Adventures in Alaska: Denali National Park

22 July – Denali

It’s difficult to describe the vastness of the 49^th state, Alaska. It’s huge and wild and imposing. It’s home to 8 National Parks, including 6 which are more than 3 million acres. And a vast portion of the state lies north of the Arctic Circle, making it particularly vulnerable to climate change. So of course, it was high on my list of places to visit.

Anil, Gemma, and I all had around a 4 hour layover, in Seattle, so we decided to meet downtown and see the Klondike Gold Rush National Monument. Because of delays I ended up only having about an hour at the visitor center, but it was enough time to learn a little bit about the mad dash for gold in the Klondike and have our own mad dash to earn our Junior Ranger badges. And one cool thing about their badges is that they are numbered, much like the miners who registered during the Gold Rush! I'm Junior Ranger number 13528! We then flew another 3 hours to Anchorage, arriving a bit after 9PM. We rented a car and drove to Wasilla for the night. It felt strange, since we had plenty of light to look across the lake even though it was 11:30 PM!

We're in the 30% Club!

The next morning we woke up early and drove straight to Denali National Park. The weather is unusually warm, and it was a shock when we turned a corner and saw Denali looming in the distance. We were lucky, because what we didn’t know at the time is that only 30% of visitors to Denali actually get to see the mountain -since it’s so high, it has its own microclimate so even in nice weather it is often hiding behind mist and fog. Denali, meaning “The High One” or “The Tall One” in Athabascan, reaches up 20,310 feet. It was originally called Mount McKinley by a gold prospector who named it after then-presidential candidate William McKinley, who was a champion of the Gold Standard. Unfortunately, he was assassinated before he was ever able to visit the mountain named after him.

The National Park was established because of the work of Charles Sheldon, a hunter who came to Alaska to hunt the Dall sheep and soon realized that if the area wasn’t protected, that this magnificent wild place would be lost to the many miners, hunters, and railroad workers who were abusing its resources. Because of Sheldon's efforts, Mount McKinley National Park was signed into law in 1917 by Woodrow Wilson. It was later expanded (from 2 million to 6 million acres) and renamed Denali National Park and Preserve in 1980 by Jimmy Carter. And in 1995, President Obama officially changed the name of the mountain back to Denali.

We stopped first at the Visitor Center, looking at some of the exhibits and watching the film ‘Backcountry Hiking in Denali’. We then met our bus which took us to Kantinsha, the farthest end of the road, 92 miles in the heart of Denali. Private cars aren’t allowed into the park past mile 15 – only shuttles and buses, which is one of the reasons why we decided to stay inside the park and why we chose one of the most remote lodges.

Savage River, mile 15: the end of the
road for private vehicles. The rest of
the road is only open to Denali buses

The bus ride in took about 7 hours, with several stops for wildlife and scenic views along the way. The first hour or so was lovely but a fairly uniform landscape of hills and trees. At this point in the journey, there was very little wildlife – not even birds or squirrels. 

Polychrome Overlook

We did stop at the Polychrome Overlook, at mile 46. A short hike takes you to the crest of the hill, which gives a good view of the valley and the Polychrome Glaciers and the Toklat River.

It was a beautiful day, and unusually warm weather mean there was an abundance of wildflowers - especially fireweed, which turned the hillside purple.

Surprisingly, the very first animal we spotted was a solitary grizzly bear, wandering around on the hillside several hundred yards away. Because of the remoteness of Denali, the rules in the park surrounding wildlife are strict to keep you safe - humans need to stay 300 yards away from bears - the length of 3 football fields. But considering a brown bear can run upwards of 35 miles an hour, they can run that 300 yards in less than a minute.

All told, we saw 7 grizzlies, 4 moose, and many caribou. Additionally, we saw golden eagles, a merlin, and several ptarmigan – including a family that was startled by two grizzly cubs and one flitted around as though it was injured, trying to lure the bears away.

Guide Joke: Why can't you hear a ptarmigan
going to the bathroom? Because of the silent "P"!

High on my bucket list was seeing a real live moose,
and Denali did not disappoint!

We arrived at Kantishna at around 7:45pm and quickly cleaned up at in our room – it's kind of nice and convenient that the lodge is a keyless property, mainly because it is so remote and there aren’t many people here. We had dinner at 8 and were completely exhausted by the time we got into bed at 11, even though it was still light outside.

