Alaska Journal - Allen

I'm alive and returned to the continental US this morning safely and soundly. I had spent the past week and a half in Alaska with the majority of my stay in the backcountry of Denali National Park. I just wanted to say that it was a phenomenal experience and saw some of the most gorgeous views. I wish my camera could have captured things better so you could've seen it as I had. Anyway, the link directly below are pictures that I took and wrote some captions to. After that is a retelling of my trip. It'll be long and somewhat detailed since i'm using this e-mail as somewhat of a memory/journal of what happened. So those that don't care can just go to the link and be content. Those that do care, can keep on reading about my trip in more detail.


Allen's Denali Photos


This trip came about because one of my best friends is getting married and this is the "bachelor party" that he planned. Definitely unconventional, but I can't say I don't approve of a great trip like this one.


Gearing up for the trip we expected bad weather. This time of the year in Alaska is the tail end of the rainy season and the tail end of the mosquito season. We hope that both would be not as much of a factor. Unfortunately, the weather forecast leading up to our arrival into alaska on friday, august 5th, wasn't looking so hot(lots of rain). Expected, but still a downer. Our band of six guys were Ian, Todd, Trevor, Matt, Sain, and myself. Ian, Trevor, Matt, and Sain were arriving into Anchorage from Chicago, Todd from Austin, and myself from Portland. My plane trip was an uneventful 4 hours. I immediately spotted the party at the baggage claim and we set off from there. We loaded/crammed all of our gear in our rental minvan and we were on our way. Let me take a second to do a quick rant on our rental. We were given the Chevy Uplander and it is leaps and bound worse than any automobile ever made. Alarm bells sound off for no reason. Doors don't open for no reason. When we want doors to open, the automatic doors want to close on us and vice versa. The engineers must have been drinking paint while designing this car. There is no other explanation for their idiocy. They should be fired and then tarred and feathered in an open square in every major city in the U.S. Worst vehicle ever.


We made a quick trip to REI in Anchorage for some supplies and talked with an employee that got a kick out this being a bachelor party. He suggested we go to the "Great Alaskan Bush Company" on our way back in anchorage. I'll let you decide where this is a) a company specializing in fauna or b) a strip club.


The drive from Anchorage to the Denali park entrance is 6 hours. We had to stop and camp out partway through our drive. It was really weird that it never got fully dark. The sun goes down and the sky darkens for a few hours everyday, but it never gets pitch black dark. Anyway, we end up camping in what should have been an aphid farm. Those little things were everywhere. This was only a taste of the insects that were to be encountered. We got up the next morning really early since we wanted to be at the park to get in line for permits as quickly as possible. We were ready to get our permits but were a little clueless as to where to go in the park. Denali National Park is unlike any other national park that I've ever been to in that it is completely trailless. Rather than getting permits for trails, a backpacking group would request permits for a zone. The entire park is split up into 40 some odd zones. Each zone has a limit for the number of people allowed. This usually ranges from 2 to 8. They do this to keep the feeling of wilderness in the park. The entire duration of our backpacking trip was spent without seeing another person out there. That was really really cool. Being that we had a rather large group of 6, we were more or less forced into the Kantishna Hills area(zones 42, 41, and 40). This wasn't bad at all because of the possibility of amazing views of the Alaskan Range. But these views were completely dependent on the weather cooperating. A trifecta of obstacles(rain, clouds, and smoke from fires) stood in our way of seeing the range and it was already overcast and lightly drizzling outside of the wilderness center. We were distributed our six bear canisters and were ready to go.


We headed out to the mercantile to pack up our stuff and get supplies finalized. We had a last lunch and waited at the bus stop. We were unaware that we needed bus tickets so part of the group went to fetch those. The bus still hadn't come so we didn't lose any time. The bus arrived at 2 pm and we hopped on. It is a 6 hour bus ride from the populated park area to our zone. Along the way, the bus stopped for breaks and for any views of wildlife. We were able to see a grizzly bear on a hill/point. That was pretty cool. We finally make it out to our destination at 8 p.m. and we're off.


As inferred before, Denali National Park places a lot of emphasis on a wilderness experience. Just as a backpacker shouldn't need to see any other backpackers outside of his/her group, a tourist on a tour bus shouldn't have to see any backpackers in the distance. So, it was necessary for us to get out of sight of the road and ride up and over the first ridge. Our plan was to follow an old miner's road, but we were stopped some time on the road since the road seemed to vanish. It split off into a private road, but we figured we shouldn't take that since we were warned not to disturb any of the private residences that are in the first part of the first zone. We decided to start our trailless adventure. We ended up following a creek and up a long incline of tundra and brush. This was a day of firsts. Our first encounter with mosquitos became an annoyance and I was immediately turned into a buffet. I seemed to be the lucky one that attracted most of the mosquitos. This was also our first encounter with tundra. Think of tundra as a thin layer of soil and vegetation, but under it is a really really big pillow. It's really cool at first, but it gets old fast when you realize it's really tough to walk through. Walking on flat tundra even feels like uphill because you sink down into the "pillow" and have to lift your leg back out and sink in again. We finally make it over the ridge and barely out of sight of the road. We have pop tarts for dinner, set up camp, and go to sleep at 1 am.


