The pilot in the tiny Helio Courier kept circling over a small patch of tall grass, looking intently at the ground. "I think I have it" he blurted over the engine noise, then abruptly nosed the plane down to the ground. Few seconds went by, feeling like an eternity, then the front propeller went through a cluster of small bushes like a weed-whacker in an uncured lawn. We stopped with cold sweat dripping down my temples. We had reached our destination: the upper Kongakut valley. If the touch down had been traumatic, seeing the plane fly away was even harder to accept. We suddenly felt alone. We knew that there was only one way out of the massive valley, mount the canoes and paddle down to the Arctic Ocean, where another plane was schedule to pick us up two weeks later. In between, 130 miles of rough waters. If escaping alive wasn’t enough, the team had also planned to climb over the Alaskan continental divide and claim the full descent of the Kongakut river from headwaters to the sea. The hike turned out to be a strenuous affair. The group crossed raging streams, bush-wacked through tussocks and tall grasses, climbed over snow couloirs and steep rock faces. Finally, at the end of the valley, and over a pass, we admired a beautiful scene: valleys and rivers converging south, to the Yukon basin. We had reached our first goal. We shook hands as hundreds of caribou stood unafraid around us. It certainly looked as if they had not seen many humans before. There was still time to scale an unnamed peak, then in a snow storm the team returned safely to the base camp. With the continental divide under our belt, we assembled the canoes, put on the Kokatat life jackets, and started the second part of the journey, the paddling section. We quickly learned why many people have not visited the upper valley of the Kongakut. The river is extremely shallow in the area, and we struggled to push and drag our fully loaded boats downstream. The itinerary called for a minimum of 15 miles per day on the river. On day 1 we barely scrambled 3 miles. Only 5 miles on day 2, and the morale of the group hit an all time low. Luckily, day 3 brought some much needed rain and higher water flow. We entered the canyon with full speed. The rapids in front of us where some of the most challenging sections that most of us has ever done. At one point, it took a good 4 hours to clear a meager mile and a half of river, but we kept going until we reached the end of the mountain sections few days later. The delta welcomed us with a band of thick ice where the river had carved a small passage through it. Luckily we had the Kokatat Expedition suits to keep us dry and warm. We built primitive shelters with drift wood on the beach, trying to battle high winds and cold temperatures. In the near distance the waves were crashing drifted icebergs. A polar bear dropped a dead seal and stalked us for almost an hour before turning back to his lunch. Thanks to a solid back wind and the tent fly rigged as a spinnaker on the spare paddle, we sailed the last 20 miles at speeds of 5 knots per hour. We reached the Beaufort landing strip a day in advance, and enjoyed the comforts of the town of Kaktovik during the extra time. Click Images to Enlarge The Trip | The Cause | The Team | Agenda | Training | Events | Sponsors | Contact © Copyright Across The Atlas 2006. All Rights Reserved.