Denali National Park – Majestic, Vast, And Stunning!

Welcome to the first installment of actual travel stuff! I’m going to try to backfill from my West Coast road trip as much as possible over the next few weeks, so stay tuned!

First some housekeeping – I use Flickr to store my photos (I know, so 2007, right?) and am experimenting by displaying them in album-based slideshows at the end of each post. I’d love feedback as to how that goes. Regardless, I’d recommend viewing them in fullscreen after, as that’s the only way to do any bit of justice to these places and understand context.

TRIP BACKGROUND

Alaska has always been a place that I’ve wanted to visit. I missed a family trip there, and with learning more and more about the effects of climate change, particularly on the polar regions of Earth, I felt like time was really of the essence and it was a place I had to explore before it was too late (in some ways, it already is – more to come on that in the Kenai Peninsula). A great one that Sarah’s mom sent me was this great piece in the NYT, which demonstrates the accelerating rate of melt and change happening here.

Around April, I had told my friend Jen (Sarah’s cousin) about my plans to travel in the U.S. and to start in Alaska. “Cool! Can I come?” she said, and I, definitely not intent on camping and fending off bears alone, was thrilled to have a partner-in-crime. We spent two weeks in Alaska, and while certainly a different budget and style than the rest of my U.S. (and international) travels, was completely unique and spectacular.

Denali National Park & Preserve, and Talkeetna, AK

August 14-20

DENALI NATIONAL PARK & PRESERVE INFO

Denali NP (the “a” is pronounced like in “gnat”) is the largest of our 59 National Parks in the U.S., clocking in at just over 6 million acres. For context, that’s a little smaller than the entire state of Massachusetts, and 12 times as big as the next-largest NP (more on that later)! The park is named after Mount Denali – the 22,310-foot mountain that dominates the landscape (though is not easily seen due to the dynamic climate around it). The name was changed back to Denali in 2015, after being referred to as Mount McKinley for about 100 years. The word Denali translates as “great one” from the original Koyukon, and it sure does live up to the name. Interestingly, besides being the tallest peak in North America, it is actually the largest elevation gain of any mountain in the world! Measured from base to peak, it surpasses Everest by a significant margin (17-19k ft vs. 12-15k ft for Everest). It takes about a month to summit, and is one of the toughest treks in the world because of the unpredictable climate on and around it. Needless to say, we didn’t climb the mountain, but did get a sighting as far away as Anchorage later in the trip!

CAMPING AND HIKING

We arrived late on the 14th, though even at 10pm, I was able to catch a glorious sunset from the plane (see slideshow). We spent the night at an Airbnb and then did the requisite food and last-minute equipment shopping the next day. Of note was that the bug spray and coolers were in the same section of the supermarket as the guns and ammo – welcome to The Last Frontier.

The drive from Anchorage was ~4 hours and takes you through incredible scenery on the way. It really puts to shame the soy, corn, and wheat that dominated the much longer road trips to St. Louis I’d done in college. Neither Jen nor I had much of any experience camping, and even though this was car-camping, this was all pretty new to us.

Some quick hits:

• Denali camping was $20 / night, had flush toilets and was nearby a mercantile. Strangely, and unlike most NPs, it was run by Aramark
• Breakfast was a rotation of eggs, yogurt, oatmeal, and many PB-Nutella sandwiches
• Lunch was mostly turkey / tuna / veggie wraps and sandwiches (h/t to Jen for the flavored tuna packets)
• Dinners consisted largely of pasta or instant potatoes with a small selection of veggies and sausage (chicken and veggie). An occasional veggie salad even made an appearance
• We only made a fire 3 times, largely due to rain before or while we were camping
  • Mulch, pine cones, and leaves make great kindling (h/t to our camping neighbor for that pro-tip)
• Temperatures during the day were in the 50s-60s, which could necessitate several layers or shorts, depending on whether the sun was out (being summer, we were quite close to the sun)
• Temperatures at night got down into the 30s on some nights, which made for some difficult sleeps and more painful getting out of the tent in the morning
  • A couple of fingers of whiskey and keeping a bottle of boiled water in your sleeping back helps take the edge off
  • We had to warm up the Nutella on a couple of mornings to make it spreadable
• Prices weren’t outlandish, particularly with us coming from NYC standards. Restaurant entrees were in the $15-20 range, with a good cut of fish being $28-30

8/15 – settled into camp at Riley Creek Campground, and enjoyed a gourmet sunset dinner around 9:30pm.

8/16 – Sled Dog Demo – this was our morning activity as the rangers put on a really well-orchestrated display of the sled dogs that the National Park Service uses to maintain the park during the winter (it’s easier, more reliable and less impactful than snowmobiles). We were able to meet some of the dogs in their kennels, and then saw a demonstration of them pulling a sled. They all have great names, and one of the moms had just had pups, and the NPS has a live webcam of their kennel here. You’re welcome.

Savage Alpine Trail – a pretty challenging trail, largely because of the weather changing from comfortable in layers, to too warm for layers, to extremely windy (I’d guess 40+ mph winds) at the top. Most of the time the trail was pretty empty (of people and animals), as it turned out most people did the trail in the reverse direction, which I think would have been more difficult. It was mostly cloudy, but considering it was the rainy season towards the end of summer, we were lucky enough to stay dry.

