We woke up to get breakfast at the famed Talkeetna Roadhouse and to swing by the Denali Park Talkeetna branch ranger station. Kristina and Megan got registered for their trip to Pika glacier, then we dropped them off at K2 aviation for their flight into the park. We bid them farewell & grand adventures then headed on our way to the Visitor Center within Denali National Park. Once there, we registered for our hiking/packrafting trip as well as completing our bear orientation. We caught the last bus heading out Denali road. We had the driver drop us off at the top of Sable Pass and watched as the bus drove off, leaving us all on our own in the Denali wilderness.
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| All packed up and waiting for the bus |
When I was 14, my grandparents took me and my younger brother and cousin on a road trip to Alaska. We spent a few days at Denali National Park. I remember taking the bus ride to Wonder Lake and, even though the mountains were clouded in and Denali was obscured, it was so amazingly stark and beautiful. I told myself then that I would come back, take the bus out, get dropped off, and just walk out into those vast, stark, beautiful glacial valleys for a glorious wilderness backpacking trip. Well, here I was, standing along side of the Denali road, all my gear on my back, watching the bus drive off, about to embark on off-trail terrain into the wilderness. All I could think was, "what am I doing?". You definitely feel very remote once that bus leaves, and there's plenty of grizzly bear around!
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| Watching the bus drive away after we were dropped off |
We backtracked along the road for a while to a use trail we had spotted, then cut off into the Alaskan bush. We avoided any tall willow we could, to prevent running into a bear, and sang or whistled if willow bush was unavoidable. The only wildlife we spotted that evening was a lone caribou off in the distance. We dropped down to the Teklanika River bed, getting to know the "joys" of Alaskan cross-country travel: thick willow bushes, deep tundra moss that sank half a foot deep, or swampy marshland. The rock and sand along the river bed was much easier to walk on. We found a nice, sandy flat spot with good visibility to pitch our tent, then we set up 100 yards downwind to prep and eat our dinner. It was a beautiful bright sunset, a gorgeous and quiet evening out in the Denali wilderness!
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| Dropping into the Teklanika River valley |
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| Camp |
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| Camp |
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| Dinner view |
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