Serpentine Hot Springs: Service, Skills, and Soak, Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, Alaska

The Trip

Bering Land Bridge Preserve is one of our most remote and least visited parks. The preserve protects lands that are a remnant from the pre-historic land bridge known as Beringia, which connected Asia with North America and provided a corridor for plants, animals, and humans to move between continents. There are no roads in this 2.7-million-acre preserve -- visitors arrive on foot, by boat, or by bush plane. 

Most of the visitor activity in the park is concentrated at Serpentine Hot Springs, where there is an airstrip, bunkhouse, and bathhouse. Visitors come to Serpentine year round to enjoy the solitude, therapeutic springs, and amazing granite tors that jut out of the tundra. Winter is the high-use season when locals use snowmobiles to visit, hunt, and soak.

To help mitigate the impact of the concentrated human activity in this area, we will join the National Park Service for their annual maintenance and staff-development week at the hot springs. We will work hard in the mornings, enjoy a lunch at our camp in the tors, and join the NPS staff for training and interpretive materials development sessions in the afternoons.

We will establish a backpack-style base camp above the hot spring buildings in the dramatic tors. We will sleep in tents, prepare our meals in our cook shelter, and follow Leave No Trace principles just as if we were backpacking. As with all Sierra Club trips, it is a cooperative-style trip. Everyone is involved with meal preparation and cleanup. 

We use crystal-clear hot water from the spring for dish and hand washing -- what a luxury! The clean outhouse is relatively bug-free and a huge step up from the morning routine on a backpack trip. The daily soak in a wonderful hot tub is the other “glamping” feature that you won’t find on many other Alaskan backcountry trips.

There will be plenty of time to explore the amazing granite tors, photograph tundra wildflowers, identify migratory birds, and search for rough-legged hawk nesting sites. We will have 24 hours of daylight and lots of flexibility to hike after dinner and soak to re-charge for another day.

Friday is our day off and reserved for the “Tour de Tors,” which is an amazing 8-mile hike on the ridges and through the tors. We will ascend into higher country and be on the lookout for caribou, gyr falcons, and lapland longspurs.

The Project

Every morning, we will form teams with NPS staff and dive into parallel projects, including the following:

After lunch, there will be training and development sessions. The NPS team will have curriculum or interpretive projects to work on. Examples from 2019: helping to develop the new brochure from Bering Land Bridge Preserve and developing “hip pocket” curriculum units to be used for the frequent junior-ranger and kids programs run by the rangers. We also had a geology lesson because we had an NPS geologist on the trip. The items for 2020 will depend on NPS priorities and expertise, but they will be energetic, fun, and different than what you do the rest of the year. It is fun and educational to learn about NPS operations and issues.

“Training in the Tors” sessions will include:

You should plan to arrive in Nome on Friday or early Saturday to allow for flight and baggage delays. Nome and Kotzebue are on coastlines and subject to frequent fog and weather issues. 

You are responsible for lodging in Nome prior to the start of the trip. We may have access to low-cost accommodations at the NPS bunkhouse -- check with the leader for updated status on this.

We will have a pre-trip meeting followed by dinner Saturday (dinner not included in trip).

Day 1: Plan to rise early to get breakfast with a view of the Bering Sea before our 7:30 a.m. departure (breakfast not included in trip). We will utilize a Park Service vehicle to transfer from Nome to Quartz Creek airstrip at Kougarok -- a 2.5-hour drive. Our bush pilot will pick us up there and fly us three at a time to Serpentine Hot Springs airstrip. We will establish camp and train on bear safety and camp protocols. We can use the rest of Sunday to take a hike, explore the local area, and enjoy our first soak.

Days 2-5: Breakfast will be served inside or outside the cook shelter depending on the weather. At 8:30 a.m. we will gather at the bunkhouse for a short discussion, and then form teams and tackle our projects. 

We will spend the morning on our projects indoors and outdoors regardless of weather and mosquito conditions. The boardwalk will be a busy place and there will be lots of interaction, laughter, and teamwork. Cleaning the tub will be a task on the first day; we will fill it with crystal clear, 140-degree water from the prismatic hot spring.

Before we know it, lunchtime will arrive and we will take off our gloves and put down our tools. We will wash up in nice warm water from the spring and enjoy lunch in the tors. After lunch, we will re-group for afternoon training and development activities. These are optional and you may choose to sneak off for a wonderful solo soak or quiet time in the shelter of a granite tor.

You will contribute to camp chores, meal preparation, and cleanup. Carrying clean water up the hill and grey water back down provides good daily exercise.

The evening never ends, and our short workday leaves plenty of energy for after-dinner birding, flower hikes, yoga in the tors, dancing in the bunkhouse, or just a stroll and a soak. 

