Northern Trails And Tales

Its a great big, broad land up yonder,
It’s the forests where silence has lease,
It’s the beauty that fills me with wonder,
It’s the stillness that fills me with peace….

Denali is an overwhelming park. At six million acres, it’s roughly the size of Massachusetts. Without argument, it’s centerpiece is Mt. McKinley, which at 20,320 feet it is the tallest peak in North America. In another sense, at 18,000 feet, it’s the tallest peak in the world as measured from it’s base in terms of vertical relief. (Mt. Everest is about 11,000.) It is not a particularly difficult climb, at least in cooperative weather and 1,700 mountaineers attempt it each summer. About half succeed. But 400,000 people visit the park, and most everyone comes to see McKinley. They also come to see wildlife, sub-artic tundra, and hike trails or non-trails, camp, bike, bird watch, study natural history, take photos, casually and seriously, and participate in the many programs offered by the park rangers. Most everyone uses the shuttle busses as they are the most efficient way to see large parts of the park, including the wildlife, the rivers and the mountains. The majority of the 400,000 visitors are here for just one or two days, so to leave time to hit the gift shop, the busses make most sense, though only about 30% of one day visitors get to see McKinley due to rain and clouds. Still, it’s all fascinating wilderness, or at least the most wilderness any of us will ever see, and brings to mind the line from Thoreau, ” Nature here is savage and awful, though beautiful.”…. Outside the park, what is referred to as the “frontcountry,” is a melange of motels, gift shops, rafting outfits, flightseeing companies, and other cunningly contrived tourist magnets, all of which appear to thrive. As a thumbnail sketch, this will have to do, though in no way does it begin to capture the majesty of the
wilderness….. The drive down to the park from Fairbanks on Wednesday was only about 100 miles and uneventful except for the ubiquitous highway repairs. We were processed though the camping permit department very quickly, though Dave had to attend a 40 minute presentation since he was planning an overnight hike and camping trip. We then drove the 30 mile park road out to our campground and immediately were confronted with the problem of getting 50 plus feet of truck and trailer into spaces designed for something much smaller. With a bit of body language, as well as other language, and about ten shots, we succeeded. The camping spot is somewhat different from most RV parks in that an effort is made to separate the sites a bit among the black spruce and shrubs to provide more of a wilderness experience. Until a few years ago, tent campers were allowed into the Teklanika River camp, but first a wolf problem and later a bear problem have limited camping to those in hard sided vehicles. In fact, we’ve seen nonr of neither at the camp and rangers say they anticipate opening the area to tenters again next year….. On Thursday, the second consecutive nice day, we rode the tour bus from the campground to the end of the line at Kantishna out past Wonder Lake. For those of you planning to come, don’t bother to go past Wonder Lake as there isn’t much new to see, though you do ford two streams with the bus, but it adds considerably to the trip. As it was, the bus ride lasted from 9:05 AM till 7:05 PM. (For the folks who started at the visitors center, the ride starts and ends about an hour and a half later making the total trip a little over twelve hours.) If you liked Top of the World Highway, you’ll love this ride! There’s no roller coaster comparable, at least according to one women from California that says she’s sampled roller coasters all over the country. You drive on gravel roads terraced into sides of mountains that turn back on themselves at the very end of a ridge, and I mean very end. Thus, to folks sitting in the rear of the bus, it appears the front has traveled over the end of the road and is turning on nothing but air. Occasionally you meet a bus coming the other way– and somebody has to back up as there’s no way two can pass. In truth, after the Top of the World, I’ve become somewhat used to this type of aerial acrobatics so I enjoyed the trip more than I might have without that previous
preparation. We lucked out and the day was gorgeous, only the second good day for viewing in some time. We had stunning views of the Alaskan Range and Mt. McKinley throughout the trip. And wildlife was fairly abundant, too. Caribou, moose, Dall
sheep bears, and eagles were fairly frequently in sight. Unfortunately, they were rarely in camera range. Again, if you are going on this trip, you need a telephoto lens as long as your leg— and believe it or not, the guy across the aisle from me had not one, but two, plus a video recorder that probably cost about what the 5th wheel did. All in all a great time. I should put in a good word for our bus driver who delivered us safely back to Tek camp. She has a nice sense of humor and a real command of the bus, as do all the drivers, I suppose. Most of them have several years of experience (this is her seventh season) and most not only are college graduates but many have advanced degrees…..Friday morning, under cold and threatening skies that were soon to deliver, Dave ventured forth on his camping expedition while, back at the trailer, I rifled through his papers to see whose name is on the life insurance.But I took some solace in the fact that after I reported him missing I could quickly be on my way to the salmon grounds without the planned delays in Grizzly Bear Park (And Petting Zoo), Mat Su and Anchorage. From my vantage point under the bed (after the failure to find any life insurance), I began to hear (poorly) the pitter patter of raindrops on the trailer roof. They were to punctuate the silence on and off into the next morning. Meanwhile, the temperatures overnight quickly plunged into the forties making me forget how difficult it was to sleep under the bed without a pillow. I won’t ruin his good story, which I’m sure he’ll be relating shortly, but i will forewarn you it includes tracking wildebeestes above the soggy tundra….. Upon his return, we fired up the trailer furnace for the first time. We had used the air conditioning twice early in the trip but had no occasion for heat. Today, we used the furnace again as the temps dropped into the forties. As you might gather, the weather the last couple days hasn’t been all that inviting,
though yesterday (Saturday) afternoon the sun came out about 4:40 PM and the mercury quickly climbed into the 70’s. These types of temperature wings are fairly commonplace here. Today, it has been cold and misting intermittently. As you who know me well may imagine, I’ve done a whole lot of reading. (Dave, by the way is off hiking again this dreary Sunday afternoon..). The Teklinka River, upon whose banks we are camped, is typical of many of the Alaskan rivers. At this time of year, it’s a half mile wide, comprising mostly sandbars interspersed with trickles of water and one main channel that may be a foot or two deep. However, the volume of water will increase nine or ten times by mid July from the melting glaciers and it will be a roaring torrent. These rivers in days gone by made fording virtually impossible during the summer months and thus made winter, with its frozen ground and snow, preferable for land travel…..There’s so much more to say about Denali but I’d like to get this off tomorrow, so I’ll just close this segment with a little more Robert Service:

No! There’s the land. (Have you seen it?)
It’s the cussedest land that I know.
Fromthe big, dizzy mountains that screen it
To the deep, deathlike valleys below.
Some say God was tired when he made it;
Some say it’s a fine land to shun;
Maybe; but there’s some as would trade it
For no land on earth— and I’m one……

Tomorrow morning, we saddle up again and move the thirty miles to the front of the park and then down the highway six miles to an RV park. At Teklanika, we are restricted from traveling back to the main entrance of the park. We have a couple trips planned including a white water rafting expedition on Wednesday, so it’s necessary for us to move. The good thing about this is that we should be in the land of wi-fi again and I’ll be able to get this blog off. Maybe just as importantly, our holding tanks are filling so we need to get to a dump station before we drown in sewage. In any case, if things go according to plan, you should receive this sometime Monday evening or Tuesday….Till then…