Chapter 7 - Death March
Indian Valley Trail, Alaska, 1993
The Anchorage topographical map is spread out before me, its nesting, wavy brown lines showing mountains of Chugach State Park to the east of town. On it I’ve marked popular trails I’ve hiked: Wolverine Peak, Williwaw Lakes, Powerline Pass, O’Malley Peak, Bird Ridge, Rabbit Creek, The Ramp and The Wedge, and routes to peaks called Knoya and Tikishla. Several are within a few miles of where I live, making it easy to set off afoot on Saturday morning, climb the mountains and see what mood they’re in, and return by evening or the next afternoon.
One route I haven’t marked. It starts near sea level at the town of Indian south of Anchorage, proceeds north across the entire map through what appears to be gentle terrain, and ends at 2,200 feet on the road to the Arctic Valley Ski Bowl. This is the Indian Valley Trail. It’s twenty-four miles long and I haven’t been on any of it. I could probably do it in two or three days.
I ask around over the next week or so. Nobody I know has hiked there, though one says he skied it in the winter starting at the north end and heading down. I call the District Ranger. Yes, there’s a trail through there somewhere, she says, but she doesn’t recommend it. It’s muddy, she’s heard, and brushy, and often hard to find. She doesn’t know anyone who’s done it, or anyone who wanted to.
I’m getting more interested now.
Vicki is less enthusiastic. It sounds risky to her, especially going alone. Maybe I should wait till she or the others can go with me. But there is no weekend soon when anyone might join me. I decide to go anyway.
Vicki drives me south to Indian on a Friday morning in July so I can be on my way, all the while making it clear she’s concerned. Something about this adventure bothers her.
It should be mostly easy walking, I assure her. There isn’t much elevation change. I should be at the far end by six tomorrow night. She brings her car to a reluctant halt in the trailhead parking area.
“You be careful,” she says for the umpteenth time as I put on my pack. “If you die in the wilderness doing something foolish, I’ll never speak to you again.” Then she heads back to town.
The hike begins with six miles uphill through thick forest. The trail is overgrown and clearly not traveled very often, but I move steadily along as I push through brush that at times rises over my head. Leaves and branches slapping against me are wet in the early morning. I’ve donned rain gear to keep dry but am heating up inside it.
An hour passes, then two. The trail is never steep, never too difficult to find, but it keeps twisting and turning through the woods in such a way that I can never see what’s ahead. Three hours pass and I’m still climbing, still thrashing through brush. I must be getting somewhere but with forest all around, only the passing time gives any clue about how far I’ve come or how far I have yet to go.
Four hours are gone. The view behind me finally opens up to show the long ravine I’ve ascended. It’s solid green forest all the way to the bottom with no evidence that a trail passes through. Mountains rise on either side of it and vanish into low-hanging clouds. I see still-snowy peaks far distant. There is no wind, no conversation of birds or animals, no sound at all save what I make in my passage.
I continue ahead. Brush around me has thinned and the slope begins to level off. Walking becomes easier. Soon the ravine is left behind and I’m standing in Indian Pass.
I’m above the forest now and can see the route ahead: a path that winds from where I am gently down through a wide meadow of short tufted grass. Mountain slopes patchy with brush rise to either side. Shadowy, cloud-wrapped peaks loom far in the distance. I see the beginnings of a creek a short way ahead.
This is Indian Valley. It’s noon and I’ve come a quarter of the way. I stop for lunch and look at the scene before me, a scene where time means almost nothing.
I’m sitting in a spot where snow piles deep in the winter, where ordinary plants and scrubby brush grow when the land emerges in summer, where winds howl and rains hammer down, where the sun occasionally shines through long or short days of the season, where clouds fill the valley obscuring it from sight, then rise to hover for days and weeks at a time about mountain peaks and ridges, then sometimes vanish altogether. This has gone on century after century to craft this into the peaceful, lovely, and quietly appealing place it is.
Hardly anyone ever comes to see it.
Day after day, year after year, lifetime after lifetime, this place is here, changing so little one decade to the next you’d never see any difference. Wildlife roams about, an occasional hiker passes through, and the scene and the charm of it is unchanged. Life goes on here whether anyone notices or not.
There are thousands of spots in the world like this. That would make them commonplace, I suppose, if everyone knew where they were. But few people do. These places exist unadvertised, independent of observation. That’s what makes finding one and sitting quietly alone there worth the trouble. I spend a whole hour at lunch knowing that if I came here a hundred years ago or a hundred years from now I could sit in the same spot and see the same things.
