Goodbye Denali, Hello Pizza, July 2, 2014

We hike into Toklat station and hop on the first bus of the day headed west.  Our driver smokes at each rest stop and has a deep, raspy voice that is both nice to listen to and hard to understand.  We wind through mountains, valleys, and meadows similar to those we hiked through.  We pass the place we saw the grizzly, and we can see the pass we hiked over.  As we head west, things open up, and we follow wide river valleys.  We stop at the Eielson Visitor Center, which is beautifully and sustainably designed.  Here we are able to get water, as well as clarification on some of the tracks we saw.  There is a large model of Mt McKinley and routes people have climbed, as well as how it was formed by glaciers.  There is also a wealth of information on the wildlife and flowers in the park.  Continuing on down the road, we see open meadows with small lakes, and to our left, the giant mountains.  We can see the lower snowy ridgeline, and far above, a ridge of Mt McKinley pokes through the clouds.  It looks unreal somehow, like it's just floating in the air.  Wonder Lake is unmistakable.  It's the biggest lake we've seen yet, and quite beautiful.  We walk around for a bit, enjoying the patchy sun, then catch the bus back.  As we ride, it starts to rain again.

McKinley, way up there

On the bus, we see: many herds of caribou, including at least five bulls with huge, furry antlers, three grizzly bears, Dall Sheep grazing high on green slopes, two golden eagles, and one short-eared owl.  We discuss our grizzly bear sightings.  On one hand, it is nice to observe them and get a chance to watch their behavior safely from the bus.  On the other hand, it's not as special or as memorable as meeting such an amazing creature on their own terms.  On the bus ride back, we stop to pick up five wet backpackers.  They sit in the back with us, with all their gear.  Turns out they're the same group we saw while getting our backcountry permit, and they followed almost the same route as we did in units 8-10, except in reverse.  They are fun, friendly, adventurous people from all over, who somehow got to know each other through various connections.  We spend the ride back talking to them and moving all our gear when our bus breaks down.  Later on, we join them for a fabulous pizza dinner at the Prospector.  Thanks again to Brandon, Marco, Martin, Karen, and Chris for the wonderful stories, good times, and generosity.

Rain and Mud, July 1, 2014

Today, when we wake up, it sounds like we are in a washing machine.  A large river is gushing and tumbling rocks on our left, and a smaller river is gurgling by on the right, while rain pounds down on our tent.  Reluctant to hike in the deluge (mostly Danny who doesn't have rain pants), it is 11:00 before we make any real move to get out of the tent.  Debating whether to go or stay, we see under the gap between the rain fly and the ground that a new river has started flowing.  We decide to pack up before we get flooded out.  The river we are camped next to, clear the day before, has turned into a flooded, muddy mess after the night's heavy rain.  The first part of our hike brings us across gravel bars and through willow-based brush.  We are quickly soaked (even rain gear gets wet).  We try to stay as much as we can by the river, but it's so flooded that in places there are no good gravel bars, and it's easier to whack through the brush than to cross.  We make fairly good time, and soon we see a beautiful, gradual saddle rising to the left.  After the other passes we've gone over, this one is a piece of cake.

 At the top, we look down into another flooded river valley, and are rewarded with a view of the Toklat.  Hooray!  The end is in sight.  Scrambling across some muddy scree and down towards the river, we take a quick break to eat lunch.  During lunch, we shove tortillas and cheese in our mouths as fast as we can so they don't get wet and we don't get cold standing around.  This river is a lot harder to follow than the previous one.  There are few gravel bars, and we must squish across super muddy banks (we're talking almost knee deep here), and walk through heavily knitted brush.  I can't believe so many plants are growing in one area.  At one point, Danny gets stuck and is completely unable to go forward because of all the branches.  At another point, while trying to jump over a small stream, my foot gets stuck in the mud on one side and Danny has to come pull me out.  To alert bears of our presence, together we recite the entire Lorax.  Thank you, High Trails!

Near the Toklat, we reach spruce forest, which has limited visibility but is quite spectacular and unlike anything we've ever seen.  It seems almost like a rainforest.  There are tall spruce trees, some almost a foot in diameter, a thick, spongy carpet of mosses and lichens, and a low-lying layer of horsetails that look like mini spruce trees! Wet, muddy and tired, we finally reach the gravel bar at the edge of the Toklat and rejoice with snacks.  We're close now to the road, so we hike in and set up a tent behind a small, brushy hill so we can't be seen.  It's still raining.  We eat dinner, then burrow into our sleeping bags to get warm.  What a day.

Grizzly #2 and Other Adventures, June 30, 2014

When we wake up, it's gorgeous and it's easier than we expect to follow out the creek - we only have to cross it three times.  Once we're out more in the open, we climb up a brushy bank and we're out onto a meadow of tundra.  It's mostly easy hiking except for a few boggy areas.  Here we have a good view of the road we're approaching, and we see a bus stop - they must be looking at an animal.  As we come over a slight rise, I see what it is: a grizzly bear.  At first glance I think it's a caribou (since that's all we've been seeing) but upon second glance, it's clear that it's a bear.  We've been hiking towards it (I wonder what the people on the bus thought).  But we quickly head away from it and up a slope that gives us better visibility.  At first the bear seems to follow us, but I think that's just because it was going in that direction anyway.  It doesn't appear to notice us at all, and soon it is far enough away that we put away the bear spray and take a look at it through the binoculars.  It appears to be digging - typical grizzly behavior.  A much less stressful encounter than our first.