Denali NP is mostly off-limits for private vehicles during the non-winter season (roughly May – September). There is a single, 90-mile road that goes from the park entrance (near our campground) to Wonder Lake, which, besides being quite beautiful and remote, is also supposed to be the best of the campgrounds to get a view of Denali. Vehicles are allowed to drive up to Mile 13, which is where this trail started. Otherwise, to get deeper into the park you must pay to ride the shuttle in, which is an activity in and of itself, since the bus drivers are park rangers (see 8/18).

After we got back from the hike, we had an unexpected visitor at camp – a beautiful cow moose  I was unpacking something from the car, when Jen told me to stop what I was doing, and slowly turn around. See, whenever you encounter a ranger at Denali, the first thing they start telling you about is BMW safety – bears, moose, and wolves. The beauty of Denali is its wildness, and with that comes wildlife (duh). That said, you’re in their house, and you need to respect that. So, rangers inform you that you should stay 300 yards away from bears (basically, if you can see one, you’re too close), and 25 yards away from moose and wolves (particularly cow moose, because they are most protective of their calves, and can be fatal(. This is to say nothing of the fact that moose have the frame of a horse, but with antlers and probably a few hundred extra pounds. Back to our moose, who we affectionately referred to as Millie thereafter. We cautiously stepped back from the car and campsite and just watched this beautiful creature graze on some willow around our camp site, brushing up against our tent. We later learned that this moose is often seen in the area, and, because she wasn’t with her calves, was less dangerous. We didn’t take the full 75-foot precaution, because, well, you gotta get the shot!

Later, because remember that it is still broad daylight well past 8pm, we explored a beautiful and quiet river behind our campground and stayed around for one of the Evening Ranger Programs about the lynx, a massive-pawed cat that roams the park. One of the best surprises on this journey, and throughout the other parks we / I visited, was how much I love and admire the park rangers. They were, without fail, extremely knowledgeable, helpful, cheery and generally fascinating people who span the spectrum of ages, hometowns, educational background, etc. They’re just the best.

8/17 – Mount Healy Overlook Trail – a slightly easier trail close to the campground, which peaked on a mountain that provided a peak at Denali. The idea of actually viewing Denali is something people chase for entire trips, as the cloud cover is usually thick, so the fact that we later saw it was a real accomplishment. The trail started in some forested area and then as we climbed cleared into alpine flora and further up above the treeline to some real tundra, with mostly shrubs and rocks.

8/18 – Backcountry hiking – knowing that we would spend most of our time closer to the entrance of the park, we wanted to take a day to really experience the park from the inside. We got tickets to take the shuttle onto the Park Road up to Mile 66, where there is a second Visitor Center. Since the road is unpaved, and you make many stops along the way for wildlife sightings, the 66-mile trip took 3+ hours, including some hairpin turns and bus-passing. On the way though, we saw ptarmigan (the state bird of Alaska, the “p” is silent), herds of Dall Sheep scurrying along mountainsides, and even a mama bear and two cubs devouring a caribou (aka reindeer) carcass. The photos don’t do justice to the feeling of having watched this happen in real-time. The driver-cum-ranger was equally amazed, and we stopped to watch for probably 10 minutes.

The purpose of the day, though, was to do a backcountry hike. We’d been told that while on the return journey on the shuttle from Mile 66, you can ask the ranger for recommendations on cool hikes to try that are off the Park Road and without a marked trail. This is backcountry hiking. We were cautioned to not take any food with us (bears like food) and make sure we had plenty of water. As someone with an endless appetite, I was a bit concerned, so tried to bulk up beforehand. Our ranger pulled over and pointed us in the direction of a small mountain and told us to walk in that direction, climb over the mountain, and there’d be a nice riverbed to walk in on the way back to the Park Road to pick up another shuttle. Great, sounds simple.

But, clearly, Jen and I are not accustomed to trail-finding and took a couple wrong turns that led to some questionable slopes and a little backtracking. I only ended up on my butt a couple of times, and the only real casualty were my sunglasses. The rain started and subsided, but it was a truly unique experience. I’ve never experienced a feeling of anxiety and adventure like when the bus pulled away and we were out of sight of the Park Road within a few minutes.

Another big surprise in Alaska, generally, was how lush it was. There’s lots of rain, but also snow melt, which allows for a lot of plants and trees to grow and sustain during the summer months, creating an incredibly verdant landscape. That, plus the incredible vastness and size of everything in Alaska, made for a special first-time experience off-trail.

8/19 – Talkeetna, AK is about a 1-2 hr drive south from the Denali entrance and is most well-known for being the launching point for those climbing Denali, as well as being a good place to see the mountain. It’s also just a delightful, little touristy town with a population of a few hundred. We stayed at an Airbnb outside of town, run by a mom and her teenage son. It also serves as a wellness center, so you can try to imagine the vibe. There was also a dilapidated school bus in the large gravel parking lot. This gives a small taste of Alaska, which is just a lot of weirdness. Most of the people we met were not born in Alaska (it only became our 49th state in 1959), and many started going up for seasonal work and ended up staying, enjoying a more remote life in the winter. Lots of people we met live truly off-the-grid, having a cabin somewhere in the woods with their own solar panels / generators and hunkering down during the many cold, dark months of Alaskan winter. I can also understand why the few Alaskan-born people I know wanted to get out of Alaska.

We arrived in the afternoon and took a lovely little hike around three small lakes near the house and then went into town for what was our first of several incredibly fresh, fish dinners. We got halibut and salmon, which were incredibly tasty, even considering we were not so close to the water.

The next day we bid farewell to Talkeetna and began our journey south to the Kenai Peninsula by way of a stopover in Anchorage.

Photos

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