The year was 1970 and the purpose of our trip was to participate in a
march from the place called Cooper's Landing through the winding
valleys of the Resurrection river all the way to Seward, through some
of the roughest terrain in Alaska. The distance on the map, as the
crow flies, was 40 miles but the actual mileage was about double. The
purpose of this walk was to maintain the physical fitness of this unit,
the 172nd brigade's mountain rescue team. We were instructed that we
will, for the most part, follow the river's course and use the
existing animal paths. There were no roads or human trails.
First we were to reach the Russian Lakes, where, every year, the
millions of sockeye salmon come to spawn. No surprise that these lakes
were are also favorite gathering place of large Alaskan grizzles.
The planners of this trip obviously did not know much about bears.
Every member of this fifty-men team had a M-16 assault rifle but only
the sergeant in charge had ammunition. Just in case we ran into a
problem bear. These bears are lightning quick and since we traveled
in dispersed groups of 3-5 men, every man should have had ammo for his
protection. I am the first one to admit that I was totally ignorant
at that time about the behavior of these animals. I thought of them
as slow, lumbering teddy bears that were mostly harmless. Ignorance
is bliss, I felt no fear of them. If I knew then what I know now, I
would have climbed the tallest tree and stayed there till somebody came
to rescue me :-)
Recently the local cinemas were showing the movie "The Grizzly Man" a
film about a man who lived with grizzlies and ended up being eaten by
them. I highly recommend this flick, it's based on the guys own film
he recorded among the bears.
Loaded with 70-pound backpacks we were making our way up to the Upper
Russian Lake. The next, we would follow a dozen of streams draining
out of the lake, which would eventually form the Resurrection river.
We were traveling in small groups at fast pace and I always had 2 - 3
men in my field of vision. Making my way through the incredibly thick
brush was extremely difficult, it was sometimes easier to walk along
the bottom of an ice cold creek. At one point I look around and I
don't see anybody around. Immediately I assumed that I was too slow
and that I needed to speed up in order to catch up with the rest of the
group. I kept speeding up as much as the terrain would let me. There
were some tough hombres in that group, Army Rangers and a couple of
Special Froces guys. I thought I was not fast enough to keep up with
them. We were given no food, it was to be dropped to us out of
helicopters at different points of the march and we were taught
survivor techniques. At least there was more than plenty of water
around for drinking.
To make it a shorter story, the unit realized quickly that I was
missing and began a search party. This took place in a pretty nasty,
swampy area. All this time I was convinced that the guys were ahead of
me and I continued in an attempt to catch up to them. The result was
obvious. The distance between us grew.
Thus I spent four nights in a grizzly infested wilderness, saw at
least two sows with cubs and plenty of moose. A lot of meat on the
hoof ! At one point I lost my useless M-16 as I was crossing, the
deep river. I had to cross this stream a number of times since the
terrain frequently prevented me from walking along the bank, a sheer
rock or such. It's hard to believe but I did not have matches,
relied on the other guy to carry them, I suppose. No fire. Even
though the nights were only some two hours long in June, they were
very cold. The stream continued to get bigger, till it became a
raging river rushing over huge boulders. For a while there were
stretches of calm water, so I tied a couple smaller logs together and
used it as a raft. It worked like a charm till I came to a rather
vicious bend in the river. It was nice while it lasted, perhaps some
four miles.
Early in the morning, on the fifth day, I crossed a dangerous creek
when I saw somebody's head pop up behind the huge boulder. The
uniformed man was shouting at me, asking my name. When I told him, he
responded: "You are the guy they have been looking for five days!
They have two choppers in the air looking for you." Shortly
afterwards, I followed this beautiful, paved road all the way to the
local US Army R&R camp in Seward. I remember thinking, thanks for
civilization, the wilderness isn't exactly what it cracked up to be.
There were many places where I had to crawl through the brush on all my
fours with the backpack getting caught on branches. The food never
tasted so good as it did that time in the Army mess hall. On the
third day of my hike I hastily killed a porcupine, hoping to cook it.
Then I realized I had no way to make a fire and I was not hungry enough
yet to eat the raw meat. As a matter of fact, the hunger was not such
a big thing. The fear of drowning was more of an issue than hunger,
I had to cross that damn river way too many times. They had aircraft
looking for me, once the helicopter was so close to me that I could
see the pilot. I was on a sandbar butt naked drying my wet cloths and
before I had a chance to wave my shirt, the guy was gone. No way to
create so smoke and it was very wide valley.
I still can't believe how unprepared I was for this "adventure". It
definitely was a learning experience. When I hear people talking
about back to nature wishes, I wonder if they know what they are
talking about.
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