Entering the Backcountry

Denali is vast. The National Park is the size of Massachusetts and almost all of it is wilderness, accessible only by foot (if you were to walk continuously across every square mile, it would take over 11 years to see the entire thing).  There is one ribbon of road running into it-- an old mining road that is now used by the Park Service buses to give visitors a glimpse of the terrain.  Tundra, taiga, rivers, and mountains stretch in every direction.

There are a few trails around the entrance area, near the established tent and RV campsites and the visitor center. This is called the "frontcountry."  The rest of the park-- 6 million acres-- is backcountry: undisturbed wilderness with no trails or human traces.  The Park encourages you to hike all over it. 

My friend Angela and I arrived in Denali prepared to enter the backcountry.  After watching a safety video and receiving our free permit from the very friendly rangers, we boarded a bus to take us into the park.  From the bus we saw our first wildlife: a moose and yearling, a handful of caribou, a marmot, and a ptarmigan. As the bus hugged a edge of a mountain pass, it started to snow. 

We got off the bus at Toklat River.  The lodge and RV-dwelling tourists on the bus bid us farewell and we started hiking north.  After a five hour drive from Anchorage and three hours on the Park bus, finally strapping on our backpacks and setting foot on the ground was exhilarating.  We followed the rocky river bed-- the Toklat is a braided stream so it has many shallow strands winding in and out of each other. 

For a couple of hours we crossed little streams by picking our way on stones, but soon the strands converged into deeper channels and, to avoid wading through, we took to the embankment trees, taking up the "Hey Bear!" call so as not to surprise any predators... The woods proved almost impassable due to dense brush.  Every twig scraping and snagging our packs sounded like a bear.  We got out as soon as we could, back down to the riverbed, and were forced to do what we had vowed to avoid: get our feet wet.  We waded through the rushing river, glacial water soaking our boots.  Unpleasant but inevitable.

We hiked on a little further with squishing feet, until around 9:30pm, when we hurriedly set up our tents as it started to hail.  Our toes were numb; we wolfed down our food and got into our sleeping bags.

Sleeping with freezing toes was hard.  I woke up early and found little relief as I shoved my feet into my frozen boots (literally.  It was probably 25 or 30 degrees).  A campfire would have solved so many problems, but they are prohibited in the backcountry.  I paced back and forth to get warm, but wasn't too miserable due to the stunning scenery I soaked in as the day grew brighter:

Ice between the rocks.