August 16, 1986

The regional carrier turboprop that took the lower 48 contingent to Bettles. The Alaskans flew their own plane.

Jim, Tony, Mark, Sharon and Steve picked me up at Fairbanks International about 1:30 AM after getting pizza. We grabbed some beer at a 711 and went to the Regency Hotel and met up with Dave, Craig and “The Christians” as they became to be known. We happily adopted “The Pagans” as our designation.

“Dave, Craig and I shared a room and since we were to share food [on the trip] we became partners that would share considerably more. We joked about the “food groups” and we were so excited [that we] could not sleep, so we busted out the rack and sorted gear. Wrestling murmured in the background on the TV with no one watching. I probably hit the rollaway about 3am.” Journal August 16, 1986

After flirting with the waitresses at breakfast (lunch actually. they stopped serving breakfast at 10.) we made our way to Frontier Airlines to hop on a turbo-prop that took us to Bettles with a stop at Prospect Creek. The Alaskans – Mark, Sharon, Tony and Brett – took their own plane.

Craig recalls “The adventure began at Fairbanks airport as we piled all of our gear together and figured out where it needed to be placed in the twin engine plane to balance out the weight.” Our flight dodged rain showers along the way.

Flight in to Bettles. Photo by Jim Jones.

A quick stop at Prospect Creek. Our pilot, Jim, Craig, Dave and me. Photo by Steve Sharpe.

The red track is our turboprop flight from Fairbanks to Bettles. The green track was our flight on the float plane to the Alatna River. Click to enlarge.

[Over]loading the Beaver in Bettles. Two trips were required to ferry all 11 of us and our gear.

High spirits on the Beaver float plane to the Alatna River. Photo by Dave Jones.

Landing on the slough off the Alatna River, our pilot over-shot the water and ended up in the weeds. Our first steps in the Brooks Range were taken pushing the Beaver out of the reeds.

Coming in for a landing on Circle Slough. You can see why the pilot might’ve overshot the “runway.” Photo by Steve Sharpe

So-called “Circle Lake” landing strip dead ahead. Actually just a forsaken meander in the Alatna River. Photo by Dave Jones.

Dave and our Beaver pilot pushing the aircraft out of the reeds. Photo by Jim Jones.

At the landing site there was a group of “old folks.” We hung food, picked blueberries and had a second lunch. The next plane in brought the rest of our group and the guide for the “seniors” group. This guide told us there was a good camp site at the mouth of Arrigetch Creek, so we donned our monstrous packs and headed out across the hummocks and tussocks. “Tussling with the tussocks and humping the hummocks” proved to be brutally difficult. I would try walking on top of the mossy rocks for while and, after slipping off a half dozen or so, I would try walking in between them only to get tripped up. Both methods failed.

We set up camp and got a fire going. The sun was setting about 11pm and rising about 3 am, so I have no idea what time we finally crashed.