By Clark Fair
Photos by Clark Fair, Redoubt Reporter. Kristin O’Brien climbs along a section of terminal moraine after crossing one of the bridges over Bench Creek on the northern portion of the Johnson Pass Trail.
Redoubt Reporter
By the time we tromped across the bridge spanning King Creek and into the campsite high on its southern bank, it was only 2:30 p.m. and there was some mild dissent in the group. Some of the kids, who ranged in age from 7 to 16, were weary of battling the bugs and the rain and just wanted to keep going, to finish in two days rather than the three we had planned, or to at least seek the comfort of a campsite closer to the end of the trail.
Others, including some of the adults, were weary enough that they wanted to stay right where they were, hunched on spruce logs or sprawled out on the wet moss and mud around an old stone campfire ring. Even the sudden surge in mosquitoes could not impel them easily onward.
So we slathered or sprayed on more DEET-laced repellent or slipped on head nets, as my son worked on a smoky fire and the rest of us set our minds on staying put.
It was the right choice.
A pair of monkey flowers (wild snapdragons) hang over an unnamed stream along a southern stretch of the trail.
In two days we had covered 17 of the 23 miles of the Johnson Pass Trail, and we learned the next morning that no more campsites existed on the final six miles of trail, most of which wound in and out of the woods and dense undergrowth high above Upper Trail Lake, near Moose Pass.
Because we stopped that afternoon, we were able to rest more fully and give ourselves a relatively easy stroll the next morning down to the southern terminus near the Trail Lake Hatchery.
Still, on that second night of the trip, as I lay in my sleeping bag and listened to the rain pelt the tent holding me and my teenage children, I frowned at the thought of packing up a second wet camp the next morning, of the mosquitoes and biting flies feasting on me as I munched my breakfast, and of another wet trudge through overhanging cow parsnip, tall grass and stinging nettles.
And I thought back to the day before and how everything had seemed so different in the beginning: three families meeting up at the northern trailhead, near Granite Creek, peeling off layers as warm sunshine bathed the parking lot beneath clear blue skies, all of us ready to commune with welcoming nature and with each other.
No matter which way a hiker or biker is traveling from here, it’s generally downhill the rest of the way. Johnson Pass separates Johnson Lake and Bench Lake and neatly divides their drainages north and south.
In fact, at that point, I wasn’t bothered at all by my decision to leave my head nets at home with my assortment of rain pants and chaps. Even if the weather changed, I reasoned, the trail ahead appeared wide and accommodating. My kids and I would be fine without the extra gear.
By day’s end, however, I would rue those omissions, especially in light of the fact that the eight other people on the trip did carry those items and benefited from them immensely.
Until that evening, most of us hiked along Bench Creek the first day in shorts and T-shirts, luxuriating in the sun’s warmth and the gentle breeze, sweating up the inclines, even the tumbles of rock making up the large terminal moraine north of Johnson Pass, which, at 1,450 feet, neatly divides the hike nearly in half.
Olivia and Kelty Fair appear well-armored against weather and biting, stinging insects.
Bench Lake, with its abundant grayling, sits north of the pass and drains toward Sixmile Creek, which, in turn, drains into Turnagain Arm. Johnson Lake, containing a healthy population of rainbow trout, lies south of the pass and drains toward Trail Lake, which feeds upper Kenai Lake and ultimately Cook Inlet.
Both ends of the Johnson Pass Trail tend to be mostly open and mild in grade. Meanwhile, the middle 10 miles sport thicker foliage, which, by midsummer, tends to spill over the trail and, in some cases, obscure it. At
the peak of summer runoff, streams can also overrun the trail, forcing hikers to find adequate spots to leap or wade.
Throughout the hike, streams tumble from swales and gullies
Olivia and Kelty Fair may not look eager, but they were — to reach a campsite, start a fire, eat some dinner and escape the insects by climbing into their tent.
and clefts in the rocks, adding to the rush of water moving steadily toward the ocean. And it may be that this abundance of water is responsible not only for the wildflower meadows, the prevalent bogs and the swarthy growths of vegetation, but also the sometimes-intense clouds of insects.
