Nancy McClary-Callan spent several weeks
on an Outward Bound adventure course in Alaska.
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you have any we could use please email info@backpackglobe.com
Alaska was absolutely fantastic. Incredible
beyond words! I have been a lot of places and have
never seen such natural beauty. I flew to Anchorage
to meet the group the last week of June. The trip
was an Outward Bound course, so there were nine
of us students and three instructors. I was the
oldest one in the group; almost everyone else was
a college student in their early 20s. The instructors
were older, experienced outdoor educators, and as
I found out over the summer, really amazing people.
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this story. If you have any we could use please
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River Rafting
From Anchorage, we loaded up and drove 3 or 4 hours
to our put-in on the Little Nelchina River. We camped
there, then assembled and loaded the rafts (2 of
them) and headed downstream to the main Nelchina
River, then on down to where it flowed into a large
glacial lake that we sailed across by rigging sails
on our rafts with driftwood masts and tarps for
sails. The Tazlina River flowed out of the lake
and we followed it to the Copper River. We took
out in a lake bordered by two glaciers so we got
to paddle around huge icebergs to reach our takeout
point near a town called Cordova. From there flew
back to Anchorage as there are no roads out. While
on the river we saw brown bears (grizzlies) every
day and too many bald eagles to count, plus moose
and other wildlife. The weather was typical for
the time of year—lots of rain
and temps ranging around the 50s, colder at night.
We camped on sandbars the whole trip, and the mosquitoes
were unbelievable. As long as every inch of skin
was covered with a couple of layers of clothes and
you had gloves or 100% DEET on your hands and a
mosquito head net over your face, it wasn't so bad.
Going to the bathroom was the biggest challenge.
You had to have the DEET ready before you pulled
your pants down or you got covered with bites in
most uncomfortable places!
Mountaineering
After flying back to Anchorage we drove south
down the Kenai Peninsula to Seward where Outward
Bound has a base camp. We geared up there
for our first mountaineering trip (10 days)
into the Chugach Mountains. The amount of
gear was amazing. Outward Bound is not about
lightweight backpacking in the first place,
and we were taking full mountaineering and
snow/glacier travel gear (ropes, climbing
harnesses, anchors, helmets, ice axes, shovels,
wands, etc.) plus regular camping stuff, plus
food for 10 days, so everyone started with
a pack weighing about 70 pounds! We got above
the tree and snowline on day two and spent
a day practicing snow and glacier travel procedures
and learning how to self arrest with our ice
axes. During the 10 days out we summited one
peak and had plans for another foiled by weather.
We spent a couple of days in a beautiful valley
where everyone spread out around the valley
for a solo. This is a big Outward Bound thing
where each person takes a tarp for shelter
and spends a couple of days and nights out
of contact with everyone to have time to reflect.
We hiked out after our solos and went back
to the Outward Bound base camp in Seward where
we spent a day working on a service project
for a local fish weir that manages salmon.
It was really fun, interesting and educational.
Then we re-supplied our food and fuel and
headed back up into the mountains for another
9 days. This time we traveled up next to Exit
Glacier onto the Harding Ice Field. It was
fantastically beautiful up there with nothing
but snow and ice as far as you could see.
We traveled on rope teams while on the glacier
(in case anyone fell into a crevasse), and
got to do some ice climbing too. That was
really fun and surprising, not at all scary.
It was pretty cold camping only on/in snow
and ice, so my feet and hands which are always
cold anyway, were fairly miserable at night
around camp. When we left to head back down
to Seward, our route took us over the summit
of another mountain (kicking steps in the
snow, with full packs on) and down the steep
other side (using ropes). Once we got below
the snowline, we started bushwhacking through
some vicious undergrowth (lots of devil's
club which is covered with thorns) heading
down toward the river. It was also really
steep and slippery. This was the day that
really did my knees in. We had to cross the
Resurrection River to reach the trail that
would take us out to our pickup point. We
were still at it around 1 am when we finally
gave up for the night and just got out our
sleeping bags and crashed in the woods. It
was the end of July so it had started getting
dark at night—especially
in the woods. The next morning we realized
we were only a few hundred yards from the
river. This was a very exciting day as we
had to cross first about 7 channels of one
creek (knee to thigh deep), then swim across
the main river! Remember, this is all glacial
runoff so it is VERY, VERY COLD. Fortunately
the sun came out right before we stripped
down and swam. By the time we ran through
the underbrush to the narrower part of the
river where we had tossed bags of dry clothes
over, floated all the packs across on ropes,
got things repacked and cooked some food,
we were pretty warmed up. It was still about
7 miles to the trailhead, so we were totally
beat by the time we got picked up. Fortunately
we had a two-day break in Seward to rest up.
I stayed at the youth hostel in town and got
to take a shower and do laundry! It took about
7 washes before the shampoo even made suds
because my hair was so greasy.
We are awaiting pics to accompany
this story. If you have any we could use please
email them to info@backpackglobe.com
We are awaiting pics to accompany this story.
If you have any we could use please email
them to info@backpackglobe.com
We are awaiting pics to accompany this story.
If you have any we could use please email
them to info@backpackglobe.com
We are awaiting pics to accompany
this story. If you have any we could use please
email info@backpackglobe.com
Sea
Kayaking
After the break in civilization, we supplied
up for 11 days out in kayaks. We packed and
loaded everything onto a charter boat which
took us out to the Kenai Fjords National Park
(which is not accessible by land). The charter
dropped us off in a beautiful cove with a
sandy beach and waterfalls and views of glaciers
all around. No pictures could do it justice.
We had great weather for most the kayaking
trip—the sun actually came
out sometimes. It was incredible paddling
along the fantastically, stunningly beautiful
coastline everyday. There are glaciers everywhere
- we got pretty close to some of them to watch
them calving off into the sea. At the snouts
of the glaciers, we were floating in water
where the surface was covered with little
icebergs and pieces of ice. It was awesome.
We paddled to new spots almost everyday and
all the coves where we camped were really
beautiful. Mountains, oceans, waterfalls,
glaciers, sand or cobblestone beaches it doesn't
get any better. We saw a lot of wildlife -
sea otters, seals, birds, etc., but only heard
some whales and saw them blowing.
I could go on and on and on about the trip,
but this is probably more than anyone wants
to read in the first place, so I'll stop.
My only disappointment of the entire trip
was that I did not get to see the northern
lights. Until the last few weeks of the trip,
it was light almost all night long, then when
it started to get dark in August either the
weather wasn't suitable, or there weren't
any to see. On the bright side, it was really
nice camping when it didn't really get dark.
No need to mess with flashlights.
