We woke to a gloomy, blustery day that looked ready to storm at any moment. For some this could have been disappointing, but the colors and skies made for a glorious last day. The wind, cold, and threat of storm felt like the tundra's natural element.

There was rain in the night, not heavy, and things were mostly dry apart from the typical morning damp. Following the morning routine, we called in, had two hard boiled eggs and an apple each, packed lunch and gear, and decided where to venture today. It was tempting to try for the river again, but that was a long, exhausting hike with no guarantee of success and a likelihood of getting rained on. Neither of us mind weather, we have plenty of warm clothes and rain gear, but packing up a wet camp isn't ideal. In the end we decided to start by climbing the ridge to the east of our lake. The lake is far too long to seriously contemplated circumnavigation, which would have been cool. Up on the ridge we had wonderful views of the expanse of tundra stretching to infinity (and Gates of the Arctic National Park beyond). Tyler pulled out binoculars to search the distance, and spotted a mama grizzly and her cub, bringing the total for this expedition up to 9 bears sighted. They were slowly drifting across the tundra, eating berries. We sat on this ridge and enjoyed the different view of Long Lake for a while. As we became chilled from sitting, we headed back down, around the south end of the lake near camp, then up the tallest point around, that big rocky outcrop at the western edge of our lake. We looked around and photographed, then sat and watched small dapples of sunlight play across the distant mountains. The effect was the reverse of watching cloud shadows dance on the landscape. It was so cold and blustery, I had five layers on top, three on bottom, with full rain gear and winter hat. The high today was maybe upper 40s or so.

We had lunch of dill triscuits and parmesan cheese, and sat some more, watching the landscape and investigating the details of small plants. I could do this every day and be very happy. After nearly three hours up there, we meandered our way back toward camp, taking almost two hours to do so in order to pick blueberries; nearly a gallon between us. We settled in to eat right away, pulling out a couple MREs we'd saved so we wouldn't have to cook. My kids have been fascinated by the idea of MREs, so I took a bunch of photos for them of the process. I lucked out and had yummy treat after yummy treat. I particularly enjoyed the jumbo sized, thick and soft molasses cookie, and the coffee, which I haven't had all week. The self heaters didn't work after 30 minutes of fussing, so we gave up and boiled water to heat our stew and make my coffee. It was pure bliss to sit in the little camp chair, nestled between tussocks, watching the clouds and light across the lake, sipping coffee. I'm really not ready to leave. This feels like home, just like Rainbow Lakes, only easier living without such a constant, close presence of bears.

While eating, a pair of tundra swans came close to our side of the lake, seeming to want to check out the action of our camp. We also saw a juvenile northern harrier and rough legged hawk. No northern shrike today.

It's been such a good week. I am looking forward to a hot shower and a big Old Fashioned tomorrow night, but I'll be very sad to leave this lifestyle. I love being out, exploring, with the edge of nerves while hollering "hey bears!", the need to be attentive on a different level than urban or suburban, even rural, life requires. I love the efficiency of eating simple foods in order to get back to hiking and the endless blueberry supply. The achingly beautiful views that make you feel whole and complete just as you are. The company has been good too, glad I was out with someone skilled and knowledgeable that I already knew and trusted. I would have come here anyway, but having a friend to hike with eases the experience.

Around 8pm, the lower layer of clouds seems to be breaking up, the upper stratus clouds are thinning behind us. Looks like it may clear up tonight. Now that dinner is done, we decided to head back to the ridge to the south, our visit there was cut short by the threatening rain last night and it was a nice spot. Indeed, it was gorgeous tonight. What lovely bookend to the trip. The sun was brilliant across the tundra, glorious golds and reds, rays of light, tumultuous clouds. I love this landscape.

Morning practice time. Funny enough, I found out that the back country ranger here learned how to juggle using rocks to kill time on a wilderness assignment.

Rangers can juggle, too!

An overcast, cold day.

Dark clouds over the tents.

The Kingasivik Mountains.

Antler from a juvenile caribou.

Headed for the eastern ridge.

New view of our lake from the east.

A raven among the clouds.

This long lake makes me think of scenes from the Scottish Highlands.

The south end of the lake, our tents, and Kingasivik Mountains beyond.

Panorama of Long Lake from the east.

Love lichens.

These little guys remind me of chicks and hens, but more colorful.

A standing rock, these were placed by people thousands of years ago who were using this area to hunt caribou.

Gloomy lake.

I think this is lichen among the other plants.

Lichens.

Mama and cub grizzly.

A closer view.

Grizzlies in the mid-distant left, expanse of tundra beyond.

Looking east from this ridge we had better views of these other lakes.

Looking east from this east ridge.

Looking south and west from this east ridge.

Fragment of skull, if I remember right is was a caribou.

Tundra plants.

Kingasivik mountains on the left, our rocky outcrop on the right.

Grass tussocks tangled with other tundra plants.

Tundra and our big rock.

Horsetails.

The horsetails were growing from the tops of the tussocks in this little area.

