Alaska Packrafting Trip episode 1/3

Three Dutch friends set out for a trekking and packrafting adventure in Gates of the Arctic National Park in Alaska. It’s the northernmost national park of the US. An area the size of Switzerland, without any roads or trails and largely uninhabited. Just mountains, rivers, arctic tundra and wild animals in their natural habitat. Quite the contrast to our densely populated, well organised country!

Our trip started at Pingo Lake. From the lake we did 2,5 days of trekking along Portage Creek to reach the Alatna River. From there, we floated in 4 days to Takahula lake, the ‘extraction point’. Along the way we spent one day in the Arrigetch Peaks. The map of our trip, with campsites and wildlife sightings, can be found here: https://caltopo.com/m/1DCE

In this episode you will see us make preparations in Fairbanks, buy a shotgun and practise shooting it, and make our way up to the Gates of the Arctic National Park. We fly from Fairbanks to Bettles, where we visit the Ranger Station. From Bettles we take off in an exquisite deHavilland Beaver floatplane with a nice ’60s vibe to it.

The preparations we had to do in Fairbanks for our trip involved:
packing freeze-dried food for 9 days
in bear-proof containers and Ursack bear bags
picking up bear spray and additional camping gear that we couldn’t bring from The Netherlands (camp stove & fuel)
buying a low-end shotgun & bear slugs (as a last resort) and practise shooting it. (Not very accurately. Luckily, an angry bear at short range is not a small target)
rent a satellite phone

One last thing:
Unfortunately, this video was hit by a copyright claim, and is monitized by the copyright owner. I thought I was using a legitimate Creative Commons-license, but evidently more than one musician is claiming the rights to this tune. Anyway, just click away the ads and enjoy the show!