We wake up the next morning refreshed, but soon discover that we aren't where we think we are. We think we are a couple of miles ahead of our current position, so we march forward. For the most part, things are uneventful that day except that it was painful. We had a big problem on our hands, water. The vast majority of the creeks and rivers had heavy metal in them and were therefore undrinkable. This is due to the area that we were in used to be a mining area. Unfortunately, the mining contaminated many water sources downstream as well. Because of this, it was necessary for us to get to Spruce Lake for water. We filled up out of a dingy spring on the top of a peak early in the day, but outside of that we had no other choice for water. Thank goodness that the day was cloudy and the temperatures were cool because any sun or heat and we would have been dying of dehydration. Another reason to label the day as painful was that Spruce Lake was rather far away and we had to really work hard to get there in time. Doing this without trails and on unfamiliar terrain made things doubly hard. My least favorite part of the entire ordeal is running into thick brush or a ravine which meant having to either climb down to hack through the brush or climb up to avoid the ravine if possible. Brush is just annoying because it is just difficult to push and pull your way through. You can easily get snagged or struck by branches whipping back at you. Visibility is low so it's hard to watch your step. Towards the end of the day we were walking on a plateau and came to a point where we had to descend to the bottom. "Lucky" for us that the entire stretch to the bottom was thick brush that we had to fight through. Imagine you're on top of a massive hill looking downward and all you can see are hedges and bushes your height packed together all the way down. I'd say that was easily the irking sequence of the day. But once we bushwhacked our way to the bottom, it's as if we just slaughtered an army and were celebrating a battle victory with high fives all around. It was kind of like getting runner's high, except it was ten times better. We finally end up at Spruce Lake after a little more climbing and hiking. We set up camp and are just ridiculously tired. The dehydrated food that day tasted like a feast for a set of 6 kings. The other highlight of the day was a short glimpse of the cascades and maneuvering around a caribou.


The fact that the day was so grueling really shed some light on how much different walking on a trail is from navigating without a trail. A trail is so simple to walk on because you follow it and it should generally take you in a semi-optimal path that avoids all the hinderences that a trailless hike stacks in front of you. Rather than planning the path to take with a limited view in front of you to avoid ravines and bushwhacking through thick brush, trails provide a clear path to a destination.


The next morning, Ian and Trevor spotted a big moose. They attempted to wake the rest of us up, but the moose gave them a cold hard stare that basically meant "i'll kill you if you don't shut up". That was the end of that. We all awoke to a gorgeous sight. The clouds and smoke had cleared giving way to a phenomenal view of the Alaskan Range and McKinley in sight. After patching up feet and whatnot, we had a light hike that day planned to get to the next zone. The light hike was greatly appreciated after the death march that we had to go through the day before. Unfortunately, our light hike turned for the worse when Sain dislocated his shoulder leading the way through some heavy brush. He made a bunch of attempts to pop it back in, but was unsuccessful. Eventually he toughed it out and hike the last 1/4 mile to our destination and we took care of it there. We put together a makeshift medical tarp with trekking poles and a rain fly to keep sain shaded as he kept trying to pop his shoulder back in. Thanks to Matt's field guide, a 2-person technique with Trevor's assistance did the trick. We basically did nothing but relax, took pictures, and played cards that day. The Alaskan Range and Mount McKinley was just beautiful to look at in the meantime. McKinley is so huge and overpowering.


The next day we had planned to stay where we were and that's exactly what we did. It was a great spot because we had a good water source nearby. We found good water to be rare enough that this was quite a luxury. We did get antsy, so we headed off on a day hike to a relatively nearby peak. That turned out really well. There were great 360 degree views all around. Unfortunately, our second casualty occured on the way back to our basecamp. Trevor aggravated his knee and it was painful. The rest of the night was much like the previous night. Lots of cards with a great view.