We hop up on the road and cross to the north side of the park.  Suddenly the habitat is completely different.  In order to follow our creek, we must hike through marsh, periodically cross or jump over side streams (they're everywhere), and walk through thick brush.  My voice soon becomes hoarse from singing and talking loudly to alert any bears of our presence.

Our plan was to hike up this stream and to a plateau where we could have a view of the big mountains of the park, but as we hike, thick, gray, foggy rain clouds move in low over the valley and completely block any visibility of mountains.  We decide that in these conditions it's not worth going to the plateau.  Instead we find the side stream we're planning to hike out on and set up camp early.  We eat dinner in the freezing rain.  I'm frustrated and feeling that it wasn't worth hiking out this way because we haven't seen much and it's been exhausting bushwhacking.  But, it is another side of the park we haven't seen, we got to see harlequin ducks and several ptarmigan up close (and hear their funny call), and the green, lush mountains have their own sort of beauty, even if they suck to hike through.

Best Day of Backpacking Ever, June 29, 2014

Above is Tam's interpretation of this day.  We were hiking south and then west, so her drawing starts at our tent in the upper right.  Try and follow my writing with her drawing!

Having crossed a fork of the Toklat yesterday, we started our day following the main Toklat south for a few miles.  I almost fell while crossing a deep section of a branch; it wasn't that deep, really, no more than mid-thigh, but I couldn't seem to find stable footing on the river bed, which was obscured by the heavy load of mud, silt, and debris this flooded river was carrying.  I made it okay to the other bank and looked back at Tam, who shook her head at me and began walking, finding a shallow, braided section about a quarter mile upriver.  Chilled to the bone from the glacial water, my next hour, spent walking fast and wearing many layers in an attempt to warm up, taught me the important lesson that it is always worth it to spend the time searching for the best possible place to cross. 

We continued walking up the main branch of the river, overshooting our drainage by about half a mile so we could find a nice braided section to cross this big river.  This extra foray provided great views of a waterfall hundreds of feet high, as well as a glimpse of the once-great glacier that had created this whole valley in which we were hiking.  Our maps, made in the 1970s, indicated that the glacier had receded about four miles since then.  Even without the maps, the heaps of moraine on either side of the river indicated the formidable mass of this ice river.  We chose to hike on the moraine for a short while, and though treacherous due to the loose rock on every step, its beauty surpassed the risk.  Within this "junkyard" (so associated by us because it appeared, with its heaps of rock, to be a dump), we found rocks of every shape and size, undercut and striated and divided with minerals of every hue.  Geology usually makes me yawn, but here it was a painter's palette, rough art underfoot.

the river we followed up

After a tasty lunch of hummus and hazelnut butter on tortillas, we followed our drainage of choice up the hill.  Hitting deep snow overlaying the creek at around 4,000 feet, we cut up to the ridge.  Unfortunately, and as is the case with most Denali ridges next to rivers, this ridge was interrupted frequently by steep drainages running downhill to meet up with the larger waterway.  We descended back to the main river (creek might be more accurate for Alaska) on some steep scree then were able to sidehill past the snow up to the pass between Green Dome and Gravel Mountain.  Large cornices, areas of overhanging, windblown snow, covered the top of the ridge, so we were dubious while ascending about being able to go down the steeper slope on the other side.  Fortunately, we found a scree walkway that allowed us to skirt most of the snow, and the fresh snowmelt was delicious!

scree walkway

 This was drinking from the source at its best, high in the Alaska Range on an unnamed ridge.  We followed another creek down, a tributary of Gorge Creek.  "Creek" really isn't the correct term; in the states these "creeks" would be mighty rivers, but, as Mardy Murie writes, Alaska is a land of many mighty rivers.  Hence, creek.  We saw large herds of caribou on the slopes above us, and marmots whistled at us as we intruded on their grassy meadows.  We found a gravel bar deep in a gorge and went to bed just as rain started to fall.  An incredible day.  I feel that I have graduated to the "advanced backpacking" class: route finding, river crossings, steep ascent of scree and snow slopes, intense and sustained physical exertion.  Denali is hiking at its finest.

our tent in the gorge next to the river (bottom center of this photo)

A Great View! June 28, 2014

Long day of hiking.  We woke up in the beautiful Polychrome area, and the narrow canyon we were following made for many icy river crossings.  Not fun.

