Sunday, June 26, 2016

We woke to bluebird skies once again so we enjoyed the sunshine and dried out our stuff. The river level was much lower than yesterday evening so we figured the east fork Jago could be crossed in the morning if it was too large this afternoon. We starting hiking around 11:00AM. The walking was fabulous, mostly firm tundra or river bed gravel. At one point, a small bird flew out from under a rock right next to me so I stooped down to look and sure enough there was a little nest with 5 light brown eggs. Very sweet. Not much in terms of big wildlife, although we did spot two Dall sheep across the valley high on the mountain slopes, one had a little lamb which was cute.

Tundra nest

Walking down the Jago River

The way proceeded to get a little more complicated by large slides that reached down into the river, which we would have to climb up and over. We stopped for a rather late lunch, another two Dall sheep, these ones rams, for us to watch. After going again, we came across a beautiful park with large granite boulders everywhere. Here,the river made a torrential descent through a boulder garden that looked a class V+ with all the high muddy water. Matt informed us that his buddy floated the Jago a few years back and said this particular boulder garden was normally a super fun class III float. The river is definitely in flood mode!

Marshy walking

Jago in flood mode

We eventually reached the east fork around 5:00PM. The clouds had gathered throughout the day and, at this point, had darkened and was spitting out some rain. The river branch nearest to us was very crossable so we went across to find the far branch had most of the water. We followed it for a ways to find a good crossing but it was running quite fast and full, we could hear boulders rolling along the bottom here, too! We found a great soft campsite near a clear spring and set up camp in hopes that the river would be lower in the morning as we had seen this morning on the main Jago. 

Reaching the confluence with the east fork 

Setting up camp

It started raining in earnest as we set up camp; thunder rolled quite a few times up on the peaks then subsided before another storm front rolled over is from the west. The weather finally let up enough for us to leave our tent and cook up some dinner. There were two large Dall sheep rams on the slopes above us for our entertainment. Mat and Matt even watch them butt heads twice. We hit the sack early knowing we'd have to hike 12 miles tomorrow to reach the airstrip, approximately twice as many as we had hiked today. At least we will be descending a gentle slope, the valley now much wider than our narrow west fork that we descended today.

West fork Jago we walked down

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