Wandering through the Alaska Range

Jason and I took off for the mountains south of Delta, part of the eastern Alaska Range on Friday. My guidebook, Outside in the Interior: An Adventure Guide for Central Alaska
describes the hiking in the area as "limited only by your imagination". I'm quickly discovering that this is really the only way to describe most backcountry travel in this state. I think we both expected more of a "trail" here, but after searching for and failing to find an elusive cairn described by the book we just took off in an upward direction.



The whole photo set is up on flickr here.

After about a two or three hundred foot near vertical adventure of literal swimming through alders we managed to get to some more rocky terrain. We continued to gain elevation until the sliding talus gave way to tundra and the colors became spectacular. It's already fall in much of Alaska and the colors were really starting to show here.

The terrain and view at the first little outcropping above the alders.
Once up on the first little bump we got some great views of the Delta River down below.

We still had to trudge through some low bushes and make our way through a couple of short stretches of loose talus, but the hiking was pretty mild. Within a few minutes and a couple zig-zags we were out into the open.

Nice fall colors in the valley.
Looking the other way.

We pretty much just wander uphill.
Jason at the top of our journey. Now its time for some ridge-walking.

We had some choices: hug the main talus slope, down to a small lake, or stay on the ridge and head north. We liked the idea of staying on tundra so we stayed on the ridge.

Really cool view of the mountains, Delta River, and a little alpine lake.
Jason taking some foliage shots with Rainbow Ridge to his back.
Sometimes the red and yellow covers the landscape, other times it just dots it.
More gorgeous scenery

Eventually the ground changed from rocky to two foot deep "sponge" and walking became tiring very fast. We probably walked for more than an hour on the soft stuff and I was getting pretty done with it. We did see ptarmigan, though.



The ptarmigan were noisy and didn't hang around with us there.
Jason on the "trail". I get the feeling people don't come out here much.
Our last overview of the Delta River before heading down into the valley.
We eventually decided to abandon the ridge for the yellow valley below.
The spot where we decided to turn around. I need more time to explore!

A quick descent through thick alders took us to a tree-filled and then rocky valley with a jeep road. We erroneously walked along the road for about three miles in hopes of getting to Canwell Glacier. We didn't make it all the way because it was getting late, rain started to fall, and we had a 7 mile hike back to the car. At the end of the day we had walked around 18 miles and my legs felt pretty trashed, but it was a really great day.

On the drive home we saw lots of moose, a swan, and a freaking spectacular sunset!

Moose down in the valley off the Richardson Highway.
Evening light in the valley.
For thirty minutes the sky became increasingly peach colored. Then we got to the Tanana River and stopped to take pictures of the sunset.
Don't forget to turn around and take pictures of the pink mountains! These are Hess and Deborah.
Goodnight!