Trail Talk

Editor’s Note: In the latest Trail Talk, Jim DuFresne writes about the Dana Design backpack he used for 25 years. The final adventure with it was while researching our new map of North Manitou Island last summer. The map is now out and available from our e-shop. The large format map measures 11 by 17 inches, is printed on durable card stock and coated to be water resistant. Includes all distance markers, contour lines, historic buildings and ruins. Best of all, when folded it fits in your back pocket or the side pouch of your pack.

Next appearance for Jim will be at the Cottage & Lakefront Living Show and Outdoorama on Feb. 21-24 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. His presentation will be Michigan’s National Parks: Jewels of the Great Lakes.

By Jim DuFresne

My first backpack was an official Boy Scout, canvas rut sack that my father purchased just before sending me off to summer camp. I used it for five years. My second pack was an external frame Kelty that my oldest sister passed on to me. I had the Kelty for nine years. My third was a Dana Design that I purchased on my own in 1987.

Jim DuFresne

I still have my first two packs. I don’t have the Dana.

Last year my good friend, Sandy Graham, asked me if I would be interested in donating the pack as part of a small collection of historical backpacking gear being displayed in Backcountry North, his new outdoor store in Traverse City.

Even though I was still using the Dana, I couldn’t say no. Sandy sold me the pack 25 years ago.

At the time I was producing a newsletter for Sandy so I’m sure I received a hefty discount at the store he was managing. Still the pack, with its optional rain cover, side pockets and duffel bag designed to ship it on airlines, set me back more than $300. Maybe $400. Either was a small fortune for a struggling writer who only had three books under his belt.

But I was attracted to how well the internal frame pack fit – it featured lightweight metal stays that could be bent to the curvature of your back – and by its bright red color. While living in Alaska someone once told me that if a bear charged, toss your backpack in front of you. The theory was the pack, especially a brightly colored one, would distract the bruin long enough for you to back away to safety.

Jim DuFresne climbing the Chilkoot Trail with his Dana Design backpack.

I don’t know if that’s true. In all my years trekking in Alaska I’ve never been charged by a bear. What I did know is that when you’re outdoors in a world of greens and grays, browns and blues, a little bit of bit of red really made your photos pop.

Pretty soon it seemed like every other photo I took had the red Dana somewhere in it.

The other thing about the Dana; it carried a ton of gear. Like a small, rubber raft and 400-feet of rope when we knew in advance an Alaskan river would be too deep to ford … or bottles of fine wine and frozen tenderloin wrapped in newspaper when I was trying to show my wife how much fun backpacking could be. There were times, in the peak of my youth no doubt, when I had 80 or 90 pounds of gear stuffed in it.

Most of all, the red Dana was a trusted companion, there with me on almost every wilderness adventure I embarked on. It had been from one end of New Zealand to the other and all over Alaska. I have lugged it up and down the Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale National Park and across the heart of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

In the 25 years I had that pack I researched and wrote 62 editions of 22 different guidebooks, including Isle Royale National Park: Foot Trails and Water Routes (MichiganTrailMaps.com), Tramping in New Zealand (Lonely Planet), Backpacking in Michigan (University of Michigan Press) and 50 Hikes in Michigan (Backcountry Publications).

Photos with the distinctive red pack in it has appeared in 10 of those books, including on the back cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993’s Backpacking in Alaska.

When I handed the backpack to Sandy just before one of my presentations at his store last November still attached to it were two backcountry permits. One was for the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska that I hiked in 2011 with my son, who, now at the age of 27, carries far more gear and climbs faster than me.

The other was for North Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that was issued last August, the final adventure for this Dana Design pack.

I told the crowd that evening that somewhere in this beloved pack there was a lesson, that when you invest in quality gear, even when the price seems outrageous at the time, it always ends up being a much better value in the long run.

Either that or  Sandy is a darn good salesman.

You’ll learn a lot hiking the Chilkoot Trail. You get a history lesson on the Chilkoot and a sense of the feverous attraction gold can have on men. You learn a little about personal perseverance as you struggle over the Chilkoot Pass on a rainy morning when the clouds are so low and so thick you have to peer hard to see the next trail marker.

And if you’re my son, you learn how to backpack comfortably…or as comfortable as your father can make it.