Where the trail is not so overgrown, it is possible to imagine the sweep of history marching up and down this valley that was a key part of the overland passage between Seward and the gold fields of Hope and Sunrise in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Johnson Pass Trail is part of the Iditarod National Historic Trail and was at one time a portion of the Johnson Pass Military Road that gave miners in the district an easier avenue by which to move equipment in and out of their gold-seeking operations.
According to Chugach National Forest literature, the origins of the original trail are unknown. However, it is generally believed that the trail developed from north to south as prospecting expanded in that direction following the gold discoveries in the northern Kenai Peninsula in the mid-1890s.
Miners starting in Hope followed the stream courses of Resurrection Creek and Sixmile Creek, ascending to Lynx
Photo by Tony Lewis. Hikers work their way across an avalanche remnant on the sunny first day on the Johnson Pass Trail.
Creek, Granite Creek, Bench Creek and beyond. By 1897, commercial pack trains had begun operating between Sunrise and Lynx Creek. After Seward developed into an important seaport at the turn of the century and the railroad began to creep its way north, the Johnson Pass Trail became the logical connecting point that provided overland access from the southern peninsula to the northern.
This trail, which became a road in about 1910 before devolving into a trail again over the next century, did not navigate the northwestern flank of Upper Trail Lake as it does today. In the first edition of the seminal hiking guide, “55 Ways to the Wilderness,” the directions to the southern trailhead make it clear how much has changed:
“Drive to Moose Pass. Park at the railroad station. On foot follow the tracks over the trestle and along the east shore of Upper Trail Lake. About 4.5 miles from the Moose Pass trestle, the railroad cuts through a rock knob on the left. Just before reaching the knob the trail leaves the tracks and heads north.”
About 30 minutes before the 11 of us strode into the parking lot at Mile 32.5 of the Seward Highway, we could glimpse those railroad tracks far across the lake. The Forest Service moved the trailhead from that side to its current location in the early 1970s.
Overall, despite its length and the challenges of bugs, brush and water, Johnson Pass Trail is ultimately a family-
Tony Lewis and his son, Aidan, filter water from an unnamed creek cutting through the lower Johnson Pass Trail. Water along the trail is plentiful but should be filtered in most cases.
friendly place. It is free of difficult climbs. The stream crossings without bridges are also without peril. And along the route — if one plans accordingly — there are available marked campsites containing bear-proof food boxes and running fresh water for cooking and cleaning.
There are no public-use cabins along the route. The only public-use cabin ever on the trail was an A-frame constructed in Johnson Pass in 1972 by the Youth Conservation Corps and destroyed by an avalanche in the winter of 1974-75.
It is a good idea to pack a water-purifying pump and some bear-repellent spray on Johnson Pass Trail. As we hiked, particularly on the Johnson Lake side, we saw occasional fresh bear tracks and numerous piles of scat. One member of our party, trying to make noise to keep the bears away, clapped loudly nearly every time we passed a pile, until it seemed that she was applauding the bruins’ every bowel movement.
Despite the movements of bears, however, July is a nice month for hiking Johnson Pass, as most of the high-country snows and avalanche runs have melted, but trekking earlier in the summer or later in the fall might provide the traveler with a more open trail.
Dirk Vinlove leads Kristin O’Brien and Tony and Sandra Lewis to the southern end of the Johnson Pass Trail.
The route is used frequently by mountain bikers, some of whom ride the trail from end to end, while others, who have only a single vehicle, sometimes ride up toward the pass from one trailhead and then turn around and cruise back down.
Just before noon on our third day, we finished our own trek with some sore hips and feet, but with smiles shining from our dirty faces. And after we loaded damp backpacks and smelly gear into the back of a pickup truck, we capped our successful traverse with a treat that widened the smiles all around: a hot lunch and some cold drinks in the Trail Lake Lodge in Moose Pass.
The Mouth of The Kenai 