Alaska Journal - 8/6 - It Begins

On the morning of the 6th we woke up around 6AM and drove the final 100 miles up the Denali so that we could get to the backcountry office when it opened at 9am. We got our permits for zones 40, 41, and 42. These zones are basically on the west end of the Park (the entrance is on the East). Because of this, we had to catch a 6 hour bus ride before starting our trip. It also meant that we were closer to McKinely, which is even farter West. They are pretty stingy with permits at Denali -- a limitted number of people (generally less that 5) are allowed in each zone each night. This is great because it minimizes the impact that people have on the backcountry (which, by the way, has no trails), and also prevents you from seeing people during the course of your travels.


Anyway, after getting our permits we hit up the camp store and packed up out stuff and got our last real meal. We then caught the 2pm bus (after a bit of chaos) which we road until about 8pm. That's right ... we started our first day's trek at 8pm. Here is a pic of us right after we got started.




The first day out was a bit of a mess. We were dropped off in a region that we were not allowed to camp in, and were supposed to follow an old mining road a ways to get out of that region. However, we left thought we were not on the right road when we came to a sign that said "Private Drive", and, having been warned about avoiding the private property in this area, we left the road and started the trail-less hiking. Later we figured out that we were actually supposed to just stick to the private road, but oh well.


So we started up a creek for a ways, and then started to climb up a pass to where we wanted to crash for the night. This did not go so well. I was recovering from an illness and we were low on water. How could we be low on water when we started up a stream you might ask? Well, remember how we were travelling up an old mining road? Turns out like all the water in this area was contaminated with dangerous levels of heavy metals (iron) and was bad to drink.


Anyway, we finally got out of sight of the road and the no-camp zone, and setup camp. After a quick dinner of pop-tarts (yug) we crashed for the night.