Day 11: Sunny Solstice

We camped high on the Colville, Alaska's longest clear water river (all the other are murky from glacial silt: the Yukon, the Kuskoquim, the Copper).

The weather was brilliant and the walking began fine.

We had a tail wind and cruised downstream, criss-crossing the river at will.

But then the tussocks started and they were essentially unavoidable.

At least 20 minutes of every hour was spent in soft,wet and lumpy tussocks.

There were also excellent miles of firm dry and relatively level terrain.

But always, eventually, tussocks.

The rest of the animals seemed to enjoy the longest day of the year too.

It's not been dark here, at 69 degrees north, since April.

Nor will it be dark until August.

Still, today marks the day of the Sun's zenith.

I measured the length of my shadow at noon, when the Sun was due south and comapred it to my height.

The two were about equal, making the Sun's angle close to 45 degrees. The highest it will be here all year.

We see caribuo practically always, they are always in view.

Many bands were bedded down during the heat of the day with their sentinal bull and a collection of cows and choclate brown fawns seemingly no bigger than tussocks.

Birds of all sorts distracted us from their nests.

Passerines and ducks exploded from underfoot, revealing clusters of eggs, hidden in the tundra.

Rough legged hawks reeled and screeched. While a ptarmigan plunges alarmingly close with explosive wooshes by our heads.

Ptarmigan males cocked and flew in their still white plumage.

Shorebirds dragged a wing, a convincing ploy.

While jagers looked like slacking students of shorebirds and haphazardly slapped, distracted.

Yes it was a fine and beautiful day and I was walking with a cheerful and strong companion.

The only thing wrong with the day, tussocks.

Tomorrow we'll try for the last line of good walking, Lookout Ridge.

- Roman Dial

Comments

[Robert]

Roman--

Wow, what a lively picture of birds in the wild on the sunniest of days! They sure wanted you off their nesting turf.

To all of us, hearing about birds instead of a bears comes as welcome relief.

(I must say though that you have rendered less momentous my own--until now super cool--backyard experience watching a pair of robins chase a squirrel off their tree.)

Will you be hassled less by tussocks as you get higher up?

Another, final question: Can you now after 11 days, evaluate the performance of your formula that relates weight carried to miles per day? Or, given your survival concerns at this point, is that a dumb thing to ask?

Godspeed to you and Josh.

[Kevin Davidson]

I'm curious why a more Southerly line ( which would be less tussocky but more up and down) isn't followed.

[Elliot Lockwood]

Simply stunning description, thanks for the eloqent detail.