Underway once again, I follow the path down, bending to the right, then to the left and into the valley. It’s a cool, overcast day, and now without my rain gear, walking is pleasant indeed. The trail leads clearly ahead, bearing toward the valley’s left or west side. I don’t check the map. What to do is obvious: walk the length of the valley, climb the mountain at the end and find the road. I can do it.
The trail leads up onto a flat plateau, gradually fades, then disappears. I go on and soon find another one. I follow that. It vanishes, too. More trails come and go. An hour passes and I conclude there is no real trail here; these are fragments of animal paths I’m following. But I’m well on my way now. The valley is open and its sides are not steep. The east slope looks brushier than where I am and more difficult to travel, especially farther on. I decide to continue the way I’m going.
The creek I noticed earlier becomes more prominent on my right. This is Ship Creek. I’ll follow along it until I climb out of the valley. Soon I cross another creek feeding into it. Brush near the water is becoming denser so I steer my course upslope, seeking out clear terrain at about 2,000 feet elevation. I move steadily along, my focus dead ahead.
A patch of alders blocks the way. Alders grow up to ten feet tall with branches that shoot up, reach out at angles, creep along the ground, and interlace in thick, nearly impenetrable tangles. There’s a way around them farther up so I start climbing.
More alder patches lay ahead but I can see ways around them either upslope or down. By mid-afternoon I’m zigzagging high and low, gaining elevation and losing it, working my way around brush that blocks the way.
The land plunges abruptly into a ravine, a wide trough in the mountainside that carries water from above. It’s a hundred feet across and choked with alders. There’s no way around it: the growth is solid up and down the mountain. I descend into the thicket, spreading the interwoven branches apart, standing on them, ducking under them, pushing them, pulling them, lifting them, slowly forcing my way through. Out the other side, the way is clear for a while. I stop to rest, then resume my meandering route.
I continue up and down the mountainside through the afternoon and cross several more ravines. Some have water running through them with alders growing right across it. At one point a branch I’m holding slips from my hand and slaps me in the face, knocking off my glasses. I grope in the brush around me. My feet slip and slide on the branches and one has hooked my packframe. Soon I’m stuck like a fly in a spider web. I can’t go forward or back and see nothing but blurred branches and leaves.
What am I doing here?
Whose idea was this?
What would Vicki be saying right now?
I work the pack loose. My searching hands find my glasses. I make my way through and stop to recover my composure.
It’s near dinnertime. I’m not hungry so I stand to see what lies ahead. The route is turning worse. The slope is steeper; the brush is thicker. I can see ways around in some places but not in others. I consider going back, thrashing through what I’ve crossed, going down the six miles of brushy trail and hitchhiking home. But I’m more than halfway now. I won’t give up. It can’t be that much worse going forward.
Eight o’clock and I’m still going. Anywhere else I’d be camped by now but this is summer in Alaska; it won’t get dark at all this time of year. And there’s no level spot to pitch a tent. I have to keep going to find one.
Nine o’clock. I’m running on autopilot. My brain has checked out; my body is forging on, boldly going where most people have sense enough not to go.
A message makes it through: I’m hungry. I haven’t eaten since noon. I find a scooped-out hollow in the sidehill and stop to cook a pot of soup. I’m tired and cold but the soup helps me out. I pull out my sleeping bag and crawl into it, curling to fit the small hollow. I soon fall asleep but rain wakes me an hour later. I stuff my bag away and throw on my pack. I have to find a place for the tent.
Alder patches continue. I climb up and down the slanting sidehill to get around them or plunge directly through them when there is no escape. I must have punched through a quarter-mile of alders by now, one tangled branch at a time. Temptation Peak soars to my left, a 5,300-foot mountain with a distinctive jagged crest. Its flank slopes off into a wide expanse of thick brush bordering Ship Creek. It’s too late to go back. My only choice is ahead.
Rain has ended and left the evening cool under dense, gray clouds. I’m making progress. I can see my destination: faint points of light in the ski area up the mountain, across the creek, six or seven miles ahead.
It’s Mount Katahdin, I think.
Save me a seat. I’ll be there tomorrow.
It’s midnight and I’m still going. There’s plenty of light to see. Ever-larger patches of alders drive me higher and higher on the mountain to get around them. The slope is steeper here. I’m walking with one leg up, one leg down, and grew weary of it long ago.