Always trying to catch up to Tyler, photographing slows me down.

I need to look up these plants. Love the vivid red.
The colors of the tundra have changed dramatically since we first got to Rainbow Lakes.

Sunlight hitting the distant mountains.

Unidentified flowers.

The ridge from our river hike is in the foreground, lakes, Tumit Creek, and Kingasivik Mountains.

Tundra closeup.

I love these plants. Like a braided cactus, with flowers that grow from between the braids.

More light, closer to the Nimiuktuk.

More tundra closeup. The tall thin leaves are about an inch or less long.

Looking northwest toward our hike across to the Nimi.

North along our lake.

These colors!

More great tundra plants and a better view of the west ridge.

Looking west, western ridge in center, Kingasivik Mountains beyond.

Looking east, Long Lake below, camp to the right.

South along Long Lake. The grey circular shape it points to is the high area where our tents are.

Love the contrast as these plants intermingle.

Very distinct vole holes and trail.

Trail continuing the other way, more holes. They're all over this tall rocky outcrop. Like a huge vole condominium.

More vole holes.

Finger pointing to tiny vole scat.

Headed back down toward camp.

Mushrooms, caps turning out to release spores maybe?

A more rounded mushroom.

A mix of scat. I think there are three here.

More distinct vole trails where the tundra is a little more open.

Bounty of the tundra.

Crowberries and cranberries among the tussocks.

Most of the blueberries now have very red leaves.

Thick tundra on the way to camp.

The colors, the mood...everything.

I know, you've seen this enough. Call it pre-nostalgia for this place.

Meal and view.

MRE contents.

6pm means evening check in time via the satellite phone.

Tundra swans.

Another look.

Evening field journal entry documenting all we saw today so we can report back to the back country ranger.

Another camp shot.

Looking north and east from the southern ridge.

Looking west.

The warm glow from sunlight returns!

Sorry, more lake pics. I love the shadow in the front right that echoes the big rock.

Tundra, tents, lake.

It looks so different in different lighting. At least in person.

From the south ridge.

Another plant I need to look up.

Glorious sunshine.

Sun on the Kingasiviks.

Looking south to the start of the Grand Canyon of the Noatak.

Westward panorama.

This sucker hole, as Tyler put it, stayed over this same spot most of the day.
There was a long dark cloud mass that hung over the Noatak, too.
Fascinating to watch how land forms affect cloud patterns.

A variety of dramatic clouds today.

Tyler pointed out that we hadn't taken any group shots...

And the obligatory goofy shot for our Badlands friends: How Neat is That?

Sun retreating behind the clouds again.

Heading back to camp, I loaded up my pack, turned, and suddenly noticed these distant, rounded mountains that I didn't remember seeing before. Thank you, sunlight!

We're back to a moody atmosphere at Long Lake tonight.

Looking south.

Looking north.

Looking up at the clouds from camp.

Still the same morning routine: up at 9am to call Denali Dispatch for morning check-in, pack up gear, eat hard boiled eggs and apples for breakfast, clean up, and head out. Today we hiked west to the Nimiuktuk, hoping to find our way to the main river channel and great views. Having scouted this out last night from atop the high rocks, we decided to cross the shortest distance across the worst of the tundra to a fairly high, very long, ridge that lies west of the high rocky outcrop. It looked like easier walking atop that ridge, and we were right. Still patches of dense brush, but mostly much better. Party way up Tyler was noticing a Northern Shrike that just wouldn't quit it's noise in a nearby shrub. Then he spotted a fox by that bush. I quick tried to switch out lenses for my zoom so I could get a good shot, but had technical difficulties and had to stick with what I had. Turned out to be for the best as the fox came closer and closer, eventually just a few feet away to check us out. Neat as it was, it's not good for wildlife to be comfortable around humans, so Tyler shooed him off with flair, sending him running. We watched him go, then stop a ways down the ridge and start eating blueberries. We continued on up and along our way, finding past archaeological dig sites and some cool evidence from thousands of years ago that's still present if you know what to look for. People used to gather here during the caribou migrations to hunt. They would build blinds and other things with rocks and steer the herd to a good vantage point for hunting. Really fascinating to see these things and know that very little here has changed besides the path of the river channels. Cold as it feels to us here, we can only imagine how people managed in these exposed locations in the late fall.