Our next day was planned to go to a nearby lake(good water) to spend the night, but unfortunately, I had to be a big idiot and misstep with my right foot into a ditch and twist up my ankle. It was decided that instead of going to the lake, we would just head back to the road and try to make it out of the backcountry. This was because my ankle didn't hurt all that much at the moment since it would stay loose from the hiking and my boot would prevent the swelling, but waiting a day would be painful. Hats off to the rest of the crew to put up with that and march their way back to the road. It was an absolutely grueling day. Things were horrible again because we had to conserve water, but also because the sun and heat were out in full force. Despite what you may think about alaska, it does get hot. It's not all ice and snow. Trucking through tundra was painstakingly slow and tiresome and ten times worse with the sun beating down. We had to ford 3 rivers/creeks that day and we didn't bother taking our boots off. This had an effect of a pool in our boots as we hiked. It wasn't that big of a deal at the time, but after 8 hours of hiking, our feet were destroyed. Crossing water is just another thing that you have to plan for. You don't want to cross moving water in bad spots. Sometimes it's worth the effort to take a look up and downstream for better crossing points. Crossing moving bodies of water is taken with great care because footing is bad and it's easy to lose your balance and fall over especially if the force of current is strong enough. A 4th and final casualty occurred on our final water crossing. Ian dislocated his shoulder while i tried to capture a picture of him dunking his head in the river for fun. Luckily he was able to pop his back in pretty quickly with the direction of Sain. We were pretty battered and beaten. The last 2 miles we absolutely blasted toward the road. Not quite lightspeed, but pretty close.


We collapsed at the road just before 9 pm. We took off our boots and our feet were absolutely disgusting. We were slightly afraid of "trenchfoot" since our boots had been waterlogged all day, but after some airing, our feet slowly started to look more and more normal. As of right now, I don't have full feeling in my big toe of my right foot. The other guys have similar symptoms in varying toes, so its probably just some nerve thing that will hopefully work itself out over the next couple of weeks. As Trevor informed us, we are probably just going to be more susceptible to frostbite in the corresponding toes. Since I don't plan on getting near to the point of frostbite anyhow, I'm not too concerned.


It turns out we missed the busses for the day, so we had a light dry dinner of peanut butter and jelly pitas and broke out our sleeping bags on the side of the road. We were able to pick up a bus between 6 and 7 am and we were on our 6 hour bus ride back. We weren't ever able to get to a good water source again prior to noonish the previous day so we were getting to the point of dehydration. A group of japanese tourists were very kind in giving us some water that they weren't in need of. It's funny how something as simple as water can seem like a priceless offering. It was really nice of them to offer it to us.


The busdriver that we had on the way back was a really nice lady. She told us about a group of juvenile and delinquent backpackers that she was driving the other day. She overhead them talking about just screwing the rules and camping in forbidden areas(sight of road, etc.). She spoke up and told them that they probably shouldn't do that. They just said, "who's gonna care anyway?". Well, she dropped them off and they were like, "oh crap, we forgot our tent!". Talk about a bunch of boneheads. Then they just said the they'd go back with the bus. But the bus wasn't going to be going back. It was going to stay out overnight and go back in the morning. The backpackers were getting nervous and saying, "but they can't just leave us out here!". The busdriver just said, "have a good time" and drove off. That's awesome.


On our first day of hiking, we came across a tent, but no person. It turns out, that was the tent of somebody who had been missing for the past few weeks. Rangers found the tent some time back and found a journal. The last entry was July 21 or 22 and it read something like, "i'm going to go get water". Knowing what we know, going to get water in that area is impossible. There are no sources. It's kind of scary as to how this guy disappeared, but it seems like he wasn't prepared at all for this kind of stuff. The busdriver was telling us how he didn't have any serious backpacking gear. It was all stuff he got at walmart and the guy was a paranoid schizophrenic. Pretty weird.


Anyway, we finally get back to the wilderness center and return our bear cans and take showers at the mercantile(that felt so good!). We head out to the campsite that we had at the park entrance. Now, we go on and ease our way into civilization with a fire, grillin' hotdogs, and knockin' back silver bullets. Good times.


Just as a sidenote, I am a terrible cardplayer and I tend to get angry and swear a lot when I do something stupid or just plain suck(this happens a lot).


Anyway, the next day we start our drive back and stop an hour out of anchorage and stay at an inn. The requirement was a hot tub. They had one but it was ridiculously small. We made due though. Matt bought napoleon dynamite at a local wal mart and we watched that in the car. That was the only redeeming quality of the Chevy Uplander. It had a dvd player. Btw, Alaska is not only a big state, but the residents are big people. At walmart, the vast majority of clothing was in the L, XL, XXL, and XXXL. We passed by a strip mall with a store that specialized in women's clothing sizes 8-14. Right next door was a store called "classic woman" for sizes 14-24. Now, I don't have any idea what size 24 is, but I hope that no woman, for the sake of health, is a size 24.


Anyway, we screw around and watch movies in our room for the night while drinking beer and sleep the night away. The next day, we roll into anchorage and finish napoleon dynamite during the ride. We take in a movie, "march of the penguins", and then waste time eating and at best buy before our flight out. My flight out went smoothly, except that i got into seattle at 1:30 am and didn't have a flight until 7 am to portland. I slept on some chairs and read. My flight to portland was on a prop plane. I'd never ridden in one before and it was pretty cool.


It was a pretty awesome trip.