 I went up on the ridge above at one point to scout it out, just about causing a landslide, and decided that numb feet was preferable to being buried by rocks.  So we followed the river and then a branch of it to the west.  Because of all the rain the previous few days, little landslides were everywhere.  We stuck to the vegetation on the ridge above the creek and approached the pass after a few hours.  The creek gave way to a marshy meadow at the saddle between two rocky peaks.  Forget-me-nots, incidentally the state flower of Alaska, dotted this verdant meadow with flecks of deep blue, but I was looking beyond.  I think my favorite moments in backpacking and mountaineering are upon gaining a pass or ridge; you approach the top, and when you get close, every step shows a little bit more of the spectacularity on the other side.  This pass revealed, step by step, distant and massive snowy peaks, then closer brown peaks splotched with white, then their green flanks and bare buttresses, then, finally, the world falling away at my feet, a wide, braided river below.  I've seen a lot of views, and this one was among the best.

We were apprehensive about crossing the Toklat River below, but the downclimb turned out to be much tougher than the river crossing.  Steep mudsliding with some short sections of near-vertical rock just about sums it up.  We both had some trouble in parts, but we made it through.  The river turned out to be no problem to cross.  Not even knee deep in a nice braided section.

We continued west, ascending and descending a saddle just south of Divide Mountain, seeing some caribou on the way up, then camped along a bigger Toklat River.   Huh?  The Toklat again?  Our maps, sections of the U.S. Geological Survey maps, apparently were created so that the names are somewhat screwy.  The Toklat River that we had crossed turned out to be the smaller, east fork.  We would find out later that this river we're by now is the real thing; we'll cross tomorrow morning. Today was fantastic; no rain, great hiking!  River crossings: 16.  We also today got back on a somewhat normal schedule, waking up around 9 and going to bed before midnight.  I'll be dreaming of all-you-can-eat buffets tonight.

Bikes to Backpacks, June 27, 2014

There's one road that goes into Denali National Park.  No private vehicles are allowed past the Savage River at mile 15, so the road's 90 miles are almost exclusively traveled by registered tour buses.  Lucky for us, bicycles are also allowed.  Before entering the park, we purchase tickets for what is known as the "camper bus," so that we will have transportation to the start of our backpacking trip (a loop that will bring us back to our bikes) and a ride back to the park entrance when we have gotten our fill of biking.  The following details our first full day of travel in the park.

We wake up in the Sanctuary River campground to the sound of rain on the tent again.  Neither of us wants to get up, but we know we have a lot to do, so we start packing.  There are two male cyclists from Fairbanks at our campground who are also biking the Denali road.  When we emerge from our tent, they are frantically moving their stuff into a walk-in bear locker to get it out of the rain.  I'm surprised that they're not more prepared for the weather; this is Alaska, after all.  We congratulate ourselves on being packed up and on the road before someone else.  The road is in pretty good condition, but it's wet and muddy and it takes extra effort to bike through.  It's freezing outside, so despite our best efforts to layer and keep warm, we are soon both soaked and cold.  Around us are rushing rivers, dense brush, and mountains which are mostly hidden by the thick cloud blanket.  It's hard to look up and enjoy the scenery, since every time we do, the rain blasts us in the face and drips down our jackets.  We do, however, see a moose.

on the rainy road

Our journey brings us to Toklat, a strange area with lots of restrooms and a big tent with a store inside.  There are a lot of people around, because there's a temporary closure on the road beyond.  The rain is causing all sorts of landslides.  We switch from bikes to backpacks, have some lunch, then hop on an eastbound bus that takes us back to Unit 8.  The place we had wanted to start is very steep, so instead we hike off the road a bit west of where we had planned.  Our hike brings us through marsh, brush, and a small river.  After a ways, we get to a larger river, which we plan to follow all the way to the glaciers in the distance.  Mostly we hike on gravel bars and make good time.  They are really wonderful for hiking!

on a gravel bar

Sometimes the river cuts close to the bank and we have to cut around through the brush or cross it.  We cross multiple times, each immersion in the ice cold water bringing my feet closer to unbearable numbness.  Along the way, we find beautifully colored rocks in almost any color you could imagine.  They make an incredible mosaic along the riverbank.

We also find a large hunk of white fur (fox tail?), some gorgeous lupines, and yellow flowers glistening in the rain.  The hike rewards us with a crazy view of the road winding its way along the mountain cliffs.  Ahead of us is the Polychrome Glacier, snowy, misty, and mysterious.  With freezing feet, we camp downstream from where we plan on passing over the mountains tomorrow.  As we eat dinner, we finally see a small window of blue sky, and the sun peeks over the top of the mountains.  After a long day of steady rain, perhaps things are looking up!

Quick Update: Out of the Park

We had an incredible trip through Denali Narional Park, home of the awe-inspiring Alaska Range and Mt McKinley.  Our plan was to bike the 90-mile park road until about halfway, take the bus to embark on a five-day backpacking trip that would lead us back to our bikes, then bike the rest of the road.  All went according to plan, but after many straight days of rain, we decided to take the bus to the end of the road instead of biking the mucky gravel.  We also chose to forego our last night in the park and simply be on our way.  No regrets there; Denali is amazing, but so is a warm, plentiful meal with new friends, especially after leaving the backcountry.  Many thanks to Martin, Brandon, Karen, Chris, and Marco for their good company and generosity.

We wrote daily journal entries while in Denali, which will be uploaded in the next few days.