Spirit, Not a Ghost: Going the long way...Starving and Cold AKA AK Pt. 6

Me on Wickersham Dome!

The next epic adventure occurred in the middle of the park, near Kantishna. Kantishna is an old mining town in the center of Denali NP where some people still have private property and a lot of the water is not safe to drink due to mining activity. Captain and I were determined to go explore the area to the fullest, and so we made plans for that weekend to do so.

A red fox on the road.

Kantishna is located 92 miles inside the park, and the road ends even though it is only halfway through the park. The only ways to get further in are by walking or getting dropped off in a plane. The bus goes max 25 miles per hour, so it takes a good long time to get to Kantishna. Fortunately, you are pretty much guaranteed to see wildlife, and we saw plenty of bears and other wild animals. One of the closest shots I've ever taken of a fox occurred on the bus ride over.

After sleeping most of the bus ride to Kantishna, we were dropped off just before an ATV trail. Our plan was to hike to the end of the trail and return along the same route, an easy hike for us. Things did not go as planned. It was a hot day, and the sun was beating down on us as we climbed up the trail towards the top of Wickersham Dome. We set up camp near the top, with a fantastic view of Denali covered in clouds, and the blue-green view of utter wilderness. It was fantastic. We sat and meditated, and did a breathing exercise together, and when i opened my eyes again the oxygen made everything even more blue and I cried because it was still so wild. The north-west direction had fewer people in it than almost anywhere in the world and it belonged to the savage and beautiful beasts that could survive in it.

In all likelihood there is no one in this direction for at least 500 miles.

It was early/middle August and the sun was setting at night now, so we had a few hours of darkness as opposed to eternal sunshine. We slept easily and woke up early to start this "easy" trek. The trail was beautiful, meandering between small peaks with great views. We saw tons of pika and marmots, and once saw a guy on an atv. While having a snack, Capt looked at our topographic map and our big map of Denali and noticed a trail that connected the ATV trail to Kantishna in a big circle. We looked at it and figured, why not? We still have the rest of today, one night and then early the next morning to catch the bus back to work. We always prefer going in a loop trail rather than in-and-out because you see more. So we decided to follow the trail that was on the topographic map. This is where the plan went wrong.

The ATV trail

First the mosquitoes came. In force. Both of us were surrounded with clouds of mosquitoes. The only place they could bite us was on the hands, so we both put on gloves. Then we just had clouds buzzing around our heads, and we could pretty much ignore them. All of Kantishna is pretty buggy, but I feel that a mosquito net hat is rather unneccesary - it's cold enough that you have to wear layers and the bugs can't reach through all of them. The ATV trail ended at Caribou Creek and the trail on the topo began where the ATV one ended. We did find some semblances of a trail, but it was overgrown with bushes, making it extremely difficult to hike on it. At points we walked in the Creek, which was rather fast flowing through a small canyon. There was no going back for us. After almost falling a couple times, we retreated to the bank again to fight the wet brush. Then we discovered some abandoned mines. Some were filled with water, and all of them looked absolutely terrifying to me. It screamed death and I was anxious to leave. Captain took a few pictures, but I was so nervous I just left as quickly as possible. We got to some blueberry fields. We were exhausted by this point, and sat down to eat something. That's when we realized that we didn't pack enough food for the trip. We had one more meal and we wanted 3 more for the entire trip. So we ate wild blueberries. Most of them were sour, but they were fantastic nonetheless. I've never seen so many wild blueberries in my life.

The End of the Real Trail.

We got up again and veered left, heading for Wickersham Dome and Kantishna, instead of following the brushy trail by the creek. This entailed many ups and downs, we went over at least six tall steep ridges before night was settled on us. We kept going, knowing that the next ridge was going to be part of Wickersham. Well, it never was and at 3 am we were so exhausted and hungry that when it started to rain hard, we set up the tent and passed out. We were perched on the edge of a steep ridge, and the wind howled to blow down the tent. But we slept through the wind. We woke up at 5 am so that we could catch the bus that would enable us to not be late for work. We continued up and down the ridges, walking fast to get to the bus in time. We saw a herd of caribou running across one of the ridges, it almost looked like they were dancing. I was so exhausted and hungry that I didn't even think to grab my camera. At seven we knew we would miss the bus, but we had finally found Wickersham Dome. Captain and I gave up on the bus, and sat down to cook the last of our food. We were so hungry and cold that Capt felt sick eating, but I gobbled it up anyway. I've never passed up food. :)

A Pika in the Dark

After another hour or so, we finally got back to the ATV trail and walked back to Kantishna, where we were able to find a phone and call our work to let them know that we wouldn't be showing up. The sun was shining and the birds were singing, we were no longer hungry, but we were still exhausted. It was soothing to sit by a creek and just rest our weary bones. On the bus ride back, there was a fantastic rainbow with a moose munching away directly under it, but there were too many cars for us to grab a photo. We got back home exhausted and in trouble with work, so next time, we decided that we would always stick to the original plan...