Denali National Park and Wilderness Area

"Denali" is the native American name for what white people called "Mt. McKinley" for many years. Mt. McKinley (now pretty much accepted as "Denali", which means, "the Great One") is the highest mountain on the North American Continent, at over 20,300 feet above sea level (ASL). While Mt. Everest is higher at 29,000 feet ASL, Everest's valleys are already at 17,000 feet. This makes Everest seem to rise only 12,000 feet above its base. By contrast, McKinley towers a full 18,000 feet over its 2000' ASL base. So by appearances, McKinley seems more impressive. It is also more massive than Everest, with its base covering five times as much area as Everest's. McKinley is the center of Denali National Park and Wilderness Area. The entrance to Denali National Park is 250 miles north of Anchorage on the Anchorage-to-Fairbanks Highway. The drive to the park is a very long 3-1/2 hours from Anchorage. But the drive has what Lintmonkey called "spectacular scenery". What an understatement. The highway comes up to, and then passes through, the Alaska Range of the North American Rockies. Here is a pic beside the road on the way up toward the range. The mountains in the background are still at least 40 miles away. Once you get to the park entrance, the park road runs westerly for 89 miles, and even so, only goes a little more than a third of the way into the park! This park is BIG. The road runs out many miles before you get to Mt. McKinley. Except for the road, some wayside stops (with pit toilets, benches, and a bus shelter), the park is completely wilderness except for a cluster of buildings at the entrance -- a visitor center, the park headquarters building, some maintenance sheds, etc. And by wilderness, I mean real wilderness. Nothing but mountains, tundra, and tiaga forest for miles and miles and miles. Heaven! The park technically is not open yet for the 2010 season -- it opens on May 15th. Once the park opens, visitors aren't allowed to drive into the park at all -- you must take one of the shuttle busses which run back and forth along the park road. The busses allow you to get off almost anywhere you want to. There are stops with pit toilets, shelters, benches, and information displays about every 5 miles or so, but you can ask the driver to stop anywhere along the road and let you off to walk, hike, take pictures, or just enjoy the views. You can catch the next bus -- the busses leave every 20 minutes and take several hours to traverse the entire 89 miles of gravel road and back. So every 20 minutes a bus comes along. But since the park isn't open yet, the busses aren't running yet this season. When I found this out, I expected to be turned away at the gate. BUT NO! The ranger invited me in and said I could drive my car all the way to the 29 mile marker! He said that the staff had been working furiously to get the park ready for its grand opening day tomorrow, and they were all taking the day off, and therefore (get this!) I might have the entire park to myself! He said that only about a dozen people had come past the gate all day long! And he didn't even charge me the $20 entrance fee to get in! Heaven! Heaven! Millions and millions of acres of wilderness! 89 miles of park road! And only a dozen people! Heaven! I got to stop anywhere I wanted, pull the car off the road, and walk into the wilderness any time I liked! Heaven! I arrived in the park just after noon, and spent the next seven hours in heaven! Except for my hike into the Savage River gorge (see below) I didn't venture more than half a mile from the road at any point, since there aren't a lot of marked hiking trails -- this is true wilderness -- and just as importantly: this is famous grizzly country. But I had a blast walking half a mile here, half a mile there, taking pictures, enjoying the silence, knowing that the closest human beings were at least a dozen miles away, probably more. The scenery is breathtaking, especially just off the road a ways.

My hiking tripod comes in handy when I want to prove that I've actually been someplace. It was chilly, but not miserably cold. The wind was light.

The best part is: except for one other party (the two people I saw along the Savage River Loop trail -- see post below), I never saw ANYONE else, at all, the entire day, until I was returning to the exit! Heaven, I say. Heaven!

I took my time, meandering through tiaga forest, out onto the tundra, up hills, climbing small outcroppings. Plus the Savage River Gorge hike (see below). Along about six o'clock p.m., I finally arrived at the 29 mile-marker, which is as far as the ranger said I was to go. The road seemed open even further, possibly going all the way to the 89 mile marker and within sight of Mt. McKinley. But I decided to play nice and follow the rules. Since I hadn't seen anyone else all day long, I figured the others may have broke the rules and gone further. There were tire tracks in the gravel going past the turnaround point. But I decided to do the honorable thing since the ranger had been so kind as to let me in. I turned around here and came back. Notice the lower right corner of the sign has the milepost on it.

It was probably a good thing I turned around when I did. It took me an hour to drive the gravel road the 29 miles back to the park entrance, and then I had the four-hour trip back to the hotel in Anchorage. And 11 pm Anchorage time is 4 in the morning for my Shen-Valley biological clock.

Alaska sure is pretty in May.

I've always wondered what it would be like to be in Denali... and now I know. The scenery is comparable to Rocky Mountain National Park in terms of beauty -- in fact, I think that some scenery in Rocky Mtn Natl Park might even be prettier. But Rocky Mtns is always relatively full of people -- I have to work hard to find a trail with solitude. But here in Denali, at least on this trip, the solitude and peace of being alone surrounded by millions of acres of true, hardcore wilderness, is, ... well.... um, heaven.

Lintmonkey's wedding is tomorrow morning, graduation Sunday, so probably no more hiking this trip. But hey, a few hours in heaven is more than I expected.