23 July – Denali

A fun but tiring day! We were up by 6, and wandered around the property in the morning before breakfast. Anil and I went down to Moose Creek, but were quickly chased away from fear of mosquitoes. After breakfast, we geared up and got ready for our guided hike – marked as ‘strenuous’ even though it was only 6 miles. But it was up to the top of Busia Peak (pronounced “boo-shay”), a 2,500 ft elevation gain. To get there, we had to put on thigh-high waders to cross Moose Creek, then slogged through some muddy, soft tundra to get up the mountain.

Along the way, we saw fresh tracks and scat from moose, caribou, grizzly bear, and lynx.

It was a steep climb through both Alpine and dry tundra, at times bushwhacking through alders and scrabbling through mud. 

We made it up to the peak in about 2.5 hours, enjoyed the view of the Alaska Range while we had our lunch, then speed-hiked back down since we wanted to be back in time to hear the sled-dog presentation. 
Clearly, they love to run and were chomping at the bit to get started!

Even though we missed the first part of the talk, we were able to see the demonstration where Emmitt Peters Jr, the son of a former Iditarod winner, ran 6 dogs around the property by hitching them to a quad bike. During the Iditarod, the sled could be between 800-1000 pounds, but when they are in training they pull almost 1,500 pounds.

After relaxing for a bit, (when it started raining HARD), we had dinner then went for the Mosquito Talk. Guide Emily is a mosquito enthusiast, and did her best to get us to appreciate mosquitoes... and surprisingly, she succeeded.

There are actually a few redeeming qualities about mosquitoes, and a few facts that we learned that made them not as awful as we originally thought. Did you know? All mosquitoes primarily vegetarian, surviving on nectar for sustenance. Male mosquitoes stay vegetarian their whole lives, and it’s only the female of some species who needs blood when her hormones kick in and she needs to reproduce, using the extra nutrients to help produce eggs. And only certain species of mosquitoes are virus vectors, with each virus surviving in different species.

Mosquitoes are beneficial in environments like Alaska; because they feed on nectar, they are pollinators for many of the plants (and the sole pollinator for a specific orchid!). They help feed animals such as birds, dragonflies, frogs, bats, and spiders; one researcher calculated that 50% of the migratory birds would disappear if we got rid of all the mosquitoes.

Most surprisingly, mosquitoes can actually influence the migratory habits of animals. Did you know? The favorite animal for blood-sucking mosquitoes is.... the caribou. Young caribou have been known to die from blood loss. Caribou have thick hide and fur, so one of the few body parts vulnerable to mosquito attack is the nose -  some caribou have even asphyxiated because their nasal passages have been so clogged by mosquitoes. Because of this, caribou may change their migration path – given the choice between an area with no mosquitoes but predators, versus a safe path but filled with mosquitoes, the caribou would choose the mosquito-free route. This lures predators such as wolves, who will change directions to follow their dinners.

So yeah, mosquitoes do play an important part in the Alaskan ecosystem, and do in their own way benefit the environment. While there aren’t as many as I was expecting, there still are a ton – and they are dang annoying. And P.S.: I’ve been using a combination of repellants but mostly oil of lemon eucalyptus – and it seems to be working surprisingly well!

After the mosquito talk, the rain lightened up to a light drizzle and we decided to go to Wonder Lake. It’s less than a 10 minute van ride down, and since all of us were tired, we knew we wouldn’t be gone long. We didn’t see any of the beavers that sometimes show themselves, the often-smooth surface of the water was ripply because of the wind and rain, and the Alaskan Range (including Denali) was hidden behind clouds. So we only stayed a few minutes then came back to the lodge for bed.

24 July – Denali

This morning, we decided (on the advice of guide Michelle) to take the medium hike to Willow Ridge. Her main selling point was because of the experience coming down from the ridge - there’s no trail so hikers have to make their way through the tundra, experiencing the spongy bounce and doing a bit of bushwhacking. It's an 800’ elevation gain during the 3 mile hike, and the rain from the day before (and the slight drizzle during the first half of the hike) makes for a very wet and muddy time. As the guides say, just embrace the wetness – that’s the true Alaskan experience! Plus, it’s just a lot of fun.

Much like the Busia hike, we saw many plants, including several kinds of wildflowers and berries. We snacked on the crowberry, blueberries, and cloudberries that we found along the trail, following the 4 to 1 rule (for every 4 berries you see, eat one and leave the rest for the bears).

The most fun part of the hike was the trip down, tromping through the tundra. There is no trail, so we spread out (so as not to etch a path) and made our way across about a mile to get back to the van. Tundra is basically a treeless ecosystem with long, cold winters and short, usually cool summers. There is low precipitation and persistent winds, plus a layer of permafrost underneath which prevents deeply rooting vegetation such as trees. The permafrost also means a permanently water-saturated soil, limiting the number of plant species that can survive there.

