I wanted to go skiing this weekend, but had some reservations because of new snowfall. Luckily, I have all sorts of friends who are up to epic activities no matter the weather. After bailing on weekend ski plans, I was able to join a hiking/pack-rafting trip last minute. I quickly gathered up my gear on Friday night, and was even able to secure pack rafting gear for Tyler, so that he could join (Thanks Cheyenne and Galen!).

The plan was to drop a car at the 20 Mile River bridge, carpool into Girdwood, hike up to Berry Pass and set up camp, and then float 20 mile the next day.

We lucked out with weather, and the hike in on Saturday was lovely with blue skies and no precipitation. As we got closer to the pass, two runners who had passed us on the way in ran back by us, and informed us that there was quite a bit of snow up high (they had not made it all the way to the pass). We wandered further up the trail and eventually found ourselves stomping through some light snow following the tracks of a bear. Luckily, the bear prints veered off down the hill, and we continued on up. We reached the pass, but lost the trail. We wandered down a ways and found a flat spot to set up camp. At this point, only 2 of the 5 of us had dry shoes. We scrambled around to set up camp and cook dinner, and then we settled in to keep warm.

I was surprised out how warm I felt at night, and was grateful for the full moon. I had to get up about 5 times during the night to empty my ostomy since I was all out of the maxi size bags (my order was late, and unfortunately arrived while we were gone). However, I was happy to get up to avoid waking up with a leaking ostomy. The full moon also made me less scared of the nearby bear when I got up on my own (for some reason I decided to read all about Grizzly Man before this trip, and was nervous before the trip even began).

(Tyler and I were both wearing our bags yesterday, except his was full of feathers and mine was full of poop. I think they were both keeping us warm though).

Finally, morning arrived and we waited for the sun to warm us as we wandered around camp packing up and making breakfast. We quickly found the trail again, and as we lost elevation we left the snow behind and warmed right up. It took a bit of devil’s club bushwacking, but we found our way to a ‘floatable’ part of the river. A few more portages later and we were finally able to paddle more consistently. The paddle took longer than expected. I think we were nervous we would be stuck out at night, but we made it back to the bridge just as the sun was setting. It was the perfect end to the trip, but I think we were all happy to jump into the warm truck and head back to town.