Denali National Park

My first night was at the Riley Creek Campground. Riley Creek is outside of the official entrance of the park. I got it simply so that I could catch the bus into the interior of the park the next day.

Denali National Park isn’t like most National Parks where you can drive in and go where you like at your own leisure. Denali is huge. It’s bigger than New Hampshire and there is only one road, so to get further into the park they have buses. The entire road is 90 miles and it takes the bus roughly five hours to reach the end.

My bus took off at 1:55PM on Sunday, so I had some time to kill in the morning. There are some hiking trails near the visitor center. I chose the Triple Lakes Trail because the name sounded good. When I was about half a mile in, I saw a moose through the trees. It was maybe 30 yards from me down the embankment of the river. At this point I was walking in parallel with the river and I wanted to get a better view of the moose, but it seemingly vanished. How does an animal that big just vanish? I kept going to see if I could find it, but couldn’t. Soon after this there was a suspension bridge built over the river where I saw the moose again. She had a baby with her. I locked eyes with both of them. I tried to grab a photo with my camera, but I dropped my lens cap onto the bridge. It bounced three times, clack clack clacking as it went, and fell just like a coin through the slits between the boards. This startled the moose enough so that they ran into the woods. No picture and I lost my lens cap, just my luck. This trail is 9 miles, so eventually I turned around so that I could make my bus.

The journey is long, but you get very good views of the interior of the park. At several points the bus stops so that passengers can get out, rest, and take photos. The bus ride is great way to see the park. You will also see many of the animals native to the park including moose, bear, caribou, and wolves. Wolves are the rarest to see though. I saw everything but them. At about 8PM, we reached my next campground, Wonder Lake.

If you think the southeast has a mosquito problem, you haven’t been to Wonder Lake. The cold winters kill the mosquitos, and, in the summer, they come back with a vengeance. These things are big, vicious, and persistent. Luckily, I brought a mosquito net and strong bug repellant lotion. The mosquitos are still very annoying and will almost drive you insane with the buzzing. Eating is the worst part because your face and hands are exposed. Have you ever eaten mosquitos? I’m pretty sure that I did. Getting inside the tent is also a pain because they follow you in. You have to kill them otherwise you will get bitten at night. And, speaking of night, the sun only goes down for about 3 hours in the summer. It was very hard to get used to. It’ll feel like 4PM, but you look down at your watch and it’s 10:15PM. Time for bed!

I had one full day at Wonder Lake. Wonder Lake is the best spot to view Denali, that is, if you’re camping. You can only go there if you are camping. Unfortunately, it was cloudy the entire time that I was there. I did a couple small hikes and went to the lake. I thought the mosquitos were bad by my tent, but on one of the unofficial trails, you could see small clouds of mosquitos. And these clouds would follow you. Don’t slow down, or else you become swarmed. The ones at my tent weren’t such a nuisance after all.

I met some cool people here. I met two couples. I asked where they were from. The first pair, Brandon and Jasmine, were from Washington State and Australia. He was from Spokane, Washington specifically. I assumed that’s where they lived, but, oh no, this guy was a traitor. They lived in Malaysia. How dare he live outside the USA. Isn’t that illegal? The other couple was from Chicago, Becca and Joel. They were very cool. More on them at a later point in the story.

My bus left Wonder Lake at 6:30AM the next morning. At this time, there were much less clouds and the sun was beaming down onto the face of Denali. The snow face was a yellow bronze. Unfortunately, I didn’t get much time to admire it. I ate breakfast, packed up my tent and bag, and barely made it to the bus in time. Just as we were leaving, I realized that I left my cardboard Denali sign on the table. I wanted to keep this as a kind of keepsake, but the universe had different plans. C’est la vie.

