Author: By Irene Owsley Spector, Globe Correspondent

Date: SUNDAY, February 28, 1999

Page: M1

Section: Travel

As my fellow backpackers and I approached the edge of the northern forest, we began to bushwhack in earnest along the Chandalar River. Birds were singing, and the sudden presence of trees created a new, sweet scent in the air.

After a particularly difficult scramble on hands and knees over deadwood and up and down a steep cutbank, we came to a wide area of dry, sun-warmed rocks along shallow riffles. Without skipping a beat, my friend from New Jersey walked into the water thigh-high and poured an icy hatful of the Chandalar onto her head. I followed her lead, and then we all lay wordlessly on the stones for a late afternoon snooze.

Enough of a breeze kept the mosquitoes at bay, puffy white clouds passed overhead, the unfiltered Arctic sunshine struck the mountains and the river in front of us so sharply it made me squint, and at that moment I couldn't imagine a better place in the world to be.

Months later, as I re-read Margaret Murie's classic published in 1963, ``Two in the Far North,'' I came across this passage, which described precisely the feel of my backpacking experience in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the wilderness she and her husband had fought so hard to protect: ``This wondrous mingling of weariness and triumph and sudden harmony with the exquisite airs, the burgeoning life of the bird and plant world of the tops, is part of the `glad tidings,' surely, which John Muir meant when he said, `Climb the mountains and get their glad tidings.' ''

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is one of our nation's largest refuges, encompassing nearly 20 million acres of arctic tundra, boreal forest, and parts, but not all of, the Brooks Range. This mountain range, which appears on the map to garland the northern third of Alaska above the Arctic Circle, first got under my skin when I flew over it on a trip to Barrow on Alaska's northern coast. I looked down on the most rugged, empty, bare, wild country I had yet seen in North America, and I was determined someday to get closer.

It is well-known that the Refuge protects most of the calving grounds for the Porcupine caribou herd, the second-largest herd in Alaska. The status of its coastal lands remains in dispute while environmentalists square off with those who have economic interests in the region's considerable oil and gas deposits. Perhaps less known is the fact that the first petroleum reserve in the area was set aside as early as 1923.

Also during the '20s, wildlife biologist Olaus Murie and his wife Margaret first worked in Alaska's northeast corner, gathering research on the caribou herds around the Alaska-Yukon border. They were well aware, as the decades passed, of the momentum from all sides to lay claim to the area's rich resources. Through his leadership of The Wilderness Society in the early 1950s, Olaus galvanized the efforts of many players to preserve this truly pristine wilderness. Thus, the Refuge was established in 1960.

It is as wild and undisturbed as any preserve in the country. Of course, there are no roads leading to it. Our plan was to fly from Fairbanks on a scheduled flight to the Gwich'in -- Alaska native of Athabascan Indian origin -- settlement of Arctic Village on the southern edge of the Refuge, and from there continue north by bush plane into the mountains on the south slope of the Brooks Range. Nine days later, we would meet the pilot at a prearranged spot.

On the morning we were to leave Fairbanks, the clouds hung close to the ground and let loose a steady rain that I feared would put our departure in jeopardy. Yet the nine-seater Cessna Caravan took off and flew through the clouds for nearly two hours. After a brief delay on the deserted gravel airstrip on the outskirts of Arctic Village, our group of six (two couples, the guide, and I) packed into two single-engine Cessna 185s. Flying side-by-side among the peaks, which were still partially obscured by weather, we skimmed so close to the ridge-tops, I could have dragged my fingers along their gravelly spines.

The planes set down in a narrow valley on an uneven strip of tundra amid the creeping flow of a braided stream. No sooner had the gear been unloaded than we spied a visitor across the gravel bar in the dim light. A large, black wolf with a gray face appeared and stood quietly gazing at us.

Speechless, we were transfixed by this creature in the mist. The seeming self-assurance of the wolf made me intensely aware that I was the interloper, the awkward two-legged animal dependent on Gore-Tex and freeze-dried food. I felt the mandate to be humbly respectful of the wolf's territory as he trotted away and then stopped to look back before continuing out of sight.

