15-Aug-2009 -- So after 4 completed but already visited confluence point, we started this morning for our first unvisited point. At home in Germany and with the help of Google Earth we planned to reach this point from the south. There is at least a road close to this point from the north, but there we had to cross Halfway River (our backcountry camping equipment that we brought from Germany was very limited).
So we camped the night before at Duhu Lake, a nice community campground nearly 5km away from Highway 97 (Alaska Hwy). So we drove this morning from the campground back to the highway and then 24km south to Pink Mountain. There we took the unpaved road to Boring Ranch. After 30km and just before Brady Ranch we turned west onto Cypress Creek road. Another 10km and then we turned right and drove parallel to an airfield. After the runway we turned again right and drove now north. We crossed the former North-West Mounted Police Trail and drove further north for the next 6km – getting now closer to our confluence point. We had to turn left to FDR 97 and after another 4km we passed a gas site. 2km after the gas site we had to stop the car because of a washout. Some hunters had already installed some boards over this washout to pass this ditch with their ATV quads. Because the confluence point was located only 8km away and the weather condition perfect, we decided to hike further north this (hopefully good) way. On the way we passed another gas site, this time un-maintained, and after 7km turned right into the forest. So for the last kilometer we crossed a bright forest, tried to find the best way through a wet and muddy area (like a small lake) and a small stream. Very close to the confluence point we found the old forest road that we saw before on Google Earth – vegetation has already started to take over again this area. The last final meters into the forest to the confluence point were very easy – not so dense, no flies, no brambles.
So we took our pictures from the confluence point and marked this point with a headband. For the way back we decided to hike the old forest road or firebreak further west. After more or less 500m we reached the rim of a step and deep creek and turned left into another old forest road – now hiking back south. At the upper end of the creek we had to cross this stream (it took some time to find the right crossing point, but fortunately we found a fallen tree that span the whole stream). Shortly thereafter, we found our old gas site maintenance road again – but this time completely overgrown. Taking the way now east, we reached again after 600m the same stream from before. Over the past years, the road was completely washed out from this stream but now easy to cross. After another 500m we came to the same point as we left before the road on our way to the confluence point. At this point, Simone and I thought that the direct way through the forest was much easier to hike than the return way. Okay now we had only to hike back 7km to our car. On the way back with the car we camped beside the Halfway River and had a tasty dinner.
At the end both of us were very glad about our first confluence point that was not visited already before.