17.05. Camp VI Tundra 22:45 750 m - We are somewhere between McGonagall Pass and Wonderlake. After leaving our campsite this morning, we made pretty good progress at first. We then entered a huge glacier break, with several small difficulties, including extreme rockfall, which we then bypassed. The Muldrow Glacier stretches on forever and if it were a bit warmer, you'd probably sink up to your knees in silt. You probably wouldn't be able to get back and forth. We reached the McGonagall Pass at around 18:00. The descent from the pass was brilliant. It saved us two hours of walking. Hiking through the tundra with our light backpacks and skis on the back is a special experience. I'm really glad we didn't do the whole thing in the other direction, because we wouldn't have got very far with our equipment. Swamp, dense bush, etc. Now, for the first time in a long time, we are lying in the tent without snow, without ice, without storms, without cold. We've hung the food up in a tree in case we get a visit from a bear. Now we enjoy the evening atmosphere with the tent open.
18.05. Camp VI Tundra 750 m
80 km of tundra lie ahead of us. Breakfast, barefoot for the first time. Sunshine and warm, no icing in the tent and no wind at breakfast - brilliant. Mood report brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Lots of wind at the top, probably rather stormy again for walking in the mountains, a fine breeze down here. A few mosses with young animals creeping around the tent, a few mosquitoes and a few kilometers ahead of us. A Snickers for breakfast and some juice, then we set off again.
After quite a long day, we reached the national park road in the afternoon. But it actually started quite differently: in the morning, we had a leisurely breakfast in the beautiful sunshine, dismantled the equipment and set off. Pretty soon we came to a large area of ice. Somewhere along the way, we lost the official route. Although I'm not sure whether the official route would have been better. We then continued across four rivers. The first river was still a pleasant cool down, across the tundra, up and down - a highland humpback track until we reached the last hill and saw Wonderlake for the first time. What we saw from there was an indefinable gray strip of something.... whether it was a deep river, a swamp, a frozen stream or a dried-up riverbed, we didn't know at the time. But with this vast landscape, it was very difficult to estimate the distances and our map was over. We only knew that we were heading north to Wonderlake. We made pretty good progress after all. The river wasn't too bad as it was an almost dry riverbed. But you can imagine what it looks like when there's really a lot of meltwater there... We had knee-deep water at most.
Luckily, we soon reached a proper tourist trail for the last stretch through the forest to the lake. We finally reached the road and checked where we were. We quickly found out that there wasn't actually anyone there and that the park is virtually deserted out of season. We also discovered that the airstrip to fly out was still 30 km away. After several phone calls to Talkeetna Air, we decided to walk the remaining 30 km to the airstrip.
Just before we set off, a van turned up with two Americans and a Swiss guy inside and they took us the 90 miles out of the national park, which was a great experience as the guys stopped at every animal: There was a stop at every bird, duck or goose, lynx, moose, bear, mountaingods, caribou or moss. The landscape is magnificent and it was a shame that we didn't have more time to enjoy it. So now we are back in the consumer society. One overweight person after another comes in and out. And it's getting light again, it's 3 o'clock in the morning, it was completely light until 00 o'clock and now it's getting light again. It doesn't really get dark anymore. You don't need lamps. In any case, we survived the trip relatively well.
We have now each drunk three liters of something. From apple juice to cola, to banana milk etc. and have eaten around 47 Subway sandwiches...
Text & Photos: Stephan Keck & Günter Burgsteiner
