#2: [17-Jul-16]

05-Apr-2003 -- The confluence point closest to my home in Fairbanks, Alaska also happens to be the easiest in the region. A short drive from my friend Connie’s cabin to the end of Spinach Creek Road and down Old Murphy Dome Road for a mile or so took us to 64 degrees 59.4 minutes N and 148 degrees 1 minutes W. Most of the road is closed in the winter, but fortunately for us several people that live back there maintain a short stretch of it, and that was just enough to get us within 1 mile of the confluence point. With a compass in one hand and the GPS in the other, we headed off through the woods.

To earn the rank of first class in the Boy Scouts of America, you are supposed to know that true north and magnetic north are not the same thing. I'm an Eagle Scout, but it's been a while since I've done any orienteering, so I was very confused when we kept getting farther and farther east even though the compass said we were heading north. It wasn't until we were a half mile east of 148W that I remembered what I'd learned back in my Boy Scout days. I gave up on trying to compensate with the compass and went crashing through the underbrush with my eyes fixed on the GPS screen, finding the confluence point a short time after.

65N 148W is at the edge of a wide valley amidst the myriad rolling hill/mountain/domes that make up interior Alaska. Oddly enough, it is located in a small clearing, the only open space we encountered on the whole trek.

The day was gorgeous, about -10 degrees C and not a cloud in the sky. The hike in had been fun and fast, but the excitement soon wore off as we began our journey back to the truck. Given my less than superior sense of direction, we decided the safest way home would be to follow our footprints in the snow. That meant climbing 600 ft back out of the valley through sometimes knee-deep snow, retracing a path that was an extra mile long due to relapsed boy scout skills. The 1.4 mile hike out took us 2 hours, attesting more to our poor physical condition than the technical difficulty of the hike. All in all, though, it was a great way to spend a morning. It was also a good reminder that a mile of bushwhacking is not the same as a mile on a groomed hiking trail, something we'll have to keep in mind when we try our next confluence point.