Ned's Pipeline Trek Page

10:00 a.m. - I wake in a black spruce forest after rain spittle hits my face. I gambled last night, leaving the rainfly off my all-screen tent in order to enjoy the silhouettes of the trees. I contemplate getting out of the sleeping bag, but I see blue sky replacing the clouds as the wind pushes them north. The rain stops. Jane lies motionless at my feet. I remove "Amazing Pipeline Stories" from a Ziplock bag and begin reading. Dermot Cole, a Fairbanks journalist, gave me the book when I passed through Fairbanks. He also wrote it.

11:16 a.m. - The sun is shining as I unzip the tent door. Jane exits, pausing in the doorway to stretch. I follow her out. Repeating a ritual for the sixty-third time, I photograph the tent site.

11:38 a.m. - I drop to the gravel surface of the pipeline work pad and do 30 push-ups, touching a chamomile plant with my nose on every trip earthward. The pushups let my upper body know I still care and allow me to gauge how strong---or how weak---I feel today.

Noon - I retrieve two strong plastic bags that are suspended between two birch trees. The bags contain my food, Jane's food and pack, my toothpaste, soap, and anything else that might cause a bear to twitch its nose. Each night after dinner I use two ropes and a small carabiner to hoist the bags high enough to be out of the reach of Michael Jordan.

12:20 p.m. - A thirsty Jane leads the way down the steep pipeline road to Aggie Creek. Jane takes large bites of the creek. Aggie Creek, a sliver of water that drains a 4,000-foot peak, is the coldest, clearest water I've felt and seen since walking through the Alaska Range. I pump a quart of Aggie Creek through the ceramic core of my Katadyn water filter. It takes 67 strokes to purify it for drinking.

12:40 p.m. - I break my fast in the shade of the pipeline with a pot of Cream of Wheat that includes raisins, brown sugar, and a dollop of butter. Because it's hot, I drink cold Tang rather than tea.

1:00 p.m. - With breakfast finished and the ever-helpful Jane aiding me with cleanup, I drink my second quart of filtered Aggie Creek. I try to stay hyper-hydrated out here because it makes me feel good.

1:15 p.m. - At least 100 dragonflies hunt the air five feet above the creek. They make turns almost too abrupt for the human eye to follow. I could watch them all day, but that wouldn't bring Prudhoe Bay any closer.

1:38 p.m. - Ready for the day's hike, I stuff my pack. I want to go seven hilly miles and sleep near Globe Creek. It's sunny, 73 degrees, mid-summer. Before hiking, I take off my boots and let my socks breathe for a few minutes, a habit that has prevented some blisters over the miles.

1:42 p.m. - After coaxing Jane into her pack, I lift my own pack and fasten my hip strap. Ideally, my hips carry all the weight, but my shoulders argue otherwise. I start hiking, giving Jane the now-familiar, "let's go." As we walk, swallows dart back and forth from the pipeline, bringing food to their newborns, who chirp from within gaps of pipeline insulation. I smell the citrus sharpness of chamomile crushed underboot.

3:10 p.m. - The pipeline, which has been underground the past few miles, emerges like an earthworm on the floor of a narrow valley. It looks oddly handsome after a rainshower, bluish and clean, although the valley would be much prettier without it.

3:40 p.m. - I hear a truck on the nearby highway. The engine reminds me this hike is far from a wilderness trek. I'm walking a manmade path, although I sometimes get glimpses of unpeopled Alaska. My hike is an 800-mile journey on a gravel road that I share with security vehicles, contractors laying fiber-optic line, and people on four-wheelers. The surface I walk today was hauled here 20 years ago from somewhere else. Without this gravel, traversing this valley would require a day of bushwhacking. I will walk through the valley in less than an hour.

4:10 p.m. - The pipe once again dives into a hillside as Jane and I begin the steep ascent of the valley. The summer sun is with us every step. Sweat tickles my brow, then slides down my face like a tear. Jane pants as she climbs directly behind me. I feel her wet nose on my calf.

5:00 p.m. - I lift my pack off my shoulders at the top of the hill after gaining 800 feet in less than a mile. A breeze hits my wet shirt. It feels like a spray of cold water. Looking back, I see we have walked around the familiar bald dome of a mountain. One of the greatest rewards of this walk is seeing where I've been-maybe a hill I camped on a few miles back-and realizing that two legs are the vehicle that carried me this far. Looking back has almost made my cry a few times, such as when I spotted Donnelly Dome for the last time and thought of my brother, who hiked with me there.

5:25 p.m. - While eating banana chips, dried peaches, peanut butter on pilot bread, and a Pemmican bar, I listen to trucks on the highway groan in low gear. Because I am perched above them I hear the truckers downshift seconds after they actually do.

6:27 p.m. - I wake from a nap that leaves me wondering where I am. I must have been having a good dream, because I'm slightly disappointed to find that I'm still on the hike.

7:02 p.m. - As we walk a high plateau, Jane gathers a scent and crashes through the woods. A spruce grouse flushes from the ground to a black spruce. The nervously clucking bird is the only wildlife I've seen all day.

7:12 p.m. - In a sun shower, I round a corner to see a pipeline pump station sitting in the spruce hills. I think of the song "Welcome to the Machine," by Pink Floyd.

7:25 p.m. - I descend another steep pitch, this one into the Globe Creek valley. Walking downhill, all knee work, is worse than walking uphill. I stop often. Jane whines her impatience.

8:20 p.m. - Trailing a fog of mosquitoes, I reach the Globe Creek bridge. I spray my arms and legs with oily repellent. Globe Creek is baffling---just a trickle of water flows in a 30-foot wide gravel riverbed. A mystery. A warm breeze smells of fire smoke.

9:30 p.m. - After I've explored the creek bed and found a tent site near the pipeline, I return to the bridge. It's dinnertime for Jane and she knows it, pestering me with mock barks. After I scoop three handfuls into her collapsible dish, Jane attacks her food, not lifting her head until every nugget is inside her. I dip my cook pot into what remains of Globe Creek. My stove boils the water in about five minutes. I pour it into my mug, drowning a bag of jasmine tea. The remaining water douses a powdery freeze-dried dinner of beef stew from a bag that describes it as "a hearty entree for any appetite." To me, freeze-dried dinners are like a food pill-a quick way to fill up that doesn't require much thought or energy. I supplement my stew with pilot bread and gorp. White chocolate washed down with tea is my final dining pleasure.

11:00 p.m. - After once again hanging my food out of bears' reach, I take a short walk with Jane, who is beautifully backlit by smoke-filtered sun. We take a peek around the next corner, anticipating tomorrow.

11:22 p.m. - I usher Jane through the door flap of the tent, then dive in behind her carrying my shotgun, my journal, my map, and Dermot Cole's book. Jane collapses on her square of foam. I pull my journal from a plastic bag and reflect on a rare day, one during which I met no human beings. If you don't count trail singing, the only words I spoke were to Jane or my tape recorder. After writing, I relax, pull the sleeping bag to my chin, and stare at the towering spruce trees that surround Globe Creek. It is my favorite part of the day.

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