Jim DuFresne

The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, just outside Skagway, to Lake Bennett in British Columbia. The trail, which crosses the historic Chilkoot Pass, was the major access route from Alaska to the Yukon goldfields during the Klondike Gold Rush that hit its peak in 1897-1899. The news that there was gold outside Dawson City hit the U.S. during a deep recession, prompting thousands of otherwise sane men and a few women to quit their jobs, sell their homes and leave their families for the opportunity to “get rich quick.”

Very few did of course. It’s estimated that of the more than 100,000 people who started out for the Klondike gold fields, less than 30,000 even made it to Dawson City. And once there those who did quickly realized that most of the streams had already been staked and claimed.

Today the Chilkoot is unquestionably the most famous trail in Alaska and probably the most popular as more than 3,000 people spend three to five days following the historic route every summer. It is a well-developed trail and not so much a wilderness adventure as a history lesson. For many, the highlight of the hike is riding the historic White Pass & Yukon Railroad from Lake Bennett back to Skagway. Experiencing the Chilkoot and returning on the WP&YR is probably the ultimate Alaska trek, combining great scenery, a connection to the past and an incredible sense of adventure.

What my son learned:

When the Weather Is Nice Push On Because You Never Will Know What Tomorrow Will Bring

A tent pad campsite in Sheep Camp along the Chilkoot Trail.

Michael flew into Juneau where I met him at the airport and a day and half later we were on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry headed for Skagway. Many hikers will overnight in this former gold rush town and get an early start the next day.

But the skies were clear, deep blue and without a trace of rain, an unusual occurrence in the Southeast Alaska, basically a rainforest that’s wetter than Seattle. We hustled off the state ferry, stopped by the National Park Trail Center to pick up our permits, hopped across the street to purchase our train tickets and then called a friend of mine to give us a ride the 8 miles out the road to the Taiya River bridge where the Chilkoot Trail begins.

There was still nothing but blue above us when we shouldered our packs at 3:30 p.m. and took to the trail. The Chilkoot begins immediately with a 100-foot climb above the banks of the Taiya River then settles down into a fairly level walk. We had enthusiasm, dry footing and that 20-hour Alaskan day, when in June the sun rises before 4 a.m. and doesn’t set until after 11 p.m. When we reached our intended stop, Finnegan’s Point, a 5-mile walk from the trailhead, that midnight sun was still high in the sky. We pushed on through the lush forest of Sitka spruce and western hemlock.

At 7:30 p.m. we pulled into Canyon City Campground. In 1898, Canyon City was indeed a bustling tent city of more than 4,000 residents and included restaurants, hotels, saloons (of course), a steam-driven power plant and waves of stampeders moving their loads up the trail.

For the first time we could poke around and see what the miners left behind a century ago. This is truly the most amazing part of the Chilkoot, its history is lying in the woods; rusty tin cans, tools, a lone boot and rotting building foundations. We crossed a suspension bridge over the Taiya River to view a huge steam boiler on the other side that at one time powered the aerial tramways carrying gear to the pass at 7.2 cents a pound . You can not help but soak in the history of this incredible period of gold-rush madness if for no other reason than the trail is lined with interpretive plaques featuring grainy black-and-white photos from that era.

 Do Whatever It Takes to Keep Your Pack Light

Stampeders climb the Golden Stairs along the Chilkoot Trail in 1898.

Our second day was short which was good because our shoulders were burning. Our packs weighed around 40 pounds each when we departed Skagway and somehow my son convinced me that when it comes to the group gear I should take the tent, stove and water filter. He packed the food. Smart kid. His load decreased steadily with every meal on the trail, mine stayed stubbornly at around 40 pounds.

The climbing begins after Canyon City. The trail ascends up the valley wall as the river disappears into a small canyon and soon we were hiking through a sub-alpine forest. Prospectors called this section “the worst piece of trail of the route” and with a light rain falling we found it fairly muddy with many boulders to scramble over and short steep sections to climb.

We reached Sheep Camp just before lunch, a crucial destination along the Chilkoot. As the last campground on the U.S. side, Sheep Camp serves as the staging area for the climb to the summit the following day. For most hikers that’s a 9-mile, 8 to 10-hour trek to the next campground in which they ascend more than 2,500 feet in the first half. A National Park Service ranger met with the 30 of us in camp that evening to detail the route and inform us we had to be on the trail by 6 a.m. due to increased avalanche danger in the afternoon.

Let me tell you, that grabs your attention and gets your adrenalin flowing.

