Hiking the River Channel
Our big hike on our second day in Gates was along the river channel. It was so much easier hiking on the gravel bars and we still got great views. We also discovered different things than we found up the side of the mountain. This hike was almost five hours long and we ate lunch while on our hike.
We hiked in a northeast direction and we only hiked on the mountainside a short distance before we entered the river. You can see where we started on the river in the first photo. From here, we hiked clear down to the other end of this valley to where you see the two mountains come down to the valley.
It may not look like it was too exciting hiking in the river channel, but it was. The second and third photos give you an idea of our views but there were lots more. We saw quite a few animal tracks in the sand including bear, moose, and caribou. The rocks were also great to see as we walked and we found jade, serpentine, agate, quartz, and many more. The weather was also always changing as you can see in the first two photos, not taken very long apart. We also had to wear our rubber boots as we were regularly crossing streams in the braided Ambler River. You can see where we ate our lunch in the fourth photo.
Each of us wandered our own path along the river. Sometimes I would look around, like in the fifth photo, and discover that I was on the other side of the river braid from Vicky, Andrew, and April. That came with spending lots of time looking down at the ground for rocks, plants, prints, and scat.
If you go back to the first photo and look down to the other end of the valley, the last photo is taken from that point at the far end of the valley. The river turns the corner and goes to the left. It looks very similar down there and into the next canyon. Because the river turns sharply at that point, multiple braids of the river come together. You can actually see this in the water as you can discern the different colors of the different streams. I still think that the color of the streams was perhaps my favorite physical attribute of Gates.
