Broosk Range - 21 day hike

Hike Name: Broosk Range - 21 day hike Location: north AK Length: 275km Submitted by: John Date Submitted: 0/0/00 Rating:	more Alaska trail reviews Alaska national parks Alaska state parks
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Description
Impression
This story is about the summer of 2003. It is about a group of 12 hikers with heavy backpacks. It's about the Brooks Range in the north of Alaska, the last trees, about tundra, mountains, rivers, Grizzly, Dallsheep, sun, rain, fog and snow.

Alaska
Alaska, from the 6100 m. high Mt. McKinley to the endless tundra and glaciers larger than Swiss, the mild climate of the subarctic rainforests, from long, darl and cold nights in the winter to the midnightsun on the hot summerdays. From Whales to Moose and bears. All this is Alaska. In this area the size of Western-Europe live only 250.000 people, mainly in Anchorage.


Brooks Range 66 °N
High on the wishslip of 'Arctic destinations' for everyone is the most northern mountain range of Alaska, the Brooks Range. These mountains, from west to east more than 750km and completly above the Arctic Circle, is cut in half by the Dalton Highway, an "unimproved road", and the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline to Phrudoe Bay to the the oilfields near the sea.

Hiking
This experimental hike takes place on both sides of the Brooks Range. In this area we, a group of 12 hikers, started at Chandalar river for a 21 day hike. A small plane 'dropped' us, wih our backpacks. In the first few days we had lots of sun, some trees, quickly discovered that tundra is heavy terrain for hiking, and cooked on woodfires.

We had a food-depot arranged halfway our trekking, near Galbraith lake at the Dalton Highway. This means heavy backpacks, with food and fuel for 11 days. Combined with this terrain and weather makes it a pretty tough trip. We started with sun, but soon the rain, and later on the snow, set in. And also the trees disappeared and we were hiking in endless tundra valley for days. After 21 days we arrived in Anaktuvuk, a small Nunamiut Eskimo settlement, where the small plane picked us up again to bring us back to Fairbanks.

Directions to Hike
Fly in on Chandalar Lake,
hike NW,
Pickup re-supply on
Dalton Highway after 11 days,
Then via Galbraith all the
way to Anaktuvuk in 10 days.

Contact Information
http://alaska.johnvanderploeg.nl/

have fun!

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