Bikerafting the Brooks
Alaska’s remote Brooks Range is the highest mountain range in the Arctic Circle. Experienced adventurer, Steve ‘Doom’ Fassbinder, attempts to traverse this rugged terrain on two wheels.
The Brooks Range is a huge expanse of geologically old, very remote mountains stretching 600 plus miles east to west across Northern Alaska and into Canada’s Yukon Territory. Besides the notoriously rough Haul Road which splits the range into eastern and western halves, there are no roads, towns, established trails or services of any kind. As such, the range receives very few visitors, and the few that do make the long trip usually do so by chartering expensive bush flights into small lakes and gravel bars where ballsy pilots ply their craft. With the growing popularity of packrafting, an even smaller number of people are accessing remote parts of the range by hiking and paddling in, sans bush flight. In all my research, I could find no evidence of the fat bike as a means of travel through the area, and so began my search for a more human-powered (no bush flights) route that would support at least some type 2 fat biking. As with all great Alaskan trips, a packraft would be essential equipment, and its use bookended our trip — providing a quick, albeit sketchy ride in, and a Cadillac-smooth 100-mile river trip out from the heart of the range.
Trip planning for me usually involves having an idea (typically a bad one like riding bikes where everyone says it would probably be shitty), scouring Google Earth for a potential route that would ‘go’, getting inspired by the landscape, making a realistic estimate on how long it would take, reaching out to friends and acquaintances that might know the area, and then asking specific questions about it. Questions like: How sketchy was the Atigun Gorge in a packraft? How bad would it be with a 40 pound bike on the bow? Can the bad stuff be portaged? Etc … In this research I was lucky enough to have fellow packrafters Brad Meiklejohn, Nathan Shoutis and Alaskan explorer Roman Dial in the ring with me, and for their tutelage I am greatly indebted. Armed with modern mapping tools and priceless beta from peers, a route was conceived.
Trip partners Jon Bailey and Brett Davis were on board from the get-go, and were integral to the successes of this tour from the beginning — in addition to being well-versed in just about any skill necessary to get shit done in the bush. They both possess the fortitude to push through the many difficult situations we would inevitably encounter.
The three of us landed in Fairbanks at 2 am after 20-plus hours of travel, only to be thrust straight into the local custom of drinking a whole bottle of Scotch with your host. Apparently we passed the test, as our host Gareth quickly offered up his new tin can van for our ground transportation needs. When I say ground transportation, I mean we needed to drive 400 miles north on the Dalton Highway, AKA the Haul Road. And when I say road, I mean rugged industrial trucking route feeding the Alyeska Pipeline. Just think Mad Max, Alaska style. The truckers rule this place, and you very quickly get the impression that you don’t want to piss them off, get in the way, or have any kind of a break down out there. So we didn’t. But we did successfully return Gareth’s van ten days later with 850 more miles on it, a cracked windshield, and a coating of grit so thick that it took 30 bucks in quarters at the local car wash to blast it off.
Our trip started in earnest at 7 pm on the side of the aforementioned Haul Road, where the Atigun River crosses its path. We had just spent 10 hours in a glorified tin can racing crusty eighteen wheelers, and our nerves were feeling a bit frayed. But I was itching to get our trip started, and the 24-hour daylight afforded us the ability to charge straight into the crux of our route. We paddled the Atigun Gorge with full drysuits, fat bikes and 10 days of equipment and food. Much research and prep went into the decision to use the gorge as an entry point. On one hand it is the best way to access the east side of the range from the Haul Road, on the other hand its a known killer, with a reputation for being fast and unforgiving. In fact, after doing my own research, I’d mostly given up on using it. But with a more thorough investigation and the blessing of some of my packrafting peers, I decided that as a group we had what it took to safely manage its temper. A methodical, slightly somber, packing session concluded and into the canyon we slipped, far from all human interaction for the entirety of our nine day trip.
