SPEARFISH, S.D. (AP) - Friends Clay Dykstra and John Williams both grew up in Spearfish, are local business owners, and enjoy outdoor adventures. They’ve skied, biked, hiked, and explored various places around the world, and starting Feb. 20, they’ll begin their longest expedition to date: a three-week, 135-mile minimum journey on skis through the remotest wilderness in the continental U.S. They will join Tom Murphy, 66, renowned wildlife photographer, and a documentary crew filming him three decades after Murphy took the same route, solo, through Yellowstone National Park in the dead of winter, with his camera, supplies, and only a blue tarp for shelter. It took him 14 days through subzero temperatures and blizzard conditions, and all told, he lost 18 pounds, covered 125 miles, and captured amazing images of remote and inaccessible areas of wilderness - and its natural inhabitants - during its harshest season.
And if that’s not interesting enough, Dykstra and Williams are also using the trip to raise money and awareness for a local cause with ties to Yellowstone, the Spirit of the Hills Wildlife Sanctuary, since its residents include bears, wolves, mountain lions, and more that are natural inhabitants of the park. They are also raising funds for educational outreach to allow the duo to visit schools to share their experience and promote the importance of getting outdoors and experiencing wildlife in its natural habitat, the Black Hills Pioneer (https://bit.ly/1RGNS2R ) reported.
Dykstra explained that the connection that garnered him the invitation to join the trip comes from his wife: Murphy is his wife’s uncle, and Dykstra and Murphy have traveled together in the past, and around Christmastime, when another member of the team announced he was unable to go, Dykstra suggested that Williams take the spot.
Williams explained that the six-man expedition will start at Flagg Ranch, a few miles south of?the South Entrance to Yellowstone, ski up the Snake River, wading when there are no ice?bridges, following the water all the way to the mouth of Fox Creek. They plan to ski?over Two Ocean Plateau and the Continental Divide, and then push down the?length of Lynx Creek to the Yellowstone River and the Thorofare, down the Yellowstone River Valley to?the mouth of Beaverdam Creek where the Yellowstone River empties into the?Southeast Arm of Yellowstone Lake. They will then take the Thorofare trail north along the east shore of the lake to Fishing Bridge, 10-14?days after starting, to resupply food and stove fuel. They will then ski into the Hayden Valley, past Canyon, and?over Dunraven Pass to Tower. The last couple of days of the trip take place across Blacktail Plateau, with the group ending the trip at park headquarters in?Mammoth.
“The planned route is at least 135 miles long, and depending on the?deviations, avoiding avalanche risks, finding safe river fords, and?wandering in the trees, it could be as much as 150 miles,” Williams said.
The team includes Murphy, expedition leader; Brian Chan, expedition co-leader and retired National Park Service ranger; Shane Moore and Rick Smith, producers and cinematographers who have made nature films and documentaries for National Geographic, PBS, Discovery Channel, and more; Dykstra, expedition manager; and Williams, porter.
Dykstra explained that the added camera and film equipment for the crew means that a couple of members need to carry food and gear to offset the amount of weight each person will carry/pull. As the logistics coordinator in charge of nutrition planning, he recently ordered 250 pounds of freeze-dried foot just for the group’s dinners and breakfasts for the first two-thirds of the trip before the resupply point. He added that for these kinds of trips, everything gets pared down, and it reminds him of how little one needs to survive. The men laughed that the tent they will share is not much larger than a twin-sized bed.
“We’re going to be cozy,” Williams said.
The group will wear trackers, allowing anyone to chart the progress of the journey in real time on the internet, and the film the crew is creating, “The Journey Through Yellowstone,” is described on the website yellowstone.film, as documenting Murphy’s “journey across the park as well as explore Tom’s life as a photographer, his philosophy about nature, wilderness, and his love for the striking beauty and power of Yellowstone’s most unforgiving season - winter.”
As Dykstra and Williams considered their upcoming experience and the purpose of the documentary, they wanted to make a correlation in their community.
“(We’re) Trying to show our appreciation for the wildlife and trying to do something beyond our little excursions,” Dykstra said, explaining that they decided to host an online ski-a-thon where people may donate a lump sum or pledge a donation per miles skied. The money raised will benefit the Spirit of the Hills Wildlife Sanctuary, at 500 Tinton Rd., an animal rescue that is home to more than 300 surrendered, retired, or orphaned exotic and domestic animals from private owners, breeding facilities, and the entertainment industry. Its mission statement is “To provide a lifelong home for abused, neglected or abandoned animals; to find permanent and loving homes for them when possible and appropriate; and to promote responsible stewardship of the environment and all that live in it through education and advocacy,” and the duo thought their trip into Yellowstone, where they will likely be seeing many of the same animals - wolves, bears, mountain lions, and more - in their natural environment, would provide an avenue of advocacy.
“It ties in perfectly,” Michael Welchynski, wildlife sanctuary director, said, adding that when giving tours, the sanctuary stresses that the animals do not belong in cages but in the wild. “These animals need to be where they are. . These animals need to be where they belong. This (sanctuary habitat) is all artificial.”
After discussing the sanctuary’s needs with Welchynski, Dykstra and Williams learned that the facility is in need of a larger bear habitat, since it is currently caring for Kody, an 1,100 pound Kodiak bear, who came to the sanctuary in the fall of 2015, so the funds raised through the ski-a-thon would help to provide a larger habitat for Kody and future sanctuary residents.
“Bringing any attention to the outdoors and the natural world is amazing,” Welchynski said, adding his appreciation to Dykstra and Williams. “I just want them to be successful and do this and raise awareness. . It’s an amazing thing.”
The funds will also help the duo provide educational outreach when they return. They plan to go into classrooms and speak about their experiences as well as provide presentations around the community and at the sanctuary. Williams spoke of hearing Bruce Junek and Tass Thacker, authors, photographers, travelers, and educators, speak about their bicycling trips around the world at an assembly when he was in elementary school, and he recently heard them speak again at Black Hills State University. Those stories always stuck with him and fueled his own dreams of having similar experiences, and he is excited to spark the next generation’s dreams in the same way.
Both Dykstra and Williams are looking forward to having the chance to learn from other explorers and take a much longer trip than they have ever experienced.
“There’s just a simplicity (when you’re in the wilderness),” Dykstra said. “Everything else just melts away. Especially in the winter, everything is dictated by your process and what you’re doing and how you’re doing it and paying attention to these little details and then just skiing. For hours and hours, just plodding away, and you don’t have to worry about emails or phone calls or presidential elections. . Just being in the present.”
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Information from: Black Hills Pioneer, https://www.bhpioneer.com
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