Lost and Found

7 minute read

Getting lost was not part of the plan. 

My shoulders ached and one heel was starting to blister against a wet wool sock. I had been trudging for hours, mindlessly putting one foot in front of the other, head down, hood up against the wind. Light flakes of snow were thickening and daylight was fading fast into grey gloom. I looked around and an unsettling feeling that had been brewing in the back of my mind suddenly crystallized into a sharp thought. Sure seems like I haven’t seen the trail in a while. I peered along the ridge, searching for a sign, a cairn, a trail marker, anything really. Or was I even still on the ridge? The angle of the slope didn’t seem quite right. Wait… where was I?

The Pinnell Mountain Trail is a 27 mile track that crosses a wild and empty stretch of high open country in Interior Alaska. The route connects Eagle and Twelvemile summits and runs along a series of alpine ridgelines and over sloping summits and domes. 

I was on contract with the Bureau of Land Management, and had the job of retrieving a piece of scientific equipment that had spent the summer collecting data in the field. It was near the midway point of the trail, eleven miles from the road. My plan was simple, if not ambitious. Start before dawn and make a push for the gear. Twenty two miles would be a hike, but if everything went well, I’d be back by before dark. 

The trail is a glorious trek across a rolling expanse of Alaska. The entire route is above treeline, and vistas stretch from the Yukon River north to the Alaska Range south. Near the Arctic Circle, summer weeks mesh together into a daze of endless light. The sun loops across the sky before dipping just below the horizon each night for a bright, shadowless twilight.  

Late September though, is a different story. Each day is shorter than the last, and the exposed ridgelines can become windblown and mean. Winter has a habit of arriving abruptly in Alaska - I had to pick up the equipment before sub-zero temperatures iced over the electronics and snowdrifts buried it till spring.  

A thin layer of frost had formed overnight and the forecast held a chance of snow, but the hike out was steady and uneventful. I missed my mental turnaround time, but still felt good. So far out there was no way I wasn’t finishing the job. I pushed on, and found the equipment just where it was supposed to be. Mission accomplished. 

I snapped the sensor into its bright yellow case and stuffed it into my pack. I made an unceremonious pirouette and was surprised how sharply the wind suddenly cut, tiny snowflakes pricking my face.  Looking at my watch, I felt a gnaw of uncertainty. Dark clouds hung ominously above, I was alone, eleven miles from the trailhead, on a cold September day. I was way behind schedule and had a long walk home. 

Four hours later, I found myself high along the ridgeline in the thickening snow. Still not fully disengaged from autopilot, instinct told me to keep going. Safety is forward, not back. Make a wide arc in the general direction of the trail, you’ll hit it eventually. I started ahead again a few hundred feet before dawning clarity slowed me to a stop. In the dark and the snow, missing the trail would be easy. And wandering further off route would be bad, very bad. Backtracking was the last thing I wanted to do, but it was the choice I had to make. I reluctantly turned and began following my footsteps back through the fresh snow, keeping a sharp eye out for a marker.  

After what seemed like an eternity, I came across a rock cairn and a faint track - the trail! Now, taking care, I started back along the ridgeline, picking my way from marker to marker, a moment of relief each time my headlamp illuminated a cairn through the snow. After another tense hour, the trail dropped off the ridge crossing the valley below. The tight knot of uncertainty clenched in my stomach began to loosen. I still had a few miles to go, but I was on the home stretch. 

Then, the trail vanished. Wind whipping snow down the valley had morphed what little I could see through the dark into a featureless plain. Stepping forward, I could feel the trail through the snow… or more accurately I could feel when I was off it. It took a few spongy steps before I realized I was in a thicket of half frozen muskeg. 

I backed up and stepped tentatively forward. I took a few more steps before losing the trail again. I’d have to feel my way home, probing forward with each step, hiking by braille.

I took stock of the situation. My pre-dawn start hadn’t been quite as early as it should have been. My pace, realistic on paper, was optimistic in the field. The trail was longer and slower than I thought. Backtracking the ridge put me even further off schedule. Low thick clouds had long cut the daylight I had been counting on. The trail, clear in the crisp fall morning, was now buried under a layer of windblown snow. The temperature was dropping and exposed as I was, I knew if I stopped, hypothermia could set in. Nothing had gone badly wrong, but every factor was moving in the same direction. Each like a grain of snow - shifting together and gaining momentum, threatening to cascade into an avalanche. I slowly realized with a numb incredulousness that I just might be fucked.  

Sweeping my headlamp back and forth, I tried to orient myself, but the feeble light only illuminated a small cone of swirling snowflakes a few feet each direction. I made another pass and stopped - something small caught my eye. Peering forward, I caught it again, a flicker in my light, a shadow in the snow. Crouching closer, it wasn’t the trail, but a small set of tracks. Two tiny prints, front and back. A snowshoe hare, hopping along. 

I took a tentative step, and then another.  My boots crunched through the snow onto the firm trail below. By sight or by scent, memory or feel, the hare knew the way, towards the hills and out of the wind, hopping directly above the trail. 

I followed the tracks for nearly two miles through the cold blowing snow. I never caught or saw him though he must have only been a minute ahead, his prints distinct in the wind. In the lee of the hills they veered off the trail. Time to snug down in his burrow, I supposed. But by then I was out of the wind too and back on clear trail. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and gave an exhausted thank you from the bottom of my heart. 

The rest of the trip was unremarkable. I plodded through the dark to the trailhead. My truck was where I left it, and started with a rumble. I made camp off the summit and out of the storm, and delivered the equipment the next day. 

I will never forget that night when I was nearly caught by winter’s leading edge. And I will never forget the tracks left by that hare. A guide I will be eternally grateful for - a tiny friend that led me home through the storm.

The Details

From downtown Fairbanks, head north on the Steese Highway for approximately 80 miles to Twelvemile Summit. The Pinnell Mountain Trail is 27 miles long and parallels the highway to Eagle Summit.  The route is remote and challenging. Most hike it in two or three days. The Bureau of Land Management maintains two trail shelters along the trail, dividing the trail approximately in thirds. There is limited water along the trail, although the shelters may have water in their rain catchment systems. For hardcore points, stash a bike at the other summit and ride back to your vehicle to complete the loop. Find more information at https://www.blm.gov/visit/pinnell-mountain-trail 

Stay safe out there!