DENALI – WANDERING WHYTES

After completing many trips in the western US we were ready for the ultimate backpacking challenge: 6,000,000 acres of pure wilderness, the highest peak in the US (20,310) feet, crazy weather and the big five. Africa has their big five and so does Denali. Dall Sheep, Caribou, Moose, Wolf and the king of Denali: Grizzly Bear all are found in the park. Trivia question: what is the most dangerous of these 5? Hum jeopardy song and the answer is………. Moose. Talk to the rangers and they would tell you Moose are very dangerous, big, fast and dumb. They are not predicable (Bears are) so you never know what they might do.

Timing is everything in life: when we booked the trip nobody had ever been killed by a Grizzly in the park….. A week before we departed that changed. Apparently the man was trying to get the perfect picture and kept getting closer and closer to the bear. He got too close, the bear didn’t like it and killed him. They have a saying in Alaska, the dufus dies. Sad thing is the park had to then kill the bear because somebody decided not to follow the rules.

Before our backpack trip we took the park bus to Wonder Lake and camped for a few nights.

The bus follows the only road in the park and one of the stops is Wonder Lake. The ride takes 5-6 hours based on number of stops and animal sightings

I took this from the bus, no I was not trying to get closer. There where a lot of blueberry bushes on the first section of road so bear activity was high. It was late in the season and bears are eating anything they can to put on weight before winter hits.

The bus would stop periodically so people could take pictures and walk, the sencery was pretty good

To say the weather was not looking good would be an understatement.

There is a big mountain out there but we can’t see it.

This is the McKinley River, we wanted to cross it, nope. The river is 1 mile across and this is just one of many braids

Our first Caribou and one of the Denali big five

This shelter was a nice place to get out of the rain. All campers stored their food in the middle section so bears could not get to it. We did not see any bears in this section of the park.

The weather is looking better and we got our first view of the big mountain

I have to say this a really nice campsite.

Eileson visitor center is mile 66 of the park road, there is another visitor center at the park entrance. Next stop backpacking trip

Day 1 of the backpacking trip. We started east of Polychrome Pass and headed south from the road.

There are no trails in the park. You get a permit for the section you want to hike. Rules are straightforward you can not leave the section that is on your permit, you have to carry park approved canisters for your food and your tent cannot be visible from the road. Turned out the third one was the hardest. There is nothing to block the view so you can see a long way but we finally were able to hide behind a hill.

We came, we saw, we got our asses kicked.

The bus stopped let us out and off we went and so did the bus

Ptarmigan, not one of the big five….tastes like chicken

Since we were here in the fall plants were changing color, the result was pretty good

Goal is to spread out when you hike to minimize impact to the vegetation, hiking was tough even on the flat section. Rangers said 1 mile here is equivalent to 2 miles in the lower US.

Hard to tell in the picture but the wind was really howling and kept up all night. I am amazed the tent held up because it was smashing into my face all night. I did not get much sleep.

Day 2. we were supposed to head over the pass and drop down to the next river and camp for the night. The weather was terrible, wind, rain, sleet. We look and looked and could not find a safe way over. So we decided to head back.

Welcome to Alaska, weather turns to crap pretty quickly. This is about the place we decided to turn around, the routes down the other side looked risky

Leann said maybe we should stay out another night, NO! Ed and Anita decided to stay so we said goodbye at the bus and set a specific time when we would meet at the visitor center since we had the car.

Leann and I headed to Healy to see if we could find a hotel and ended up staying at the Denali Park hotel. That night winds picked up to 60 mph and we thought the windows were going to break they were shaking so badly. We were worried for our friends and hoped they were OK. I asked them to write about their experience so I can post, I hope they do.