Tununak to Toksook

From the very beginning, the trip exceeded all expectations. We went into it prepared to deal with the forecasted weather – accumulations of up to one inch of snow, changing to sleet by the evening, with rain forecast for the following several days. But once airborne, we saw partly cloudy skies. Our pilot first stopped in Newtok to drop off a passenger before heading over to Tununak. The flight out there was amazing in and of itself. We flew low and slow, close to the ground, enjoying the scenery. Our awesome pilot Andrew was a crop-duster in Georgia before moving up here. We told him of our plan and he kindly went out of his way to fly us along our proposed route – the coastline from Tununak to Toksook. In the process, he spotted some Muskox, so we knew where to keep our eyes open if we wanted to see them. He dropped us off in Tununak and the adventure began.

Looking back towards Tununak:

We started with a brief tour of the Tununak public safety building. The holding cells are top of the line. One has no door. The other has a hole in it the size of your head so you can reach out through it, unlock the door and let yourself out. To make up for the insecure nature of the operation, there’s a metal bar nailed to one of the walls. If you get in trouble, you are hand-cuffed to that. It’s usually an effective escape prevention measure. (Although he did show us two pairs of broken handcuffs that didn't quite do the job.)

Tununak really is quite a lovely little town right there on the coast, exposed to the mighty Bering Sea. They sometimes get 30 foot seas, so that’s exciting. They were about 1-2 foot seas while we were there. And yes, I’ll admit, as we hiked I was secretly keeping an eye out for potential surf breaks. I did see one rideable wave. And I’m sure there are times when surfing would be a realistic option. With the hills and the waves, Tununak could be a little extreme sports paradise in the YK Delta! The sky’s the limit, really.

What we did see while hiking the shore were lots of animal remnants. Here’s Tom with the first cool looking bone we saw.

Additionally, we saw 5-6 decapitated walruses. Apparently their tusks fetch a tidy sum, so people always have an eye out for them. It struck us as kind of wasteful, but we weren’t sure if the walruses had been hunted and wasted, or if they had washed up on the beach and then just salvaged.

We hiked along the beach until the shoreline was too bouldery to be joyous to walk along, then headed up the 900 feet to the top of the bluff.

At times we could see Nunivak island off on the horizon, another dream destination for another day.

We didn’t have to hike long on the bluff before we saw large furry clumps, commonly known as muskox. There were many of them. Tom and I, knowing next to nothing about muskox, were a bit nervous as we walked amongst them. But as we got closer, they tromped off in their graceful way.

The highlight of the highlands was finding the sunbleached remains of a muskox that had apparently died quite some time ago. Excited, we strapped some of the cooler looking bones to our backpacks. I myself thought of my dad, who has a fine appreciation for animal skulls.

We wound up descending to the beach on the other side of the peninsula to camp. The latter part of the hike never seemed to end, but we finally tromped through the tundra and brambles to make it to the shore. Hiking downhill is rarely that challenging. At our campsite, Tom said, "Does something smell like dead?" Then we noticed dead walrus #2. Despite our big dead stinky friend, it was a nice campsite. And we got there just in time to see a great sunset over Nunivak island.

The next day’s walk was great, easy cruising along a firm sandy beach. Lots of interesting cliffs and little waterfalls. We walked by Umkumiut, a cool fish camp, and finally made it into Toksook.

Tom at Umkumiut:

As we got there, the weather finally turned sour and we arrived with snowflakes and 35 mph winds. Because we had been beelining it to Tooksook by aiming for the windmills from the point where the seashore turned to impassable cliffs, our first encounter with Toksook Bay was the town dump.

Our first stop in town was the local store. We powered up with one dollar cans of Royal Crown Cola, after deciding that $4.95 was a little too steep for Starbucks in a bottle.

We were feeling a nice sense of accomplishment about our mission. Then we met one of the least friendly people in the YK Delta, who sternly admonished us for hiking without permission. “Who knows what you guys were doing out there.” Hiking, we responded, but he wasn’t buying it. He demanded our names, with which we gladly supplied him, but interestingly, he refused to tell us his. Just John. At any rate, lest there be any hard feelings, we left the bones we had packed for 20 miles behind. Fortunately, John’s unpleasant welcome was counter-balanced by the friendly vibes we got from everybody else. Grant Air wasn’t flying in on account of the weather, but Hageland was already on its way, so the Grant Air agent kindly gave us a ride to Charlie’s place. He entertained us with coffee and walrus, halibut and muskox stories until the plane landed. Here’s one of his rugrats, and his puppy in the background, as we are towed to the airport.

And now, now I’m beat. Whew. Good fun, but exhausting fun. Tundra hiking is a workout. But the good memories will long outlast the temporary soreness!