At 1 am we pulled off the water at the confluence of the Sagavanirktok River, delivered slightly scraped and bruised, but very much alive, into a landscape of rolling green valleys. Steep grey mountains pierced an encroaching layer of fog that would soon dim the midnight sun. And so began our simple and oh-so-satisfying evening chores: gather twigs, make the fire, boil water, set up shelter, talk some shit, recap highlights of the day, talk some more shit, get cold, feed the fire, make a pillow with your food, dose off …
When we awoke the next morning I did a little poking around, and to my dismay observed the tiny gravel bar where we camped to be the only rideable terrain in sight. Surrounding our camp in all direction was endless Arctic tussock and steep rocky mountains. We were all thinking the same thing: This is going to suck. The first three hours of our ‘ride’ contained about two and a half hours of tussock and swamp pushing — the other thirty minutes were made up of awkward bursts of pedal turning and falling over. That was our first taste of arctic riding. Fortunately we were at the low elevation point of our trip, and the higher we got the better it got. It didn’t take long for us to realise that the south-west facing (ie drier) aspects of the valleys had much higher riding to pushing ratios. And so began our Brooks Range education.
Over the next five days we followed water courses where we could, constantly searching for faster gravel, rock and baby-head riding. Avoiding if at all possible north-facing slopes, and making lots of noise when passing through brushy low-visibility areas. The latter point being the most important. Which brings us to the subject of bears. There were bear prints everywhere out there, and it’s not if you will see a bear on a Brooks trip, it’s when.
And so it went for several more days, one pass after another with increasing beauty and depth. In the middle of day five, we reached the top of our last pass and what would be the high point of our trip. The weather was stunningly perfect and we were running well on schedule. So it was decided that we would climb the best-looking peak accessible from the pass. On the map it was marked simply, Rib, and was one of the very few peaks in the area to actually have a name at all. I’ve climbed up a lot of mountains in my life, but nothing compares to the view from atop a peak deep in the Brooks Range. We spent the better part of an hour just soaking in the view and piecing together different parts of our route past, present, and future.
The Ivishak River starts high amongst these ragged peaks as just a trickle through rocky drainage funnels. Our route descended what looked like the main stem at this point, and was choked with recent rock fall and thick willows. As we descended the valley began to open up, and the mostly-dry riverbed afforded some of the best riding of the trip. But we were eager to start paddling as the river slowly began to grow in size, with numerous trickling side drainages adding to the flow.
At a certain point the river just seemed big enough to paddle, so we broke down the bikes and prepared our tiny packrafts for the 90-plus miles of crystal-clear river that lay ahead. These transformations from bike to boat are always an exciting moment as it marks a clear end and beginning to vastly different segments of a trip. Not to mention our bodies — especially our cold, wet feet, which were ready for a break from the grind of pedaling rough terrain.
From this point the river was a braided maze of channels, many of which were tempting, but often too low for even our tiny crafts. Sometimes we’d separate the group, each taking our own ‘jungle line’ looking for the best path forward. At one point I took what I was sure would be the better line, as Jon and Brett floated by into another channel. We didn’t reconnect for close to an hour. But, with some luck, my line had delivered me downriver fast enough to snap a few shots of my friends emerging from their own jungle line.
By the next day the river had grown significantly, and large herds of migrating Caribou were charging confidently across the large channel in front of us. Although only mid-August, there was a chill in the air and a cold wet front pushed into the now wide-open North Slope.
The river was quickly pushing us out from the mountains toward the Sagavanirktok River, which we had crossed nine days before. Past this confluence was our take out on the upper reaches of the Haul Road, just shy of its terminus at the Beaufort Sea. We had seen zero other humans during this wild traverse, and my only complaint at this point was having not seen a musk ox. Rounding a final bend in the river, there it was, a massive lone ox staring us down as we silently paddled by.
Addendum
Much has changed in the world since we completed this trip in 2015, and the Brooks Range has seen an increase in adventure trips like the one described above. With that the area has been receiving a disproportionate amount of search and rescue incidents, to the dismay of local bush pilots and land managers. Planning a trip to a place like this involves more than just downloading a GPX track, buying some gear and getting dropped off in the middle of nowhere. Not to discourage anyone from having a great adventure, but make sure that you are fully confident in your ability to self rescue when things go sideways. Help may not be coming for a long time.
Photos © Steve Fassbinder