During the entire trip, this proved to be our most intimate encounter with wildlife. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, true to its name, however, is home for 36 species of land mammals, including all three North American bears (black, brown, and polar). We spotted fresh grizzly tracks on more than one occasion and sighted one high on a mountainside as it browsed for berries.

As a rain shower passed through a small side valley during one of our day hikes, we noticed a solitary caribou profiled on a rocky promontory above us, but that was our only glimpse of the ungulate so well-documented by Olaus Murie. Their signs were scattered everywhere like calling cards -- tufts of coarse hair on a willow branch, antlers shed on a gravel bar, tracks by the thousands.

In summer 1956, Olaus and Margaret worked out of a base camp to study plants and animals alike with a team of researchers along the Sheenjek River, one of three rivers designated as ``wild'' in the Refuge.

It was among the braided channels of the west fork of the Sheenjeck that we were tent-bound for our first 36 hours. We were reluctant to strike camp and set out in the pouring rain, allowing our gear to become soaked at the outset.

The weather, I was to discover, was a powerful arbiter of one's spirits, and mine lifted considerably when the veil of clouds finally dissipated to reveal the fullness of the mountains surrounding us.

Author John McPhee, speaking geologically, likened the Brooks Range to ``a pile of driftwood,'' referring to the powerful combination of plate tectonics and the ravages of at least four ice ages that have shaped, over millions of years, what were accumulated bits and pieces of the earth. Our glaciated valley was formed by bare, severe-looking mountains the color of slate with fingers of green climbing their lower slopes.

As the trip progressed, during evenings when I leaned back in my camp chair and gazed long and deliberately at the panoramas surrounding us, I studied the shapes and colors of the range. In one direction the mountains could be soft and rounded, while in another, serrated ridges sliced the skyline at all angles. It was a painter's palette of color -- striations of ocher and orange, bold formations of black and gray, or muted, subtle swaths of green and blue. While there was not the drama of the Alps or the Tetons, the more subtle grandeur of the Brooks Range had a kind of gaunt dignity.

Like Margaret Murie, I was gaining an understanding of the pleasures as well as the struggle of living even for a short time in the wilderness. I hadn't gotten to those moments of bliss on the riverbank without some pain. First of all, there is absolutely nothing fun about hiking with a 55-pound pack on your back.

Granted, this nine-day guided backpacking trip was an elective vacation, and I was well-aware that everyone would help carry group supplies including food bags and fuel bottles for the camp stove (we had no campfires to minimize our impact). When the gear was divided, I was off behind a willow, so that when I returned to find my allotment, all that was left were the pots, pans, and powdered drink containers that may as well have been five-pound dumbbells. Only with the support of my two hiking poles could I stand up under the weight of my pack, and at first I felt constantly on the verge of tipping over. Managing this load in rough terrain was a challenge.

There are few established long-distance hiking trails in Alaska. In a state with 322 million acres of public land, you are usually on your own with a topographical map and compass. Certainly in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the only trails are those pressed into the valley floors by streams of migrating caribou. Imagine an area the size of Connecticut and Massachusetts combined, without any trails, much less roads or development of any kind.

I quickly discovered that following in the footsteps of caribou invariably allowed the surest footing. But the valleys through which I roamed with my companions were not the soft, treeless meadows they appeared to be from the air. Instead, we encountered hummocks, hidden holes, murky bogs, thick stands of waist-high willows, and mile after mile of the dreaded tussocks -- foot-high mushroom-shaped clumps of plants -- that prevented any rhythm to one's gait and required eyes on the ground at all times. We made constant stream crossings, climbed up and down steep side drainages, and sank to our calves in all variety of spongy tundra. Regardless of not achieving any altitude, this kind of hiking was as demanding on my stamina as any I had done, and there were evenings I literally collapsed in my tent. -- as soon as I put it up.

Latitude, not altitude, was the key factor here. We were hiking at about two degrees above the Arctic Circle, the mathematical line drawn around the globe at 66''030'N. While it is easy to define arctic regions as those above the Arctic Circle, perhaps a more meaningful indicator is treeline, the fluctuating northernmost limit of stands of trees.