It also made me ponder the weight of my pack – still close to 40 pounds. So after my son retreated to the tent for the night I hid some gear in the bottom of his food bag. The next morning you would have thought I cut off his left foot. He noticed it right away and accused me of trying to sneak extra weigh into his pack. I immediately denied it of course, there was manly pride involved, but had to claim I inadvertently put the gear in the wrong bag.

Even worse I had to take it back.

 Always Pack a Stove 

We were up by 4:15 a.m. and the second party out of Sheep Camp at 5:30 a.m., quickly passing the first group. In the beginning the trail was rocky and times we were boulder hopping. But after gaining a1000 feet or so, the climb became easier as snowfields covered the trail. We pulled out our trekking poles and advanced up the gentle slopes, keeping a weary eye on those avalanche chutes we passed. By 8 a.m. we had reached the Scales, where an interpretive plaque displayed the most famous photo of the gold rush, stampeders with heavy packs lined up one-by-one as they climbed to the top of the pass along the Golden Stairs, named from the steps that they painstakingly carved into the snow and ice.  

Michael DuFresne climbs the Golden Stairs of the Chilkoot Trail in 2011.

And there in front of us we could see their route which was our route. Suddenly it was 1898 again as we ascended the steep, boulder-filled slope to the Chilkoot Pass, lugging our own packs. For the next hour we never stood up, rather scaled the 45-degree chute by climbing from one large boulder to the next on all fours. It was cold, drizzly and so cloudy that we had to peer through the mist to see the next marker.

It’s the kind of adventure you come to Alaska looking for and when we reached the top there was an exaltation of summiting that you can’t get in Michigan.

By 9:30 a.m. we had reached the emergency shelter just across the Canadian border. We stepped inside, stripped off our raingear and I pulled out my MSR stove. There was a time during the planning of this trek that my son said we could leave the stove at home and just eat cold food. No way I replied.

In the shelter my fingers were so cold I struggled to lit my trusty MSR. When the white gas finally ignited there was a burst of flames and the first thing we both did was warm our hands. The next thing we did was make a pot of orange-spiced tea.

No cup of tea ever tasted so fine. At first we simply wrap our fingers around the warm metal cups. Then we slowly sipped the hot tea, feeling its warmth spread through our chilled bodies. At that point Michael realized a backpacker’s stove is required equipment.

  Always Sign Up For the Optional Lunch

 We reached the next campground, Happy Camp, by mid-afternoon and we pondered pushing on. But the sun broke out and blue sky appeared so we laid out our wet gear on a wooden tent pad and inflated our Therm-a-Rests. There were mountains all around us but no bugs. The warmth of the sun and the early morning departure lulled us into taking a nap. We slept for over an hour and by then I knew I wasn’t going to be shouldering my pack again that day.
           

The Chilkoot Trail stayed above the treeline the next morning until we reached Deep Lake and then skirted the edge of the incredible gorge Moose Creek flows through on its way north to Lindeman Lake. The mountain scenery remained impressive, the gold rush artifacts numerous for the rest of the day and by mid-afternoon we reached Bare Loon Lake Campground, where we planned to pitch the tent for the night.  

Our final day, the fifth on the Chilkoot, was short and easy as we hiked only 4 miles before arriving at Lake Bennett, the end of the trail. Here the stampeders built crude rafts, loaded them with their supplies and floated the lake into the Yukon River for Dawson City.

Descending towards Carter Lake from the Chilkoot Pass.

What put the Chilkoot Trail out of business was the construction of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad (WP&YR), which was completed from Skagway to Whitehorse in 1900 via Lake Bennett. On the shores of Lake Bennett, in seemingly the middle of nowhere, is a classic train deport that today serves as a huge dining room for the cruise ship passengers on WP&YR tours out of Skagway.

But when you book a seat on the train as a backpacker you’re offered the option to have lunch at the depot for an additional $12. Every hiker I saw on the Chilkoot was there for the end-of-the-trail meal.

 They put us all in a backroom, well away from the cruise-ship passengers, and who could blame them? None of us have had a shower in four or five days. But they feed us well. A crew of waitresses bought out cast-iron pots of beef stew, baskets of fresh bread, thermoses of hot coffee and big slices of apple pie.

We feasted as if we hadn’t eaten in five days.  Then everybody went outside and laid out in the sun to soak in the view of the mountains one more time before boarding the train, the first step in our long journey from mountain adventures in the wilderness to our daily routines back home.

