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Anchorage, Alaska
USA
1340 Posts |
Posted - 08/04/2007 : 11:40 AM
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The Pinnell Mountain Trail is a 45km "ridgewalk" in the subarctic tundra highlands about 140km northeast of Fairbanks, Alaska. I say "ridgewalk" because the geography is just rolling hills and not mountains - elevations vary from 3000' to 5000' - but the route is deceivingly tough because you climb up and over almost every hill in your path! Much like Tombstone on the Yukon side, you're above treeline due to altitude, but you're also very close to the continental treeline as well.
The trail roughly parallels the Steese Highway between Fairbanks and Circle, with trailheads about 35km apart, so we had to get a ride back to our starting point upon arriving late friday evening.
Typical Alaska road sign... people can't resist blasting holes in them
Since we got started around 11pm, we decided to set up camp only a few hundred yards from the road. The distinction between day and night up here is still faint... you'd never guess it was close to midnight.
The next morning we continued up the long, broad ridgelines, which resembled the back of a brontosaurus. It didn't take long for worse weather to blow in behind us.
   
That was the last we saw of the road till monday.
The only animals we saw other than birds, were marmots...
  
Thunderclouds moved in like a brick wall and soon we were "enjoying" some of the worst weather I've seen hiking in 3 years! It was less like rain and more like standing under someone draining a commercial swimming pool on us. It proceeded for about 3 hours. The fog made it seem slightly more cool.
  
  
After we crested Table Mountain (the first high point) the weather subsided - for a while. You could see incredibly vast expanses of tundra to the north.
  
The first of two emergency shelters, at mile 10, was reached in mid-afternoon. We laid our stuff out to dry and made hot chocolate, then proceeded to nap a couple hours there as more rain came and went. The water catchment systems on these huts are a bonus, considering there was no water to filter except the occasional standing water in swampy lowlands.
  
The weather continued to improve as we marched on northward beyond the cabin, into broad expanses of much flatter tundra country. The trail was marked by posts and the occasional cairn.
  
  
We hiked toward Swamp Saddle, the lowest point on the route, but set up camp before reaching it. Like the Richardson Mountains of the Yukon... topography so smooth it resembles mathematical surfaces produced on a graphing calculator.
  
 
We set up camp at 10pm in a flat open expanse with great views all around. We hadn't come across a soul out there, we had the place to ourselves. Where it's not wet, you can pretty much hike the tundra barefoot - it's like a mattress - you don't even need a thermarest. Just a have find a non-bumpy spot first.
  
On the morning of day three, we crossed swamp saddle. The route was boardwalked for at least a mile.
  
Are those what they call "cloudberries"? Somehow I think so. I tested one, and it was good! Tasted like "bumbleberry" as in bumbleberry pies from Safeway.
Kari and I made breakfast on the ridgeline on the far side, and watched helplessly as more rain moved in.
  
The trail continued to ascend elevation, with Stonehenge-like rock outcrops strewn about randomly, and a sense of green vastness that made me think of Scotland and Ireland (which I've only seen in pictures).
  
 
In the distance, the second emergency shelter approached. Again, we napped there and had hot chocolate as it rained sporadically outside.
 
Beyond the shelter we ascended to the highest point along the route - Pinnell Mountain, at 4920'. The views from top were amazing, all 360 degrees.
  
  
  
Beyond Pinnell Mountain was a broad saddle and then the other high point, Porcupine Dome, which fortunately we didn't have to climb all the way.
  
Shadows were growing long after we rounded Porcupine Dome, so we climbed to the next high point and set up camp for the night, with 7km remaining to go in the overall route.
  
It cooled off quite quick and winds picked up, as we were quite high, but the skies remained clear. Kari was cold, and I was in heaven! We were treated to a nice 11:30pm sunset atop the ridge.
   
It was here that I met up with the only other people we saw the entire time; a group of four, ill-prepared, jeans-and-sneakers clad 18 year olds on their way in for a late night hike to the shelter.
Our final day was easy; under clear skies we descended the rolling ridgeline the final 6-7 km back out to the road. In our final couple kms, we stopped to make our breakfast, blueberry pancakes. Trail maintenance were beginning the slow process of replacing the timber boardwalk with hard perforated plastic matting... so heli-portable sacks of the stuff were sitting around.
  
The far trailhead - always a welcome sight!
Near the trailhead there were these funny devices that looked like garage door opener lasers. I assume they counted hikers.
Next we drove downhill past hillsides awash in fireweed, to the seemingly ghost towns of Central and Circle Hot Springs, both of which gave me that creepy feeling of a village so far out into nowhere that you wonder what possesses people to live there. Circle Hot Springs has been shut down for five years now. Supposedly it's haunted.
 
Followed by a red-eye 8 hour drive back to Anchorage! Nothing like returning to work on 5 hours' sleep! |
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Anchorage, AK
USA
2 Posts |
Posted - 08/04/2007 : 12:27 PM
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The vast hills of fireweed are quite beautiful and impressive. They are the aftermath of wildfires from 2004.
I am suprised at some of Garnet's descriptions, he doesn't mention "The Great Nothing" or what reallywent on at the second shelter.
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Vancouver, BC
Canada
718 Posts |
Posted - 08/04/2007 : 12:40 PM
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Thanks for a great report northernalberta. Interesting aspect. Keep them coming.
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Popkum, BC
Canada
5887 Posts |
Posted - 08/04/2007 : 4:08 PM
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Great report northernalberta, I really like fireweed too and its a spectacular show on Mt. Cheam the end of August.
Happy trails,
Lynn
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Richmond, BC
Canada
298 Posts |
Posted - 08/05/2007 : 01:23 AM
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| Fantastic scenery... I love it! Nice pics. |
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Chwk, BC
Canada
457 Posts |
Posted - 08/05/2007 : 07:47 AM
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| Loved the TR. It is nice to see pictures from places far from here. |
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Hope, BC
Canada
7100 Posts |
Posted - 08/04/2012 : 01:30 AM
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| Nice report 5 years ago to the day. It looks like a place you can watch your dog run away into the mountains for days from your seat . Great shots of the landscape. |
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Pinnell Mountain Trail, July 27-30
