Day 59
I awoke very sluggishly and painfully from last night’s run to the Bonanza Mine bunkhouse. Eventually, Liv and I hobbled to the lodge to have breakfast with the rest of the Cyr contingency before heading out towards the Erie Mine bunkhouse.
The hike along the Root Glacier Trail brought back memories from
2006 until we arrived at Bonanza Cre
ek. The flooding in November, 2006 had washed out the old bridge and most of the trees, changing the view considerably from how I remembered it. At Jumbo Creek everything had changed. The flooding had scoured out the existing gorge to about a 100’ width and roughly 25’ depth. The trees from 2006 were all washed away with the bridge and the trail crossing has moved well up the creek. Regardless of the destruction, we filled out bottles in the creek and steadily moved up the trail.
Past Amazon Creek (also cleared out from the flooding) we met a very attractive black bear feasting on soapberries. He had a very tubular shape and wasn’t at all concerned by our presence, only looking up twice to make sure we didn’t take any of his snacks. Further on, I spotted a second black bear making his way up the moraine. He gave us a few glances, but being a hundred feet below us didn’t pose any threat. When the bear stepped onto the glacier, he opened up and ran across the ice towards Donaho Peak. The r
unning was quite impressive to watch and seemingly easy for the bear. Eventually we lost sight of
him and continued on our way.
The first hour of our hike off the Root Glacier Trail was spent climbing the wrong shoot and retracing our steps. The additional hiking only made my legs more belligerent from not recovering properly from yesterday’s run, but it was a nice warm-up to the actual ascent. Once we found the proper shoot up, Paul lead the way as I took up the back. On more than one occasion did I have to yell “ROCK!” as a decent sized stone was busted free and came barreling through our group. Liv and Bonnie both took some pretty good hits, but ended the day uninjured.
We took lunch on a ridge above the bunkhouse before traversing the last ravine. The weather was mainly overcast and cool so we quickly froze once we stopped moving. Some rockslides during the past two years appeared to have made the last section of trail to the bunkhouse harder than I had remembered it, but we stepped into the collapsing building without too much trouble. Since my last visit, more of the second floor had collapsed, al
ong with the roof, making a few areas of the bunkhouse more treacherous than before. The locals seem to think Erie Mine will be without its bunkhouse in a winter or two as it finally succumbs to gravity, the cliff, and the years.
The descent was non-eventful but nerve racking as I got to climb down last, having to plan every step so not to send a rockslide onto my girlfriend’s family. Surprisingly, I managed to keep them unharmed. Paul counted 73 bear shit piles on the trail back to Kennicott, some of them very fresh but all without their bears.
Dinner was delicious and quick, and then we took the Wrangell Mountain Air bus to McCarthy for some Alaskan Amber beers. The New Golden Saloon had its typical crew of mostly locals and a few out of place tourists trying to blend into the local scene with their designer backcountry gear. Hollis and Quigley hosted Open Mic Night, which had topnotch jokes by Monty (a KWG guide) and some fiddling by an unknown girl. The Alaskan beers were as good as always, but the prices had gone up to $5.25 a drink.
At 11:30 Liv, Bonnie, Paul, and I began the 4.5 mile walk north to Kennicott as Justine stayed in town. The overcast sky made it dark, but the rain held off and the temperature was very comfortable for
a brisk walk. We got Paul worked up about the shitty schools in America, so bears were not a problem. Riding back from the bar in a pickup bed was more enjoyable, but the walk wasn’t all that bad.
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