Savage River Canyon

Once I learn the layout of a park, its geography, landmarks, terrain, and such, I feel more comfortable leaving the marked trails and travelling across the wilderness. Denali is tremendously huge, as I mentioned above, but its layout is very open and simple. There is a mountain range (the Alaska Range, including Mt. McKinley) running 100 miles along its south side. There's a wide-open valley of tundra and tiaga forest running east to west across its middle, and a range of much smaller rock mountains in its north. The mountains in both north and south are pierced for miles with canyons and gorges. Several of the gorges on the north side provide outlets for the rivers of the valley. The park road runs for 89 miles along the southerly edge of the northern (smaller) mountain range, giving good views towards the south of the huge snow-covered peaks of the Alaska Range. For all its size, Denali has pitifully few hiking trails marked on its map. Rocky Mountains Nat'l Park brags about its two thousand miles of trails, even Shenandoah has hundreds of miles of trails. There are probably fewer than 20 miles of trails marked on the park map of Denali, and almost all of them are at the park entrance and visitor center. Denali is so free of visitors (because of its location), the rangers don't mind you hiking cross-country anywhere you want to. You can walk miles and miles across the tiaga forest and tundra of the valley to get to the rocky snow-covered peaks of the Alaska range. Or you can stay closer to the road by exploring the gorges, hollers, ravines, and maybe go up to the summits and ridges of the northern mountains. At mile marker 15 there is a short, marked, 1-mile walking trail that follows the Savage River downstream a ways through a rocky, but not very steep, gorge. It crosses the river and comes back up the other side. It is an easy walk, and at only 2700 feet above sea level, isn't very strenuous. The only obstacles are a couple of snow fields and mud bogs along the tundra of the rock mountainside. At the end of the trail, where it crosses the river and starts back on the other side, I kept going for another mile or so into the wilderness down the canyon, deeper into the smaller southerly mountain range. I was following the river and the walking was easy and open and very enjoyable. I climbed a few hundred feet up the rocky tundra once or twice just to get away from the slushy bogs from the ice melts. Below is the view looking back up the canyon, across the valley to the snow-covered peaks in the south. Click on the picture below and look in the exact center and you can see the only other two people I saw on the trail. This gives you some perspective of the size of the river, which looks tiny in the pictures above and below, but in reality is quite wide and deep. The picture below is taken from where I turned around, about a mile or two past the end of the formal trail. This is from several hundred feet up, looking down the canyon to the north, deeper into the smaller mountain range. The summits here are around the 4000-foot level above the valley floor (as opposed to the 14,000 foot average of the snow-covered peaks of the Alaska Range 20 miles behind me as I took this picture). I don't know how much further the canyon goes, but it looks like several more miles at least.

This is the outfall of a small glacier that empties into the canyon about half a mile pasts the end of the formal marked trail.

I spent about two hours on this hike -- very peaceful and relaxing, with meeting only two other people the whole trip.

Wildlife of Denali

On my hikes, I walk slow and easy, and very quietly most of the time. All of the literature and suggestions by the park service says that "quiet" is not a good way to hike when you are in grizzly country, but I stay alert and aware of what's around me, and as slow as I walk, I believe I would detect a bear if I were getting close to one. Here are some of the more pacific animals I encountered on this trip. Marmots, like almost all rodents, are food for just about every predator in the park, from eagles to grizzlies, from foxes to owls to weasels. As a result, they are always skittish and frightened by just about everything -- most people who see a marmot usually see a flash of movement and might catch sight of them disappearing down their hole. But by being quiet and careful, I was able to get relatively close to this one. I have no idea what kind of bird this is, but he's very pretty. A moose, up close and personal. I didn't want to get any closer.

Moose are generally pre-occupied and thus don't generally react when they finally spot me. But caribou on the other hand are very, very skittish. I spotted several caribou and before I could get the camera raised, all that was left was their behind as they skeedaddled. I was able to catch this one as she grazed beside the road. None of the caribou or moose this trip had any antlers to speak of... it's too early in the growing season I guess.

This was a big bird (below). I thought at first it might be an owl, but the more I watched it, the more I figured it might be some kind of hawk or raptor or something -- it's about a food tall.

Below, another marmot that let me get to within a few feet of him before he took off.

A willow ptarmigan, very distinctive coloration. Notice the red eyebrow (click on the picture for the larger version).

Another moose. The last thing you want to happen when you are miles away from another human being is to be trampled by a moose. I tried not to be detected by these huge behemoths. While they look like a cute little donkey in the picture, they are humongous in real life. And while I've never seen one mad, I've heard they have a mean temper if you rile one up by getting too close. I was about 10 feet up on a rock outcropping to take this picture.

Description of ... Hell?

Imagine a place that is filled with bad people: thieves, robbers, murderers, etc. everywhere you go. Even the guy ahead of you in line at the grocery is talking about his parole officer. You have to lock your purse in the trunk even when you are parked directly across the street from City Hall. Imagine having to work from the minute you get up to the minute you go to bed, in very unpleasant conditions, without a break... going from the time you wake up until late in the afternoon without even so much as a drink of water, let alone anything to eat. And in those few times that you are indoors, you are simply waiting in line -- for HOURS, no joke -- just to do something mundane like changing your address. SIX hours to be exact. Yeah, just to change an address. Imagine it being so danged hot that you feel like you are inside an oven, being soaked with sweat all the time, having to wear wet clothes which even feel hot because of the oppressive heat and humidity, having the sweat run into your eyes for hours at a time, having wet hair, wet socks, all from sweat. Imagine that in this place, everyone else is also soaked with sweat and their smell is overpoweringly horrible and disgusting, and yet you are forced to spend time in the room with them sitting next to you, or otherwise having to stand outside in the unbearable heat. Imagine being pestered by insects and other vermin which bite and suck your blood, get in your eyes, and make you even more miserable than you already are from the debilitating heat, smell, boredom, physical labor, etc. Imagine you are there. What would you call the place? Yeah, that's what I call it here too.