The Adventures of Andrew Maurer

Today would be the hard day – the same number of miles as before, but with an elevation gain of nearly 3,000 feet to Chilkoot Pass. We left Sheep’s Camp and quickly lost the trail after it became covered in snow. We put on our gaiters and snowshoes and had a not-so-bad bush crash until we got above treeline – the base of the large incline up to Chilkoot Pass.

The trail follows a ravine all the way up and over the pass. So although it was somewhat socked in and foggy, we hoped to do alright in terms of navigation, also being prepared with a map and compass. The higher we ascended, the foggier it became, until visibility was very limited indeed. The trail became steeper, and we figured we were at a feature known in the Gold Rush as the Golden Steps – the steepest part of the trail.

We finally arrived at a place where we had air on three sides of us. A pass is a saddle point, where this one should have been upsloping to the east and west and downsloping on the north and south. We seemed to be high up on the east side of the saddle. With cliffs between us and the pass itself. Though it was very hard to tell. The terrain also seemed glaciated, and although there were glaciers marked around the pass, the pass itself was not supposed to be a glacier. Earlier on in the day when there was no visibility, I had judged the steepness of the hill by throwing snowballs at varying distances. If the snowball lands on the snow and is visible, one can make out the grade as far as the snowball was thrown. If the snowball disappears, this indicates a cliff.

We had to make a decision of whether to try to navigate the cliffs in the whiteout, turn back, or make camp there on the pass by making large snow sidewalls to protect ourselves from the wind. We were over half way to Happy Camp in terms of distance, and probably three quarters in terms of time, since it was all a gentle downhill from the pass to Happy Camp. However, we decided to turn back, since we could follow our footprints back. If we waited out the night, our footprints back to Sheep’s Camp would disappear and it would be harder to find our way back.

We made it back to Sheep’s Camp after an 8 hour day, promptly got a fire going, made dinner, and fell asleep. We had enough food to attempt the pass again the next day if the weather were clear. Otherwise we would return to Canyon City, and then to Dyea.