Day 6: After helping the NPS team carry gear to the airstrip and wishing them safe travels back to Nome, we will head out for our Tour de Tors day hike. You can practice your terrain-reading and stream-crossing skills as we hike a fantastic 8-mile loop, ending at the hot tub. It is a great way to cap the trip and bond as a Sierra Club team.

Day 7: We will break camp and wait for the sound of the bush plane to begin our journey back to Nome. The drive back is a good opportunity to see muskox and birds as we cross multiple rivers. We will take our time and maximize our last afternoon. Weather and logistics frequently impact bush flights so it is quite possible that our return will be delayed. Do not book a flight out of Nome on this day -- we will not introduce time pressure and travel anxiety.

Getting There

The trip starts and ends in Nome, Alaska. Alaska Airlines has regularly scheduled flights to Nome from Anchorage. Kotzebue is often served by the same flights and weather there can affect your ability to get to and from Nome. You should plan to arrive Friday or early Saturday to allow for flight and baggage delays. There is no recourse if you are not ready to leave early Sunday morning with your gear -- it is safer to arrive Friday. You should plan fly out of Nome on Sunday -- do not book a flight for Saturday departure.

Please do not make non-refundable travel arrangements until notified to do so by the trip leader.

Accommodations and Food

You will need to arrange accomodations for nights in Nome before and after the trip. We may have access to low-cost accomodations at the NPS bunkhouse -- check with the leader for updated status on this.

While at Serpentine Hot Springs we are tent camping and we have a weight limit with the bush plane. You need to bring a backpacking-style tent, pad, and sleeping bag.

You are responsible for your pre-trip meals, including breakfast on Sunday morning in Nome. Included in the trip are all meals, snacks, and drinks from Sunday lunch to Saturday lunch. Meals will be similar to what we bring on backpacking trips due to our weight limit. They will be delicious, homemade meals with lots of variety. If you have dietary restrictions, please contact the leader immediately after signing up to determine whether we can accommodate the restriction.

Trip Difficulty

The work on this trip will be moderate to strenuous. You should be in good physical condition and able to bend, lift, scrub, stretch, and carry for four hours per day. There is a steep hill between the bunkhouse and our camp and you will walk up and down it many times a day -- often while carrying gear or water.

You may be hiking, working, and camping in the rain for long periods. Or, you may have a damp bandana on your head as you push a wheelbarrow in hot sun. We will tackle our tasks regardless of the weather.

Alaska is often windy and even moderate temperatures can feel cold. You need to be ready for a full-on outdoor experience with some adversity. Of course, not many Alaskan adventures have the benefit of a pool house and hot tub for getting out of the weather and warming up. This trip is a good chance to see the wild side of Alaska with the benefit of a base camp and some infrastructure.

It will be summer in the sub-arctic and the mosquitos will be significant. They are numerous and persistent, but manageable with good clothing, techniques, and attitude. Your leader will give you some valuable clothing tips pre-trip. You will learn to appreciate a stiff breeze that grounds the mosquitos but doesn’t flatten your tent. When the wind drops, you will learn that you can’t eat through a head net.

Equipment and Clothing

All group equipment is included with the trip. This includes cook shelter, kitchen and commissary, food containment (bear canisters), first aid kit, repair kit, and water filtration.

You need to bring similar gear to what you would take backpacking. The leader will provide a detailed checklist. Your gear will include a lightweight tent, pad, and sleeping bag. Also a backpack with rain cover, waterproof duffel, or river-trip dry bag to transport your gear and contain any items not in your tent. You need good hiking boots that double as work boots and sturdy clothing that can get dirty and stained. You should bring a pair of rubber gloves and a pair of work gloves. Bring a daypack and don’t forget your swimsuit collection and flip flops.

References

We highly recommend The Last Giant of Beringia: The Mystery of the Bering Land Bridge by Dan O’Neill and A Naturalist's Guide to the Arctic by E.C. Pielou.

Other good references include:

Conservation

Bering Land Bridge Preserve has tremendous diversity of geological features and terrain types, including beach ridges, maar lakes, hot springs, lava flows, cinder cones, and a continental divide. Large mammals roam the tundra and numerous migratory birds visit the preserve in the summer. We will have a chance to learn about the issues impacting the park directly from the park staff.

Rising sea levels threaten to permanently eliminate the village of Shishmaref, which is adjacent to the preserve. This is an environmental and cultural story that brings home the impact of global warming.

The people of Shishmaref have used Serpentine Hot Springs for over 1,000 years and built the bunkhouse and bathhouse before the Preserve was established. They are the predominant users of the site -- mostly in winter. You will learn about their relationship with the National Park Service and how they jointly make decisions about Serpentine Hot Springs.

We will use our location in the tundra near the top of the world to discuss the fragility of the Arctic and the impact of climate change and mineral extraction.

Sierra Club National Outings is an equal-opportunity provider and when applicable will operate under permits obtained from U.S. federal land agencies.