First Introduction to True Suffering - AKA AK! Pt.2

Savage River

After getting settled at Mile Post 287 at Glitter Gulch, Alaska, Captain and I finally attained that holiest of holies: a weekend!  We determined to start our backpacking adventures once again, this time in Denali National Park.  Denali NP is the third biggest national park in the US, I think it's something like 6 million acres!  It has two typical ecosystems, the taiga and tundra.  More on this later.

The system of getting into Denali National Park is a lot more complicated than for almost all other national parks.  For all the others, you get into your car, buy the ticket, and drive around on the roads, right?  Well in Denali, there is only one road - a steep, dirt/gravel road that only goes halfway (90 miles) into the park.  So you can only go in 15 miles into the park by car, otherwise you have to buy a bus ticket.  Also, if you want to go backpacking, you need your backcountry permit abefore you buy a ticket on the camper bus.  It takes some getting used to.

Anyway, after many travails, we got on the bus to Savage River, which is 15 miles into the park; the rest of the park road wasn't opened yet since it was still May!  My bag was the only one big enough to hold the BEAR CAN OF HEAVINESS.  So I was loaded up with all the food and my bag weighed a ton!  It's close to impossible to be an ultralight backpacker in Denali because you need so many clothes to keep warm and the bear can is so heavy.  Still, we carried a lot less stuff than some people. You don't need to bring all the stuff in your house, people!!  Yes I am talking to you Sarah! 

The ranger had mentioned a wagon trail that followed a ridge.  The thing about Denali is that there are only about 10 trails in the entire park, and two of those are not on the maps.  The park discourages trails because they want to maintain a wilderness - though it makes backpacking and hiking extremely difficult.  So this would be cool if Alaska wasn't a SWAMPLAND WITH ANNOYING BUSHES EVERYWHERE! Because that's what tundra is.  A swampland, with only a foot of thawed soil, and lichen and moss everywhere.  Super comfy to sleep on, except it's always wet.

Squishy, pretty lichen and moss

Let me lay out the scene.  You just left the only road that connects you to civilization.  You seek a ridge, where a "trail" is.  You look for a ridge.  Oh wait, there are 15 streams, lots of  bogs, pit holes filled with water and willow bushes/trees everywhere.  Not to mention mountains and ridges everywhere!! Which one is it?  Every step sinks into the tundra by at least 3 inches, usually more, so you have to lift your very heavy foot 3 inches more with every step.  This is why the Park Rangers recommend sticking to the river beds of gravel.  After zigzagging for about 3 hours, we give up on finding the hidden trail and start sticking to the river.  Pretty much immediately after we give up, we find it!

Harlequin Ducks

So we started following it, heading towards Fang Mountain, a beautiful, jagged peak in the distance.  We wanted to reach the headwaters of Savage River.  But as the trail wound on, big willow trees started becoming the predominant feature of the landscape.  Now, willow bushes/trees are very dense, brushy, aka very annoying to walk through.  And the trail kept disappearing because, by now, it's nothing more than an animal track.

Ptarmigan

But we kept on, finding cool treasures like moose antlers everywhere, BIG wolf tracks, and bunches of animal scat.  We saw a snowshoe hare, which was beautiful and cute!  For the bird lovers out there, we saw ptarmigan and harlequin ducks, both of which had beautiful coloring.

The biggest kick for me was, of course, dinnertime, aka Tuna and Rice (our favorite!).  We passed out after 8 hours of hiking in a pretty valley filled with beaver dams and ponds.

Bear Tracks

We woke up early-ish the next day and started back, following the trail that would disappear and reappear, like all animal tracks.  Suddenly, we looked up and saw three Dall sheep!  They were running across the valley, trying to quickly make it back up into the mountains.  It was only the second time we saw Dall sheep, so we were very excited.  Didn't manage to get any pictures though, because by the time the camera was out, they were halfway across the valley. Not gonna bother posting another picture of three white spots in the distance.

On the return journey, we followed the trail the whole way.  The way back was substantially quicker - 3 hours!  But we saw some big bear tracks, and had to cross the Savage River where it was all iced up and boggy.  We were very careful crossing that part, didn't want to get our feet full of cold ice water!*

Soggy Ice - Still May!

Some lichen, grasses and mosses.

We made it back alive, after capturing a glance of a huge beautiful bull caribou.  Once again, slow on camera and missed the shot, but I enjoyed seeing him nonetheless.  We returned to the comforts of civilization, pleased with ourselves. This was the easiest backpacking trip we would ever go on.  Also, the only one where it didn't rain.

But we began to appreciate the difficulties that people and animals have to deal with in the far north - it's cold, even in May, and all life up here is the toughest thing in the world, except for perhaps desert creatures.  This lichen on the left - one inch represents a century.  Chew on that!

*We got pretty used to walking through ice water by the end of the summer though!