You cannot bike to Imuruk Lake...



Well, at least in these conditions... without a fat bike...





After (unexpectedly) serving my civic duty on Friday morning, Tyler and I left around 1pm. Eighty miles later we arrived at the Kougarock bridge at and took off to find the trail around 3pm.



About a mile down a "real" trail we saw a muddy swath previously cut by 4-wheelers heading up the hill. I was hoping the first few miles would be the only be muddy parts but no such luck. The rain put a little damper on my grand vision of a nice dry ride-able trail.



We finally ditched the bikes after 6 miles and packed it on foot. It was like walking through a rice paddy for three days.
My goal of Imuruk lake was long gone with the loss of a day and the mud.






But we had a great hike into relatively unknown territory up into the Bering Preserve and on to Aurora area. It was a blast with lots of heavy slogging, tundra variations with some ankle twisters and an awesome set of grizz with wolf tracks.

Walking side by side probably talking about those silly humans... or maybe it was a wolf bear.



Of course no self respecting Alaskan adventure is not without some empty barrel artifacts
















or some gold mining architecture




or an obscenely deep narrow stream crossing with an old piece of timber,




















Overall about 60 - 70 miles total according to the GPS, about half what was needed to get to the lake. I was fairly amazed that there was an embedded old trail that eventually ends up in Deering. The country was remote and oh so vast and beautiful. We did manage to see the lava fields and the lake in the distance. I'm excited about going back in the fall with my fat bike on frozen tundra.

Comments