At last I find a place where the slope levels off, a place to stop and sleep and not hike for a while. I roll out the tent and pitch it level side-to-side. It slants downhill too much but this isn’t the time to be particular. There are no trees to hang my pack from so I put its rain cover on and stow it in the alders. Then I crawl into my tent and my bag to sleep.
It’s one-thirty in the morning.
I’ve been hiking seventeen hours.
I awake in a ball at the bottom of my bag, fetched up against the downhill end of the tent. This has happened several times through the night but now it’s time to get up and get going again. I look out of the tent to see what the day has to offer.
I can’t see a thing.
Fog swirls gently around the tent and fills the view on all sides. I could see along the slope yesterday and across to my destination far up the mountain on the other side. Now there’s only fog.
I start laughing. It’s like I’ve awakened in the middle of an “I Love Lucy” episode. The situation has slowly and steadily deteriorated with each new problem being accepted as only slightly worse than the last. Suddenly, seeing it all at once, I wonder how it all could have happened. It’s so ridiculous I can only laugh.
Thoughts of having to be rescued drift though my mind. My emergency kit contains three rocket flares. I could bring in a helicopter if I had to. I dismiss such thoughts at once. Too embarrassing. I’m not hurt, not lost, not in trouble. Save such drama for those who need it. It’s just foggy, for goodness sake. I can find my way out.
But I do need a new tactic. I can’t see far enough ahead to know whether to go upslope or down to get around the alder patches. Nor will I know when to turn down and head for the other side to start climbing to the roadway at the end. The fog will likely clear soon. I could wait, but I’d rather be going and doing, not sitting around.
On the map I see the ridge directly across the creek from me. It rises to 3,000 feet in the low spots, 4,000 at its rounded peaks. There’s a route south to Symphony Lake up there, a place where you can listen to sounds of the surrounding geography: Organ Mountain, Flute Glacier, Calliope Mountain, Cantata Peak, Harp Mountain, Organ Glacier, and Hurdy-gurdy Mountain.
That same trail goes north. I’ve walked it and marked it on the map. It leads to where I’m going ― along the tops of the mountains instead of down here crashing through the brush.
I decide to go for it, to get out of this briar patch and climb to that beckoning ridge. But first I must go more deeply in: down the mountainside I’m on through whatever lies ahead, across Ship Creek, then up through the brush on the other side. I cook breakfast, load my pack, put on rain pants for wet brush, and set on my way.
I’m walking in a break between alder patches fervently hoping it will stay open all the way down. Fog still hangs thickly around me; I can’t see far enough to tell whether I’m avoiding trouble or walking right into it. In time I enter chest-high grass. I part it before me by holding my walking stick like a snowplow.
Then I come to a place where the grass is already parted in a wide V leading generally down the mountain. What appears to be a suddenly convenient walkway sets alarms ringing. A bear has passed through here recently. It might still be nearby. I head away from the V at a sharp angle, not wanting to deal with bears.
I’ve dropped a thousand feet now and the slope begins to level off. I enter a field of cow parsnip, huge white flowers standing nearly to my shoulders. The ground turns soft, then muddy. Soon I’m crossing a marsh, jumping between grassy hummocks and snarled roots of brush. My boots are soaked but that’s not important. What’s important is the rushing, roaring sound slowly growing louder just ahead. Pushing through a final stretch of tall weeds and brush, I come to the bank of Ship Creek. It’s wide, deep, and moving very fast.
I’ve made a big mistake.
I should have crossed this creek long ago, yesterday, back when it was just a tiny stream a foot or so wide. It’s been gathering other streams along its way and now is a pulsing torrent twenty feet across. Without thinking further, I loosen my pack’s waist belt and wade in, boots, rain pants, and all.
I plant my feet firmly on the bottom and dig my walking stick in ahead of me, holding it tightly with both hands. I move one thing at a time ― left foot, right foot, walking stick, putting each down solidly before moving again. Cold water surges into my rain pants from the bottom, filling and ballooning them out like the legs of the Michelin Man. I keep going ... left foot ... right foot ... stick ... moving very slowly.
I’m in thigh-deep and about a third of the way across. Water pushes at my legs from upstream, pulls at them as it rushes by. The walking stick vibrates in my hands like a plucked harp string. The bank is still more than a dozen feet away. I will have to go farther, deeper, and through the strongest part of the current to reach it.
A thought suddenly becomes very clear to me.
If I take one more step, I will die.
