By Kristen Pope
"Off the bus and into the food chain," the bus driver said as we stepped off the bus and into the Alaskan wilderness. The tour bus passengers looked aghast that we would venture off the bus.
My new boyfriend and I were both 22 years old, seasonal employees at Denali National Park, venturing out for our first brush with the Denali backcountry. We had no fear; we were na¯ve and confident we could handle anything. We would soon be humbled.
During the week, Nate worked in Denali's campgrounds and I worked in the Mercantile. Now, it was our "weekend" of Monday and Tuesday and we had our first backcountry camping permit.
The silence was deafening.
"We're all alone," I said. Growing up in the suburbs in California, help was always a phone call away. Being totally self-reliant was new to me.
Now, the park road was our lifeline - if there was an emergency, anything from a broken leg to a bear mauling, one of us would have to make it to the road to get help. Buses drove down the road about every half hour until six or seven at night. As long as we could crawl to the road before the last bus passed, we would be okay. The buses were all equipped with radios and emergency equipment. But if we needed help after the last bus, we were on our own until morning.
Our first order of business was to hike out far enough where we could camp. The backcountry permit system allowed campers a permit to camp only in their designated backcountry "unit", to prevent overcrowding. We had selected the Toklat River unit, with the glacially braided Toklat and its intertwining ribbons of water winding along a rocky river bed. Park rules required campers be out of sight of the road in order to set up camp; in this particular unit, those rules required fording the Toklat. If we could not ford the river, we would have to turn around and get on a bus out of the park that night.
It was mid-June and the rivers were running high and fast as glacial and snow melt created a raging torrent a few degrees above freezing.
Nate and I had both spent a lot of time outdoors in the lower 48, but our first Alaska backcountry experience was something else entirely. All backpackers must watch a safety video to obtain their permits. The video covered food storage in grizzly country, river crossing techniques, and the fact that it just might be a bad idea to pitch a tent on a game trail next to a blueberry patch in grizzly country. This information would prove invaluable.
We would have to cross the many channels of the Toklat one by one. We surveyed out crossing options; some places were obviously too deep, others were far too swift. I tossed a stone into the silty water in the first channel to judge depth. It hit bottom quickly, indicating the water was fairly shallow.
Getting ready to cross, we unbuckled our packs and loosened the straps so we could get our packs off if we fell and not be dragged down. Nate went first and I followed, clutching his pack. After six or seven steps, we were on the other side of the first channel, confidence boosted. The water was very cold, but it was below the knee and the current did not throw us off balance.
A plunge into the Toklat would make for a cold and miserable night if our gear got wet. The video had warned us to pack with immersion in mind. As we stood amidst the channels, I wondered how waterproof my packing system was.
We spent what seemed like hours walking beside the channels, looking for places to cross. The first crossings were easy, but, as we grew closer to the center of the river, the water grew deeper and the crossings more difficult.
After a few nerve wracking crossings, we were right in the middle by one of the main channels, cold, wet, and fatigued.
We surveyed this channel with trepidation. The current carried away the stones we threw to gauge depth before they hit bottom so we had no idea how deep it was. It was hard to hear each other over the roaring current. We spent 45 minutes looking for a good crossing place, but did not locate one.
We had two options: hurry up and cross the river, or turn around and go home, re-fording all the channels we had just crossed, and racing for the road in hopes of catching the last bus out. Realizing it was more work to turn around and go home than to just cross the river, we decided to press on.
We kept examining the river, hoping a good spot to cross would miraculously appear, but that never happened. Finally, we decided the spot in front of us was the best we would find. The channel was only about fifteen feet across, but it was really moving. We loosened our pack straps a little more this time, the possibility of falling in and needing a quick escape weighing on our minds. We shouted to communicate over the roaring water. Finally, we took our first step. I wished I had paid more attention to the backcountry safety video.
The water rushed at us with incredible ferocity, deeper and faster than we had imagined. The water was almost to my waist and I was having a hard time mustering the strength to propel my legs forward; I was fighting to keep the current from pulling me downstream. I have never been a strong swimmer.
A grizzly could have been five feet away and I would not have noticed; my entire concentration was on putting one foot in front of the other, balancing my feet on the uneven and slippery rocks, forcing my legs through the water, fighting the current, and balancing my pack in a delicate dance.
My world became very small and clear at that moment as I was wholly focused on the act of survival. There was no time for fear, only intense concentration.
Halfway across that channel, the other bank was only a few steps away, but with each step, we plunged deeper and deeper into the raging water.
There was no way to turn around at this point. Physically turning around in the middle of the river in the raging current was unthinkable. The thought of walking backwards towards the bank we came from seemed a treacherous proposition at best.
It was at this point that I realized we had no Plan B. Coming up with a backup plan then, in the middle of the whitewater, was like asking a person in a burning building to compose an opera; not going to happen.
We only had a few steps to go. The rushing glacial melt, barely warm enough to even be water, was pounding us. We were almost to the other side, yet the water was still getting deeper.
Then, a rock came out from under Nate, throwing him off balance. Frantically, for what seemed like an eternity, he flailed his arms, slapping the water to try and regain his equilibrium.
Horrified, I clung to his pack, not having the strength to pull him up, knowing that I might not even have the strength to keep myself up if he fell. After a few harrowing seconds, we were both upright. Mercifully, the next step landed in shallower water- we had found the other bank. Three more steps and we were on the other bank.
Hearts racing, legs numb from the cold, we collapsed, relieved to have made it across, unscathed, packs dry. We were relieved, but nervous about the channels left to cross. Not wanting to re-cross the nightmare channel we had just crossed, we had even more incentive to press forward. We could re-cross that channel in the morning when the glacial melt was slower.
Thankfully, the other crossings were fairly easy. After we had successfully crossed the entire Toklat, we celebrated by firing up the camp stove and finding dry socks.
A few days later, the backcountry office had a new warning up, noting: "All rivers: Treacherous and potentially impassable".
If that sign was up a few days earlier, we would not have attempted to cross the Toklat that June day. We would have let fear and uncertainty get the better of us, and missed out on our adventure.
It is in those moments of fear, when all the distractions are thrown to the wayside and the only thing that counts for anything is the act of survival that the world shrinks to a manageable size. For me, that moment at the Toklat was a defining one; a time to reach past the fear, a time to grow, and a time to learn.
But next time, I'll damn well have a Plan B. And a Plan C, and a Plan D...
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