All my earlier excursions above treeline were achieved by climbing, by gaining altitude in the mountains. When I found myself in the Refuge hiking through nameless valleys below nameless peaks, treeline was not upslope from me. We began our trek north of the trees and ended it in the boreal forest, at the edge of treeline. This was my first exposure to treeline as a horizontal, not a vertical, concept.

Only two-fifths of the Arctic is permanent ice. Instead, typical to Arctic lands are the wide extremes of temperature between summer and winter that assure the presence of permafrost (frozen ground) but also the profusion of grasses, sedges, and shrubs in the low country and year-round snow and ice in the high.

The word ``Arctic'' is derived from the Greek ``arktos,'' referring to the northern constellation of the Bear. I never saw these stars, though, because during the Arctic summer there is round-the-clock light. The sun never sets between late April and mid-August; conversely, the sun never rises above the horizon between mid-November and mid-January.

Adjusting to the Arctic environment also meant learning to cope with the mosquitoes. Forget ordinary repellent. A netted bugshirt treated with the strong chemical, deet, is one possibility, but covering my entire body with clothing, wearing a bandana underneath a baseball cap tied around my chin 1950s style, and trying not to think about how many mosquitoes I consumed with my soup were the options that worked best for me. There were times, however, that I truly understood the meaning of being driven crazy when hundreds would alight on me at any one time. With my defenses weakened, I'd crawl into my tent for relief.

Not everyday did we move camp, and some days involved less mileage than others to allow for day hikes without the heavy backpacks. We'd veer off into an intriguing-looking side valley for a glimpse of glaciers, spot a high ridge to climb for the view, or follow a stream until it ended in a mini slot canyon. Invariably, we ate lunch in passing rainshowers.

The trip was indeed physically demanding. There were times I silently cursed my load and questioned my motives in choosing to pay good money for what sometimes evoked misery. But the corollary was that I was thrilled to fulfill a long-standing dream and that I unequivocally loved living in the out-of-doors. Whether washing my hair in an ice-melt stream or snuggled warm in my sleeping bag with my head positioned for the view out the tent flap, whether discovering an animal track or watching how the sun would finally break from the clouds and light up a distant mountain, I was entranced.

It was long after midnight when I finally turned in on the last night before pickup. It was hard to sleep as the sky over the mountains in the distance kept turning all shades of pink and lavender. Sometime around 3 a.m, I awoke to an unusual light shining through my tent. Throwing on a jacket, I struggled outside to see sunlight hitting an oncoming rainshower, causing an enormous rainbow over the now wide river valley. The reflection from clouds the color of pewter cast this otherworldly glow on our campsite, and I thought, ``This is a gift for me, my send-off from the Refuge.''

As is often the case in Alaska, the deeper into the wilderness you go and the fewer amenities you enjoy, the more costly is the bottom line. Including food, community gear, guiding fees, and transportation between the Refuge and Fairbanks, the total for my trip was $2,200.

At one with his environment, Macgill reminded me of a cross between a cantankerous mountain man and a laid-back surfer dude. I had complete confidence in his guiding skills, we were served up camp food the likes of which I never dreamed could emerge from those crushed food bags, and I appreciated his extensive knowledge of the natural environment. I found his people skills lacking, however. He exhibited little interest in his clients, and he seemed annoyed if any of us failed to show wilderness etiquette or abilities. While there were certainly positive moments between guide and clients, I left the trip feeling somewhat confounded by Macgill's behavior. Was it just me, I wondered? Comparing notes later with others on the trip, I found similar reactions.

I recommend researching your outfitters, asking specific questions, and even requesting references from prior travelers.

For visitor information:

Refuge Manager, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, 101 12th Ave., Fairbanks, AK 99701; telephone 907-456-0250.

Outfitters:

Macgill Adams, Wilderness Alaska, PO Box 113063, Anchorage, AK 99511.

Arctic Treks, PO Box 73452, Fairbanks, AK 99707; telephone 907-455-6502.

Sourdough Outfitters, PO Box 26066, Bettles, AK 99726; telephone 907-692-5252.