Surging water will push my feet out from under me, the pack will drag me down, the current will sweep me along till I’ve drowned. What I’m doing is very dumb. I have to get out of here. I back slowly from the water to the bank where I began.
My rain pants drain gallons of creekwater onto the ground. How foolish to leave them on ― once filled, they presented an even larger obstacle to the current and made the crossing that much more dangerous. I remove them and stuff them in the pack, then head upstream, up Ship Creek as the saying more-or-less goes. I want a place either narrow so I can jump across, or wide, shallow, and moving more slowly so I can safely wade. Another spot seems better but turns out to be just as deep, just as fast, and I retreat from it, too.
I try downstream. I follow the creek around several bends but nothing changes.
My mind ticks through possibilities: build a bridge, build a raft, lasso a branch on the other side and pull myself over. I have a knife, a saw, fifty feet of nylon cord, and anything else I might need.
I’ll get across somehow.
I’m not going back.
The creek gradually widens, then braids into three channels. This is what I’ve been looking for. The first two are shallow and I cross them easily. Enough water flows through them that the third channel is narrow and not so swift. I plunge in, firmly planting left foot, right foot, walking stick, moving one at a time. The current still pushes at me but soon I’m halfway, then I’m reaching out for the bank on the other side. I roll up onto it and lay there as water pours from my pants and boots.
I’m across.
I’m alive.
This is good news.
The fog is clearing. I see an open path between alder patches leading up the slope I must climb to the ridge above. I begin plotting a visual route to it. It’s fifteen hundred feet of elevation to be gained but so what? It will be behind me in a couple hours. Then I’ll be up there looking down here.
And that’s when I find the Indian Valley Trail.
It has been here all the time, here on the east side of Ship Creek, following along it for the eighteen or so miles I’ve walked so far. It’s a muddy, sloppy thing. It has hiker’s footprints in it. A bear has walked along it leaving large tracks with grabbing claws. I would have found it long ago had I crossed the creek yesterday, back at the very start. Abandoning the climb to the ridgetop, I turn north to follow the newfound trail.
It’s a path of continuous mud. My boots are as wet as they’ll ever get so I slog through the ooze without concern. Footprints from the bear and another hiker continue along it. I’d much prefer that the bear was headed away from me, not the same way I’m going. I move quickly. There’s nothing to see here. There’s only the trail, the surrounding brush, and the sound of the rushing water I’ll remember for a long time.
The trail eventually departs the creek and heads uphill. Mud continues some distance, then the footway dries out and I’m walking on hard ground again. I come to a road after several hours of climbing. It’s not the road I want but it will likely lead me there, but which way? I turn left and am led gradually downhill. It feels wrong. I turn around and return to the junction, then follow gradually uphill.
An hour passes. I have no idea where I am, only a general sense that I’m headed the right direction. I could figure it out with map and compass but why get scientific now? I’d rather keep plunging on.
Soon the road turns abruptly left and leads steeply up an embankment. I climb up it to a parking lot. I’m exactly at the spot I’d planned to be, exactly where I asked Vicki to pick me up. But that’s at six o’clock. It’s two in the afternoon.
I drop my pack and change into whatever dry clothes I have remaining. After that comes lunch. Then it’s time to think about what’s happened over the last day and a half. I’ll surely be grilled on the subject when she gets here; I may as well think it through now.
I rate the adventure as one of the most pointless I’ve ever been on. True, I got from A to B (my specialty), but I made mistakes that could have been more costly than they were.
The first was coming here in the first place. I like to walk along the tops of things. Why did I think mucking though a valley would be fun?
Next was not crossing Ship Creek at the very beginning. Anyone knows that creeks grow in size and volume as they go. If you’re going to cross at some point, do so while you still can.
The biggest error was not using my own map. Planning the hike, I clearly drew the trail along the creek’s east side. Then I took the west side. The logic of the situation should have been obvious. I should have known I was doing it wrong, especially when the trails I followed kept disappearing. The clues were there. I ignored them. I’m lucky I got here at all.
This is all a good argument for not hiking alone. Had there been two of us, had there been two heads working each problem, we would have come up with better answers and not made such silly mistakes. Had there been two of us, we probably would have gone somewhere else.
Three hours remain till Vicki gets here. I’m already tired of waiting. There’s traffic on Arctic Valley Road to and from several popular spots to hike or park for a view of Anchorage. I could hitchhike back to town. Get to a phone, maybe; call and tell her I finished early. Not go into too much detail.
I put on my pack and walk out to the road.
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