2nd annual BRAK, part 4

List of things that can kill you in the Brooks Range

1. Mauling (bears, wolves, moose, musk oxen)
2. Hypothermia
3. Drowning
4. Lightning
5. Rabid small animals (foxes, etc)
6. Mosquitos (Ok, not really. Alaska mosquitos do not carry disease. But according to a ranger talk at Coldfoot, death from blood loss would occur if you were naked and helpless for four hours. The more you know.)
7. Falling.
8. Rockslides**

** This is a new one to me. Here I was, hiking back toward the highway, minding my own business and cursing the rain, walking alongside a cliff and all of a sudden: CRACK CRACK SMACK overhead.

Instinctively, what does one do in this situation? One looks up, gazing in stupified wonder at where the noise came from! Exactly like the golfer, who, upon hearing "FORE!" perks his head up likes a dumbass and stares intently at the direction of the shout, while he should instead be crouching down and covering his head with his arms to protect himself from the projectile that he knows is headed in his direction.

So I acted on instinct, dutifully staring up toward the sky, agape, watching head-sized rocks falling toward me from sixty feet up. By the time I assumed the correct golfer's "FORE" pose, the rockslide had come to a blissful conclusion, and fortunately I escaped unscathed.

I was a little more careful to stay away from cliff bases after that.

I thought this was neat. It's not a great picture, but it's my boot print, from the walk in, preserved under three+ days (2 inches or so) of rain.

The amateur geologist in my wonders how the heck this rock was formed:
And here was the last obstacle before the spruce bog that stood between me and my car:

And so after four days of rain in the Gates of the Arctic, I made it safely back to the Dalton. And now I had a few days to kill, since I was hoping to spend at least five days in the wild!