" switch was a complete misnomer, I replied that their response was "unacceptable" and that I believed that in addition to Delorme reimbursing me the cost of the helicopter, they needed to alert their current subscribers to this issue and post a warning on their website.  I was bumped to a higher level in the management team who requested I send in the device to "fully review your inReach in-house".  I did so, and in the meantime was able to test another inReach SE.  This device also triggered an SOS while the lock switch was fully engaged.  After several weeks, I finally received this reply to my response:

"Hello Nathan

Thank you for sending in the device and I am sorry you to hear about your experience. 

After careful investigation, both myself and a one of the Garmin hardware engineers who designed the device determined it was not defective. The inReach required significant force to bypass the SOS slide and also the Lock Screen setting was turned on. 

At this point the device appears to be working as designed, so we would not be in a position to provide you with any compensation as a result of this situation. 

Please let me know the IMEI number of the replacement unit we sent you and I will go ahead and transfer the service plan over to the new device. Also let me know of any questions you may have. 

Regards,"

This response is also unacceptable to me for many reasons.  At this point, I believe the inReach SE is posing a risk to wilderness travelers and to rescue service personnel and I am unwilling to drop the issue.  The money is besides the point and I do not think Delorme realizes the level of unnecessary human risk that is inherent in having a "lock" switch that does not function as stated.  I have since asked another friend to test his inReach SE, and he has also found that the SOS triggers easily with the lock switch engaged.  This is 3 for 3, and I'm realizing that this design flaw is in no way unique to my case.

I'm asking that you please test the SOS button on your inReach with the lock switch fully locked.  If you are also able to trigger an SOS, could you please take a video of your doing so and send it my way?  I am going to write to Delorme one last time, hoping they will make the situation right and communicate the need for a case or care in packing the inReach to their customers.  I would like to let them know that I am not alone with this issue.  I have no wish to hire a attorney, but if Delorme does not respond to my final plea, I will do so.

I've included the following attachments: 2 videos of 2 different devices triggering the SOS with lock engaged, a full transcript of my email correspondence with Delorme, a photo of the helicopter rescue, a translation of the memo from Russia's national rescue service requesting we pay for the helicopter time, and finally, the inReach Terms and Conditions PDF, which includes section 10 (Limitation of Liability).

Thank you for your help and for passing this message on.  I will update you on any new developments.

Nathan Shoutis"

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5PbINrDaRF_LXFtY0pISFhkekU/view

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5PbINrDaRF_MjV5aDJmS0hEbFk/view

Arctic Alaska Packrafting Gear Suggestions: an Annotated Photo-list

Packrafting’s roots reach deep into wild, landscape crossings of northern Alaska.

Landscape crossings are what I started over thirty-five years ago as a young punk in his twenties and it’s where I have returned as a 50-something old curmudgeon.

Northern Alaska is where Peggy and I packrafted across the Gates of the Arctic National Park in 1986 from the Haul Road and down the upper Noatak, perhaps the first month-long trip to use one.

It’s where Thor Tingey decided he needed a boat with “bigger tubes” and by asking his mom Sheri to make one, that Alpacka was launched after he and a group of college friends made a 600 mile Brooks Range traverse using Sevylors and Curtis Design boats.

Since then, I’ve run some whitewater, roadside and wilderness, and pioneered the bike-n-boat approach of packrafts con bicycles back in the 1980s. 

I’ve played at the beach, gone hunting, included my kids, climbed mountains and rafted out. 

Some of those early trips I described in my book Packrafting! which is down to the last 100 copies now.

But it’s the long trips linking watersheds with mountain passes and long, ridge-paralleling walks that satisfy me most.

This spring I planned a nearly 300-mile long, four watershed trip across Yukon, Canada’s Ivvavik National Park and Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

I invited  Brad Meiklejohn to take a vacation from his dam-removal project that’s rehabilitating an Alaskan salmon stream and a new paddling partner, Tom Diegel.  Mike Curiak, introduced the three of us during a packrafting trip to Idaho in April when we ran the Jarbidge and Bruneau at 1900 cfs on April 20 when we ran the latter's Five Mile Rapid, the longest section of Class III I've ever run. It was great -- one of the best sections of river anywhere, not really difficult, but loooong. It'd be worth to hike the trail on the west side and run twice, since it's sort of near the take-out. Following Mike down the Wild Burro without a scout was exciting too!

Anyway I have enjoyed my university sabbatical doing five-day to three-week trips each month for the last year, sort of my last gasp at adventuring, I think. 

I am no Dick Griffith and so doubt I'll have a post-retirement boom in adventuring like Dick did: an outlaw run of the Grand Canyon at sixty in his open Sharpa packraft. Completing a four or five thousand mile traverse of the Northwest Passage in his sixties and seventies with annual month-long solo ski trips. Finishing maybe 15 or more Wilderness Classics after his 56th birthday. I am 56 now and seeing an end to this stuff for me.

Luckily there are ever more amazing trips done with and without packrafts by others all around the world.

Over the last year I have been fortunate to have Brad around to make about half of my monthly trips, everything from season openers on little-known whitewater wilderness runs in the Lower 48 like the Chetco and Jarbidge-Bruneau, to Nordic ice-skating road-trips across southcentral Alaska from Weiner Lake to Teslin Lake and north to Harding Lake, even from Sutton to Palmer on the Matanuska River ("D+ quality ice but A+ adventure!"). 

He’s about the only guy I know who’s my age and likes to do the same sort of things but better and faster than me.

Especially walking wilderness landscapes and running wilderness rivers.

The route I came up with  for our June 2017 trip--“Go Firther, Kongo!"—started with a flight in.

I’m not too keen on flying-in. It robs a little of wilderness’ adventure for me, but because Brad and Tom had other obligations and only about two weeks to make the trip we flew in with Yukon Air to near the Alaska-Yukon border on Joe Creek.

From Joe Creek we’d run the Firth, a legendary Yukon Arctic whitewater river to the edge of the mountains, then walk four days back to Alaska, crossing the crest of the British Mountains section of the Brooks Range. Then we’d float the Whale Mountain tributary of the Kongakut River (and a few miles of the Kongakut) and pick up a food drop.

We’d follow caribou trails of the enormous Porcupine Caribou Herd through a series of valleys linked by low passes to the Egakserak River, which we floated over two days to a long ridgeline that borders the foothills and overlooks the coastal plain, leading to our final float, the Jago River. The Jago offers up ten or fifteen miles of non-stop boogey water up to Class III as it cuts through the foothills to spill onto the coastal plane.

The lower Jago leads to the Arctic Ocean, where we let the Polar Easterly winds blow us across a series of lagoons to the Innupiaq village of Kaktovik on Barter Island where we flew back to Fairbanks and Anchorage.

In all we’d paddle 175 and walk 120 miles. In a lifetime of Alaskan adventures, it was among the best packrafting routes of all, with a week spent paddling and a week spent walking, but split into nine alternating legs.

I already posted on that trip. Here I’d like to share my gear inventory. Maybe it’ll help some others out there for planning their Arctic Alaska trip.

 Let’s start with the pack. 

It needed to carry ten days of food, clothing and gear for camping in the Arctic, and a complete cold and whitewater packrafting kit.

 HMG 3400 Southwest pack