Hiking across Kodiak Island, Alaska

I just finished a 3-day hike from Terror Lake in the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge back to the city of Kodiak via Crown Mountain with four friends. Crown Mountain is the highest peak on the north end of Kodiak Island and is characterized by beautiful white granite and spectacular palisades. We saw mountain goats all along the route and were visited by a sow with her three 2-year-old cubs on the second evening. We had some sun, some rain, and some wind. Classic Kodiak. :^)

Enjoy: Terror -> Crown -> Town

Phillip,

Thank you for another very professionally edited trip video!

Great video! That looked like an amazing trip.

Another hiking and packrafting trip to Shuyak Island: Shuyak Island 2017

Fun stuff. :^)

Outstanding, as usual. Particularly enjoyed the otter footage.

Thank you sharing another great video of your adventures. Was the grey tent an MLD Supermid? Who makes the wood stove you used? This is the first of your videos where that gear has been shown.

Green with envy 

This is the first trip where I took a wood heating stove along. I have been with other folks who have taken wood stoves in the past (mostly elk hunting and spring archaeological surveys) but I picked up one this summer for comfort when sea kayaking and doing water-based trips where weight is less of a consideration. The stove is one of the small Ti Goat WiFi stoves with about a 7′ pipe. I got the stove jack (the stove pipe fabric port) along with the stove and bought a MLD Supermid in silnylon for this purpose and sewed the jack in myself. I like MLD shelters but wasn’t ready to chop a hole in my pretty cuben Supermid so I got a less expensive silnylon version.

How far back in time have you/they gone in your archaeological research there on the island?

Nice! Where’s the massive glacier at 3:30?

Im not the archaeologist, just the helper in this scenario, but I believe they have sites dating back about 5,000 or 6,000 years BCE, but the stuff we were looking at this past spring was considerably younger. It was a survey of sites to catalogue what could be investigated further in the future, and not any actual excavations. We traveled the coast by kayak around a place called Whale Island.

The glacier is Fourpeaked Glacier just south of Cape Douglas and across the Shelikof Strait from Shuyak on the north end of the Katmai coast.

Thanks. It looked like the mainland.

Excellent! Thanks for sharing!

Great video! Thanks for sharing.  The beaver really have that tree’s number, never seen that.  And the backlit green airbag made the reinflate almost look glamorous…  Really enjoyed it!

I just did a 5-day, 90-mile trip up the west coast of Kodiak Island from the south end of the island at Alitak to the village of Larsen Bay half-way up the west side.These were the same starting and ending locations of a previous hike, but rather than doing a mostly straight line between them as I had done previously, I followed the west coast of Kodiak for about 60 miles before turning east towards Larsen Bay. On the second day of the trip I put in 30 miles, which I think is the farthest I have hiked in one day. Being early to mid June, the grass was only about knee high and the animals were shedding their winter coats. The flowers were just coming out. I had some mountain clouds and it was sort of cool most days, but no rain. All in all, a lovely trip and one I would be happy to repeat since there was so little brush to deal with, pretty easy hiking, lovely beaches and capes, and plenty of critters.

You can see it here: Hiking from Alitak to Larsen Bay via the Shelikof Strait

Philip,

Thank you very much for sharing your most recent adventure with us. Your photography and music were as professional as anything I have seen!

Awesome trip report as always. Thank you for sharing!!

I see that is an HMG pack. Are you not using the Seek Outside anymore?

Also, awesome shot when you were walking in the footprints bear have worn into the tundra. I followed some going over a pass in the Chugach.

I have a couple of HMG and SO packs. For lighter loads like when I’m only hiking and loads are under 35 pounds total then the HMG packs are fine and I use those. A 2400 for 2-3 days, and a 3400 for up to 7 days. For packrafting or bigger loads I only use the SO packs as the HMG suspension just isn’t comfortable for me anymore. I took quite a bit more food on this trip than I ended up needing since my daily mileage ended up being higher than anticipated, and I was at the limit of what I think the HMG suspension is good for.

I too find the HMG suspension tops around in the low 30# range. I’ve had the SO suspension up to the mid forties comfortably.

Again, awesome trip report. I always look forward to your videos.

I took advantage of the long Labor Day weekend to hike a loop starting and ending near the town of Kodiak. It took me south past Crown Mountain, the highest peak on the north end of Kodiak, down to Hidden Basin which is at the head of Ugak Bay, out Ugak Bay to Saltery Cove, and then back home via Center Mountain, another high peak. About 60 miles and 19k’ of elevation change. Hardly any bugs, not much brush, lots of sun, and the animals were happily doing their thing.

See the video here: Kodiak to Ugak and Back

Spectacular new video!  I just loved watching it…many times! Thank you Philip!!

love your videos. thank you for sharing them with us.

Another fabulous video trip report!  That’s a lot of goats!

Do you ever get sun sensitivity after bashing through the cow parsnip?  I once got a 2″ x 1″ fluid filled blister on the back of my hand – a second-degree sun burn due to the sap of a celery-family plant.  I’ve taken to rinsing exposed skin off with water after possibly exposures now.

Yeah, I totally get puchkie burns. I have a few itchy rashes on my arms right now. I tend to steer around them but I don’t always miss. It’s just part of the experience, I guess. :^/

Not sure if folks here are squeamish about hunting (I haven’t posted our past hunts), but here is a quick, 2-minute edit of our 2018 Afognak Island Roosevelt elk hunt. There isn’t much gore or macho crap. We mostly used Seek Outside packs and slept in a customized Seek Outside Redcliff.

See it here: 2018 Afognak Island Roosevelt elk hunt on Vimeo