But the tundra is amazingly diverse. There are tons of organisms that not only survive, but thrive. The ground is a thick, dense layer of spongy vegetation, with different berries, bushes, and low-laying shrubs. There are patches of area where the permafrost has melted, and either gullies and muddy ponds or dips form, or taller trees have taken root. And walking on the permafrost is like jumping on a soft mattress or trampoline – you bounce across, smelling the fresh scent of wet grass and the lemony-herbal aroma of labrador tea.

We looked our hardest for a wood frog (to no avail), but we did see several spiders and even one huge, gorgeously colored fat caterpillar. We returned to camp after finishing the hike, and quickly cleaned up.

We were tired, but wanted to try the gold-mining activity, learning a bit about Kantishna’s role in the mining business. Back in the late 1800 to early 1900s, miners came out during the Klondike Gold Rush to mine the hills and streams in and around Kantishna. Prospectors could stake out a claim on a plot of land and record it in the miner’s office here in Kantishna, and for a while the area was booming. But it was a rough life, and difficult to get supplies in and out, and the boom only lasted a few years.

We did a little gold panning ourselves, and I actually found a teeny tiny speck of gold! Don’t sneeze, or you’ll blow it away.
We met 11 year old Alexis during the gold mining, a friendly girl who was traveling with her grandparent but who was by herself since they didn’t want to do any of the afternoon activities. She ended up hanging out with us for the rest of the afternoon, and we taught her about the Junior Ranger programs and did the Jr. Ranger book with her. She seemed excited and willing to do it, and hopefully she’ll get her badge and continue collecting badges at all the parks she travels to!

Then we went on the Fanny Quigley Cabin Tour – about a mile and a half down the mountain near the end of the Denali Road was the the second and final cabin of Fanny Quigley, one of the original gold miners who lived in the Kantishna Valley in the early 1900s. Fanny was a tough, independent, hard-working woman who, after her husband ran off with his nurse, lived alone year-round in the small cabin. Her only neighbor, Johnnie Busia, lived about a mile down across the Moose River, which in the dead of winter might as well have been a million miles away.

Before heading back to Kantishna Lodge, we drove on to the End of the Road, the furthest point in the road to Denali. There are 6 million acres of land within Denali Park and Preserve, but this is the only road access into the park. The majority is pristine wilderness, to an extent that is difficult to fathom. That's one of the reasons why we wanted to fly out of the park, for that aerial overview to give us the scope.

After dinner, Gem and I walked around a bit (we saw a snowshoe hare – turned brown for the summer), then talked to Shelley, our guide from the Willow Ridge hike. She invited us to the staff kickball game at the air strip later that night, but we were exhausted so we didn’t go (kind of a bummer, as we were later told it was interrupted by a mother moose and her calf). But we did chat for quite a while, and she seemed really interested in our project and wants to help in any way she can!

25 July – Denali to Seward

We had to wake up reaaaaallly early this morning to get our plans settled. The bus back to the park entrance was leaving at 6:30AM, so we needed to make sure we were going to fly out since weather might cancel the flights. Regardless, we had to get our bags onto the bus by 5:20 since we weren’t going to be able to fit them on the little plane.

But we did get word that we were good to fly, and it meant a lazy, slow morning (yay!) So even though we woke up at 5AM, we were picked up at 9:30 to go to the airstrip. We attached a Gopro to the tail of the plane (after some stressing and trial-and-error), and took the 50 minute scenic flight back out of the park. It was a beautiful view, looking across the panorama into the wilderness with very little sign of humans. The best part was seeing three giant bull moose which we swooped around and saw twice, plus we flew up near a rather large herd of Dall sheep on the side of a cliff (that was actually below us on the mountain.)

After landing we shuttled back to the Denali Train Station, picked up our bags, and had lunch at the Visitor’s Center. We posted a few post cards, then started our long (7 hour) drive down to Seward, on the Kenai Peninsula. The nice thing about Alaska is there aren’t many roads and the highways aren’t too congested, so it was easy to find our way. Along the route we did see one bald eagle sitting atop a tree, but it was a little far away so hopefully we’ll see more when we’re in Kenai Fjords!

After crossing through Anchorage, we skirted the Turnagain Arm into Kenai. This is a shallow inlet that is famous for the Bore Tide – the dramatic changing of the sea level during low tides, so hopefully we’ll be able to see it when we return in a few days! We had a lovely dinner near the hotel (very fresh Alaskan halibut, salmon, and king crab), then off to bed since we were all so exhausted!