Editor’s Note: This is Jim DuFresne’s final blog from his summer in Alaska. Beginning next week he will be back in Michigan researching trails for MichiganTrailMaps.com.

Jim DuFresne

It’s an amazing sight from my table but best of all the scenery is constantly getting better. That’s because I’m on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry, steaming from Haines down to Juneau.

For almost a month I have been crisscrossing Southeast Alaska, updating the 10th edition of my Lonely Planet guide, Alaska. Within this vast roadless region that stretches stretches 540 miles from Icy Bay south to Portland Canal there are islands, fjords, mountains, glaciers and narrows but only two roads that go anywhere. To travel here I jump on an Alaska state ferry, those distinctively blue boats that carry passengers and vehicles and first appeared only a few years after Alaska became a state in 1959.

Today there are 11 vessels in the fleet, servicing 32 ports along a system that stretches 3,200 nautical miles from Bellingham, Washington, to Dutch Harbor, home of the Deadliest Catch fishing crews in the Aleutian Islands. The vast majority of the vessels and routes are in Southeast Alaska but these are not cruise ships.

They are nothing like a cruise ship.

An Alaska Marine Highway ferry.

Most cruise ships are Love Boats, huge vessels that carry anywhere from 1,500 to 3,000 passengers, they congregate in three towns in Southeast Alaska; Ketchikan, Juneau  and tiny Skagway and they arrive in the morning and leave in the evening. There are times I’ve been in Skagway, a town of only 900 residents squeezed between two mountains, when six cruise ships show up and dump 15,000 people onto the cramped downtown area.  When you board a cruise ship for a trip to Southeast Alaska you always travel in a crowd.

That’s not the Alaska I want to see.

I want to see real Alaska, travel to small fishing ports with the people who live there. I want to be on a vessel that squeezes through the most narrow passages, like the Wrangell Narrows where state ferries thread their way through a 22-mile channel with the 46 turns, a channel that is only 300ft wide and 19ft deep in places. So winding and narrow is the Wrangell Narrows that locals call it ‘pinball alley.’

Sailing with the Alaska Marine Highway is casual travel, a relaxing, friendly pace. All the vessels are different, the only thing they have in common is they are named after glaciers. Right now as I write this I’m on the MV Taku, one of my favorites. There are several lounges to sit and take in the scenery, including the Observation Lounge with its 180-degree window view at the front of the boat.

There is a cafeteria where in the morning the chef cooks you eggs after your tell him sunnyside up. There is a jigsaw puzzle room on the MV Taku and a friendly pub and a solarium on the top level with lounge chairs where backpackers pitch their small free-standing tents and spend the nights. Others sleep in the lounges on blow-up air mattresses or rent a cabin.

The showers are free on the ferries so is the hot water if you brought your own tea bags and the microwaves if you packed along a can of ravioli.  Travel on the state ferries is very relaxed and very affordable.

Before my summer is over I will have boarded a state ferry a dozen times with trips that range from an hour and half to a day and a half. At every port I land at there are great adventures, particularly if you like to hike in the mountains.

Passengers on the Alaska State Ferry.

In Haines, I climbed the Mount Ripinsky Trail where from its 3690-foot summit  there are sweeping views of sea and land from Juneau to Skagway. In Ketchikan I spent Father’s Day following the Deer Mountain Trail and made it within 400 yards of the summit before heavy snow turned me back. In Sitka I’m hoping to hike the Gaven Hill Trail that begins close to town and ascends almost 2500 feet over 3 miles to Gavan Hill peak and then continues to a free-use U.S. Forest Service shelter where you can spend the night above the treeline.

And when my son arrives towards the end of my trip we have plans to hike the West Glacier Trail, one of the most spectacular hikes in the Juneau area that hugs the mountainside along Mendenhall glacier, providing exceptional views of the icefalls and other glacial features. This is in preparation for our ultimate adventure, a four-day walk across the Chilkoot Trail, including the steep climb over the 3525-foot Chilkoot Pass, the same route that the Klondike Gold Rush stampeders followed in the 1898.

And the common thread that connects all these wonderful hikes and adventures is the Alaska Marine Highway, an affordable and relaxing way to travel that gets you where nobody else will and allows you the flexibility to include every mountain top that appeals to you.

As a hiker, why would you ever book passage on a cruise ship to Alaska?