The adventure starts like so many others have: packing late into the night to get out of town. We crawl out of bed in the morning, and refreshed by coffee and a bathroom break in Girdwood, join the line of cars with sights set for the Kenai. The Skilak Lake Road is a mess of dusty washboards and some pieces of the boat are probably rattled loose. Launching is a shit show, but we're eventually underway across the stunning lake on a quintessentially gorgeous Alaskan summer day.
Its breathtaking and magical on the sunny lakeshore and hard to leave. There's the usual indecision if the boat is secured or if need to tie a few more backup knots on the line. We pull up our hoods for protection as we begin the buggy hike thru the woods. It's hot and I laugh about the short sleeve that I optimistically packed forgetting about the bloodsucking flying demons.
A couple hours of climbing the quality trail through the forest brings us to the alpine. The winds are ripping, and we tuck into a green dell for shelter while we eat lunch.
From the top of the trail, we consider climbing Peaks 4320 or 4738 but even down here the wind is harsh. So, instead we sidehill towards the pass between the peaks. In front of us we squint at a blonde rock that looks like a sitting bear. Then, the rock moves and begins circling around us. It's a sub-adult grizzly that doesn't seem too concerned or interested, we look back behind us as it flops down in a bush and rolls around lazily.
At first the sidehilling is on smooth benches, but it deteriorates as we climb into the unvegetated scree. On top of the pass we lean into the gusts and peer into our next valley.
It has the classic U-shape of a valley carved by prehistoric flowing ice and the hiking looks promising. Ethan's sharp eyes spot a group of caribou running up-valley. The nimble northern deer are brought into sharp relief as they scamper onto a snowfield and are silhouetted against the wintery white.
The travel isn't as easy as we'd hoped for, and it deteriorates as we travel down valley and scrappy willows grab at our legs from the swampy ground. At Benjamin Creek, there is beautiful blue water tumbling over smooth boulders. It's a picturesque spot.
We climb onto blooming tundra benches on the far side of the creek, where the walking is much better.
Looking west, we watch a tall golden grizzly hunting ground squirrels on the west side of the creek. Even from the distance we can see his boney hips still skinny from a hard winter. We're glad he doesn't notice the easy meal dressed in Gore-Tex.
We make fast time on the efficient benches high above the creek and are soon approaching the small notch to the Twin Lakes valley. We're greeted by a chorus of plump marmots sitting on the rocks like plump mini-Buddha statues. From the pass, we look down into the valley of the lakes guarded by big peaks still draped with slivers of snow.
A short descent to the valley bottom and it's wet again. We follow an ephemeral trail thru sphagnum swamps that seem like they might eat us alive. It's 9 PM when we reach the edge of the lake; we're hungry as we look for an acceptable campsite in the soggy ground and pokey willows.
Nyssa catches a flash of movement across the lake. We sit down to watch a group of caribou bachelors jogging towards us like it's nothing to run thru the uneven, soft, and brushy terrain.
They're curious about us and come close to see if we're friends.
It's after 11 PM by the time we find a flattish camp, cook food, and crawl into out tents.
In the morning we hike towards the Skilak Glacier overlook. We pass a big, flat campsite near the midpoint of the lakes. The walking around the lakes is generally soft, wet, and bushy. It improves as we leave the lakes behind and gain elevation. Again, there are fat and happy marmots everywhere.
The huge winding river of ice rises over the horizon as we approach the pass. It's jaw dropping. 200 yards below us we see the big fuzzy golden blob of a grizzly bear. Then another comes ambling out of the bushes. They're yearlings. We spot their mom about the same time she spots us, and the trio goes running out of sight in the rolling terrain.
The wind is blowing off the glacier and it's chilly, but we sit down for a half hour in the cold breeze to take in the monstrous icefield and eat a snack. I've been looking forward to visiting this view forever and it's everything I hoped it would be.
Refueled but chilled, we move back towards the camp at Twin Lakes. This time we walk higher on the valley wall and stay above the brush; travel is easier here and a few hours later we're back at the tents.
We pack up, eat PB&Js, and retrace our steps along the little trail to the pass that brought us to the Twin Lakes Valley. High on the hillside above us, a big black bear digs for food at the brush line as we hike.
Over the pass, we stay on the bench above Benjamin Creek as we hike north. The hiking is fast and easy here, and we look for the big bear we saw the day before. He's gone for now, likely just out of sight behind some indiscernible feature in the terrain. He's been replaced by a bull caribou who watches us as we watch him.
Adjacent to Peak 4738, we cross Benjamin Creek and climb gradually sloping meadows of wildflowers to a pass that we hope will give us entry back to the Cottonwood Creek drainage.
At the pass, the fog swirls in and out and around us as Nyssa searches for a safe way around the overhanging cornice that doesn't seem to know it's summer. We decide the steep snow, scree, and cliffs at the pass is too dangerous to safely descend, so climb Point 4100 to find a way around.
On top of 4100, we startle a rock ptarmigan hen with her flock of 10 miniscule chicks who tumble after her. We tiptoe away to give the fragile beings their space then start down towards the basin.
The descent is alright - some loose talus mixed with tundra and not too steep. The strip of snow next to us is tempting, but it's steep and we wait before boot skiing.
Off the snow, we follow rolling old moraines carpeted in green towards our campsite on a ridge overlooking Skilak Lake. The angular evening sun is poking under the cloud deck and golden rays are refracting off the lake towards us. It feels like heaven to me.
At the campsite we set up our tents and boil water from a questionable tarn for dinner. The water has a brown tint and I'm careful not to scoop too many swimming beetles into our pot. It tastes funky.
The mosquitoes and flies try to eat us alive while we try to enjoy our dinner. It's kind of funny listening to the clouds of them bouncing off our hoods as we turtle away from the little pests. Across the crick a black bear is also eating dinner in the tundra.
As soon as the last bite is down our throats we sprint for the safety and sanity of our tents. Our camp on ridge may have been picturesque, but it's exposed and we pay for it with winds that batter the tents against our heads all night.
The winds are still howling in the morning which means we get a break from the bugs as we heat our oatmeal and pack the tents for the hike to the trailhead at the lake. We wade thru hemlocks dwarfed by the incessant winds and crash across the creek for the last short climb to the trail.
Back on the Cottonwood Creek Trail, we take one last look at the aquamarine lake before diving into the green jungle below us.
The walk down the maintained trail is quick and after an hour we're stumbling over the slippery lakeside cobbles to the boat.
The sight of the boat brings a sinking feeling to my stomach. At least it's there, I guess, but the back end is swamped, and waves are breaking inside of it. Somehow the battery is dry. We try to bail it out with our cooking pot, but we can't get ahead of the breaking waves. Nyssa has the good idea to use the life jackets as a damn and we get it bailed out.
We throw everything on the boat and push off. The Honda starts right up which is a huge relief, but the boat really struggles to get on step. The back is heavy - one of the air chambers must be full of water. The boat gets on step, so we keep going even though we're riding low. In what seems like the damn center of the lake the main motor dies and won't restart. There's water in the fuel from the swamping.
We run for the kicker and get it setup, but the heavy back end means the kicker is partly submerged. Somehow it still starts, and the little motor pushes us across the lake. It's slow but we make it to the north shore. Its about one mile from the boat launch and we're starting to think that we're home free when the kicker runs out of fuel.
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