From the ridge we saw what looked like the best path to the river, to go across the tundra and straight into the river. We headed down the ridge to do that, a long tough haul, and at a little rise just before the start of the heavy brush along the river, we paused for lunch. More cheese and crackers again. After packing up, we saw that down the slope here facing north was a less dense looking section of brush that looked more doable than that to the immediate west. Still, it was thick. We stumbled and pushed our way through hollering for bears and found ourselves in one of the channels, not the main one. With the vegetation so dense it made sense to try to follow this channel until it hits the main channel, and it looked like north was best. There was standing water, high ridges of sediment and rock, downed cottonwood trees, copious animal tracks, mostly bear and moose, eventually some river otter and lynx. We hit the end of that channel and it was just thick brush. We climbed up the steep bank and shoved our way through the tangles of large shrub branches. I almost fell so many times. A steep drop has us into another channel. We followed that one too, making careful notes of our surroundings so we wouldn't get lost. It became impassable and we were back up the bank and into the brush again. Tyler found a moose antler, and in another channel there was a half of a moose hoof. This pattern went on and on, deeper and deeper until we decided that this could go on all day and still not get us to the main channel. There was so much bear and moose sign we were both a little uneasy about where we were. We pushed our way straight east to get back out of the river channels and hiked north a bit to a rise, thinking we could get a good view and try again. It was further than it looked and we were exhausted when we got to the top. Stayed and sat there a bit, at the base of this very high, steep rise was a very deep pond, and we could make out little fish swimming around. We snacked and rested, and saw what had gone wrong. We kept going north when we needed to go further west. Still, no guarantee we'd have found a passable way to the main channel.

We hiked back east across the wide tundra to the ridge again. It was a long slog, so much work to get there and get up, but a relief when we made it to the rockier bits. We took our time hiking south along the ridge, stopping in several places to sit a long while, snack, and look at our morning hike. We could see the rise where we lunched, where we entered the trees, where we came out, and the high slope we climbed at the end.

We got back to camp about 5pm and Tyler made chicken mole while I painted our lake and the rock to the west. We hung out for a long while after dinner, talking about where to go tomorrow and deciding to figure it out in the morning. It's still so light at night we opted to hike out to the ridge south of our tents. We brought cheezits and our little camp chairs and faced west to watch the sun on the Kingasivik Mountains and some clouds rolling in. It looked possibly like rain after a while, so we hiked back to camp before too long and headed into the tents. Turned out to be a good idea, as I wrote today's journal entry it began to rain gently.

No bear sightings today besides tracks in the river channels. That spoils our one-a-day or more record.

First view of the morning right out my tent.

A wider view.

Looking down on the walk to the kitchen area. Gives a small sense of the deep, tightly growing plants.

Tyler says this is one of the largest tussocks he's ever seen. Thigh height and a huge diameter.

Past the tundra, hiking through the brush before getting to the patchy rocks and lower plants that are easier walking.

Looking northwest in the direction we're headed.

The Nimiuktuk and mountains beyond.

Our fox friend a little bit after Tyler first spotted him.

Checking us out and coming closer. Yes, I'm zoomed in at this point.

I love grasses with back lighting. It was hard to narrow down which photos to include, there are still too many here.

Coming closer.

And closer.

Seems a little too calm around us.

Marking his territory on top of some bear scat. Someone has dominant species issues.

Looking west again, the fox ran off to the left of this image through the blueberries and willows.

Looking west and wrapping to the north along the Kingasivik Mountains to the rest of the Brooks Range beyond.

Really enjoyed this view of the ridge extending onward past where we dipped back down to the tundra.

Looking northward.

I really love this area.

Headed across the tundra.

Coming up on our lunch spot.

Looking at the direction we were going to walk into the riverbed.

Looking north, down from the rise we lunched on. It's like a tangled wall meant for a labyrinth.

What we saw after forcing our way through that wall of vegetation.

And looking the other direction.

Unidentified plants.

Lots of exposed roots down in here.

Half of a moose hoof.

Still more tangled sections, even inside.

Neat looking greens and swirls.

More washed away detritus.

Tyler trying to show the scale of the amount of rock that's forced up along the edges here. Hard to see.

So many fascinating places we could explore.

Moose antler!

More channel bed.

Figuring out what to do, decided to go up and into that brush on the right.

I had been asking Tyler how deep the grass roots on the tundra grow. With permafrost it didn't seem like they could possibly get as deep as the midwest prairie grasses.

Still more gravel.

Some signs, I think this was the lynx but I'm tired and not focused right now. Will double check.

Past some of the tall brush above the bank it opened up to shorter grasses, waist to shoulder height, and I could see this view.

Tyler in the brush to show scale.

Yet another river channel. They really are interesting, though not very photogenic on a day with lighting like today's.

Tyler again, to show the scale of this place.

Tracks.

Clearly bear tracks.

A last river channel view before we pushed our way back out to the tundra.

Looking back on little ponds we passed along the edge of the tree/brush line.

Another unidentified flower.

Looking over toward the ridge and, in the left of middle, the rocky outcrop by our lake. It looks so far away.

Looking down on this very deep pond while resting and snacking.

A hint at the scale of this, those are large cottonwoods on the far bank of this pond.

Looking back at the Nimi after crossing the tundra back to the ridge.

Love this tiny plant. Not yet sure what it is.

Little willow that looks like a bonsai at the top of this windy ridge.

The Kingasivik Mountains and Nimiuktuk River.

Looking at where we hiked. Our lunch ridge is just before the brush to the left of center here.
We popped out to the right, about a quarter of the way from the right edge.
The tall slope we perched on above the deep pond is at the center, far right edge.