Another stunning valley; the Aiyagomahala.

The beautiful forest floor.

A small bear.

Aiyagomahala Creek

Upper Aiyagomahala Creek

Wichmann’s Tower

Checking it out

Hanging glacier on Wichmann’s Tower

A magic spot for a rest with a view.

A spot of lunch.

Pete and Matt absorbing some rays.

A lump of granite.

If the pictures don’t convey it well, please let me assure readers, this spot is sensational.

Walking back down the upper Aiyagomahala Valley.

Sad to be leaving these vistas behind.

It is a beautiful stream, and I took the risk of drinking from it. It was good.

Hot Springs! Back at camp and we found the hot springs! There is a small trickle of very hot water which enters the Aiyagomahala Creek, and you can manipulate a pool of streamside water to be the perfect temperature for a piping hot bath. After 10 days without a wash it was sensational!

The Wild Ideas Bearikades Bear barrels, stored under a Spruce tree away from camp.

A sore foot with a nifty ring pad.

Alpine meadow.

An end-on view of the peaks that separate the Aiyagomahala and Arrigetch valleys.

Matt struggling to decide at which peak to point his camera. All of my pictures were taken on a basic point and shoot Nikon AW120 Coolpix, whereas Matt used superb Leica wide angle lenses with a professional standard body and accessories. I highly recommend you check out his pictures on the Irenabyss Gallery site once they are published. Both Matt and Pete also recorded GoPro movies and stills.

Final views of the magnificent peaks, before descending to the Alatna River.

Matt sitting beside a bear and moose trail back at our boat stash. A big pile of bear poo beside his foot. We camped close by once again.

Bear poo with bits of furry creature in it.

Plentiful natural blueberries abounded in this area. Delicious!

I think Pete’s hand must be better than mine.

Moose fur on a broken tree. I suspect the moose has habitually crashed past this spot so often he finally broke down the tree and a collection of moose fur gradually built up.

Alatna plus Arrigetch plus bear poo plus moose camp.

Early on Day 12 I was paddling in front of the others when I was lucky enough to see a magnificent Arctic Wolf on this shingle bank, from my boat. It was a beautiful creature, very large and seemingly healthy, with near white fur. It watched me approach and then turned and trotted off into the bushes. I wasn’t quick enough to get a photo of it, and unfortunately Pete and Matt missed its brief appearance.

On Day 12 the paddling was quite mellow, so my PFD and Helmet were off.

The broad and beautiful Alatna.

Despite being a protected National Park and wilderness area, the lower parts of the river have a few private cabins scattered along its banks. I think some are the property of Indigenous Americans who have hunting rights in these, their original homelands. I believe this area is the natural boundary of the Inupiat families of the North Slope, and the Athabaskan people of the Alaskan interior.

Antlers in the forest floor.

Paw prints

We were very excited to find these quite fresh bear prints beside the river. We decided to follow them for a while in the hope of seeing a bear, and we finally got lucky, as you can see in the next picture, the prints lead us up to a very spectacular bear sighting.

This is a young grizzly bear that we encountered. We believe that it left the impressive tracks of the previous picture.

Lake Takahula. After paddling the Alatna river to within a few hundred metres of Lake Takahula, we carried our boats over a short ridge and then reinflated for the final paddle to this, our eventual campsite on the south side of this beautiful lake.

Our final campsite. Throughout the night wolves in the surrounding hills kept up a periodic serenade of intense howling. It was quite beautiful, and a hard place to leave. My camera battery died after this picure, and the float plane arrived to return us to Bettles. You’ll have to imagine it for now.