The Novarupta trip that wasn't

    

     Cheryl and I had been planning a  hike out to Novarupta since we first got here. Novarupta was a huge Plinian eruption in 1912, dwarfing the Vesuvius one that buried Herculaneum and Pompeii. It created the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, which was the whole reason for making Katmai a park (the fascination the public has with the bears didn't come until about 70 years later). The name Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes comes from the fumaroles that were visible everywhere when the valley was explored after the eruption. 

    We prepared. We picked everyone's brains who had been out there. We had our map ("you don't need one," they told us), and went over our gear about a thousand times. Cheryl had a list (she's much better at planning than I am), and I had dire predictions for our inevitable demise. The weather report called for cold and rain the whole time we'd be out there, but since it was our only three days in a row, we simply got ready to get wet.

    Boy did we. It rained the whole time. Our tent became a swimming pool. I had brought my good camera, but never even took it out of the drybag. 

    The first hurdle was getting out into the Valley. It's a 23 mile hike/bike ride/whatever just to get OUT there, before the Valley hiking even begins. We cheated by tagging along for a spruce grouse survey and got driven out to our starting point by one of the bear techs. I got the impression they were not optimistic about our odds. It probably didn't help that I couldn't stop cracking jokes or theorizing about disgruntled roomies using this as an elaborate ruse to push me into a volcano. Cheryl insisted that was not the plan, but then again, that's what a disgruntled roomie planning to push someone into a volcano would say. Cheryl was also insisting that our pick-up driver after three days, Mike the LE, wouldn't forget us. 

The packs were no joke

    We got dropped off at the Windy Creek Trail head, and started down. The beginning wasn't too bad, because it was downhill. The trouble came with the first creek crossing. It was just a narrow channel, only about three or four steps across, and not deep at all. No problem, right? Well, yours truly took one step and promptly fell, toppled by the giant pack and my own terrible balance. Worse still, I could not get up or stop laughing, and had to unclip my bag, scramble out, and try again. Inauspicious, to say the least. At least I gave Cheryl a good laugh. The second crossing came up before my bruised ego had recovered, and this time was much wider and quite a bit deeper. Also, very cold. I'm not saying I shrieked, but I did loudly inform everyone within a mile-wide radius that the water was distressingly uncomfortable. I managed to stay upright this time, which was an improvement. 

    The next section was difficult. It wasn't strenuous, because it was fairly flat, but it was difficult, because the ground is COVERED in multicolored pumice, and both Cheryl and I are easily distracted by pretty rocks, apparently. Try leaning over to pick up a rock, while wearing a bag that weighs forty percent of what you do. Now do that every few feet for about three miles. 

Way too many interesting rocks. You could get stuck here for ages.

    The worst was the bit where the river gorge cuts right next to the mountains, so you have to go way up, and walk along an increasingly sketchy edge. Cheryl hated the bits where we had to duck through alders, unable to see anything and with branches catching our limbs, hair, and packs. I hated the sandbank over a cliff. The only way to continue was to try to climb along the edge of the sand which jutted out over empty air, and make it up before it collapsed beneath you and you tumbled to your death. I know I work in a camp full of bears and I was hiking to a volcano, but falling off a cliff was not my preferred way to go, so I was less than thrilled about the prospect. Surprisingly, we both made it up, despite the sand literally falling away underneath us at every step. 

    We scouted out three potential campsites, before settling on one right across from where we expected to cross the Lethe River. We had a short break in the rain, and took full advantage, setting up camp and cooking a quick dinner. Day one over. 

    Day two the sun was shining, and it was a gorgeous, warm day. Just kidding. It down-poured. It had rained all night, and our tent was less waterproof than we had hoped, leaving us with a puddle at the bottom of the tent. Luckily, Cheryl and I are both short, so our feet were still dry, and our tent was on the tiniest of inclines, so the water stayed down at one end of the tent. Speaking of feet, in a genius move, Cheryl commandeered our dirty socks from the day before, and used them as sponges to soak up the steadily increasing indoor pool. Gross, but effective.  

    After a quick breakfast, we set off to find a decent river crossing. We found a few potentials, but the torrential rain had made both the depth and the current daunting. After much discussion and debating, we picked the best of some bad options, and waded in. 

 

    Have you ever done that really stupid thing where you stick your hand in a bowl of ice water and see how long you can stand it? That's what it felt like, but we were going to have to go waist deep, and it was a really wide crossing, so we'd be in it for quite a while. We were already soaked, and the rain hadn't let up, and when I was knee-deep in the river and could no longer feel my legs, Cheryl, far more sensible than I, stopped. She pointed out the very obvious danger of being too cold and wet, and not being able to get warm again because we would not ever get dry while it rained on us all day. Worse still, we'd then having to cross back that evening, after the downpour had made that crossing even more treacherous. Discretion being the better part of valor, we turned back, reasoning that we'd follow the river, and if a better crossing point appeared, great, if not, we'd still have a grand adventure wandering the valley.

    So we never did get to Novarupta. Next year we'll try again, and luckily have a better idea of what we're in for, which will make planning easier. 

    It wasn't a total loss though. We wandered for hours, mostly following the river, but frequently deviating to follow a set of caribou tracks, or to look at some interesting rocks, or to climb up or slide down some interesting feature. When you have no set destination, and only a vague sense of time (preferably back to camp before dark) wandering and exploring is much more relaxed. Every time the rain let up for a moment, I tried to get pictures, but you'll have to excuse the poor quality: I couldn't risk my good camera, and my hands were numb anyways.

Bear tracks

Caribou

Wolf

It looks spray painted!

    We made it back to our campsite, and once again tried to bail out the water in the tent, made a hasty dinner when the rain lessened for a brief window, and were treated with a view of caribou running in the distance. They definitely spotted us before we noticed them, and we spent a good ten minutes just staring at each other before they ran off. Then we huddled into the tent and dry clothes. Some toewarmers stuck to the bottom of dry socks and snuggled into sleeping bags completed the recovery. Day two done. 

Caribou!

    All that was left on Day Three was to straggle home. We dismantled camp, repacked, and then tried to strap on our packs without falling over. That accomplished, we trudged, through the rain of course, back to our starting point, where hopefully someone would be waiting to pick us up. On a bit of a ridiculous note, since LE Mike had been saying repeatedly that he was "due to find a body" (hopefully as part of his job in law enforcement, and not because he is a serial killer or anything), I had been joking that maybe the body he'd have to find this year would be one of ours, and if it was, I was determined to die in a very inconvenient place, just to drive him a little bit crazy. Since neither of us had keeled over during our misadventures in the valley, we discussed it, and decided we'd go back up to our pick-up point, and I would pretend to be dead at the side of the road (which worked out well from me, because "playing dead" looks exactly like "taking a nap" which is one of my favorite things), and Cheryl would hide, and try to surprise the LE's when they got out of the patrol truck to see if I was dead. I did question the wisdom of scaring/surprising someone who carries a gun, a taser, AND bear spray, but there we go. 

    We made it to the pick-up point ahead of schedule, and for about the first time in the three days we'd been out there, the sun came out and began to shine. Since our ride wasn't there, we both just flopped down on the ground and sunned like lizards. Despite all of our intentions, that's how the LE's found us when they finally drove up. A grand adventure over all.