If you take the camper or transit buses, you can get off at any stop and do as you like so long as another bus is scheduled to stop at that site again. I stopped at the Eilson Visitor Center to do a quick hike. Eilson is an excellent stop. Assuming there are no clouds, a great view of Denali can be seen. And, of course, it was cloudy, not to mention rainy, when I was there. A glacier can also be seen down at the river. If you’d like, you could hike down to the river and then walk along the shore towards the glacier. I went down to the river, but was too tired of carrying my heavy backpack down. It continued to rain on me, so it was somewhat miserable. When I returned to the top, there were only a few people. I changed out my wet clothes and sat on the floor on the inside of the building to wait for the bus to head to my next campsite.

Teklanika Campground is on the Teklanika River. This was my favorite spot personally. Across and down both sides of the river are small mountains. The really great thing about this spot, and many spots in Denali, is that there are no marked hiking trails. You are free to hike anywhere so long as there are no signs telling you not to, you know like the ones that say, “Wolf Habitat” or “Fresh Kill Site.” Denali is also a very open park, so it’s almost impossible to get lost.

Before I went hiking, I went up to an elevated area to scope out places that I’d like to hike. This was a great place to relax and enjoy the views. I went back for lunch and ran into a guy named Ken. His campsite was right next to mine. He invited me over for dinner later. They were going to make BBQ chicken. I accepted the offer and told him that I’d be back around 6PM.

The Teklanika River, like many rivers in Alaska, is strange. In the winter the glaciers freeze and the rivers dry up. Because of this, the river has no singular river bed. It makes its way through several streams and is always different each year. It also leaves a stony, mostly barren river bed that you can walk on. I was determined to cross it. I took my shoes and socks off so that those wouldn’t get wet. I stuck my feet in, and, my god, it was cold. My feet were numb each time I made it across the other side. What’s also misleading about the river is how strong the current actually is. It’s not very deep, only reaching up to my knees, but it is very forceful. I had to walk at a 45-degree angle with the current so that I wouldn’t fall in. It doesn’t help that there are sharper rocks on the bottom. Even with hiking sticks it was tough, but eventually I made it.

On this side of the river are green faced hills lined with trees. It’s misleading because it looks like you could leisurely walk up the sides. In actuality, the green surface is a dense moss. It’s beautiful to view, but not to walk on. Each time you step down you’ll sink several inches to a foot down. My ankles got tired of this really quickly. But before I started climbing, I was walking in mud. I saw some wolf tracks. These look exactly like dog tracks, but they are huge! They are at least four to six inches in diameter. Wolves aren’t big dogs; they are GIANT dogs. Incomparable really. Eventually I made it to the top to enjoy the view. I made my way back down being wary of any wolves that could be out there. Generally, they do stay away from people though. It’s also wise to talk loudly to yourself to deter any bears that might be around. I probably sounded like a deranged person saying, “Hey, bear! Don’t mess with me bear!”

When I got back to the river, I took a break beside the rushing water. Walking over that moss is very tiring and I was sweaty, so I took my shirt, socks, and shoes off and pulled out “The Grapes of Wrath” to read for a bit. I eventually took a short nap on the shoreline. Man, if that wasn’t a great napping spot, I don’t know what was. The cool, Alaskan breeze and the rush of the water lapping across the stones was a dream. I probably slept for 40 minutes. I put everything up and made my way back over. Now there were a few people across the river. As I crossed, I kept praying that I wouldn’t fall into the river and embarrass myself, plus it would be miserably cold. As a side note, if you are familiar with “Into the Wild” about Chris McCandless (or Alexander Supertramp), you might know that this is the river that he couldn’t return across and eventually died of starvation.

I eventually made it back to my campsite. At 6PM I went to eat with Ken and his friend, a lady named Vini. Ken was originally a welder from Pennsylvania, but moved to Alaska and began working on oil rigs in 2000. He is retired now. Vini served in the Navy in the 70s and worked as a journalist later on. Vini tried to murder me with salmonella poisoning. Some of the pieces of chicken weren’t cooked all the way through. I ate around it. She was distraught and made hotdogs as a consolation. But, hey, better than eating camping food, right? And this is the point where, if she’s reading this, she may be having flashbacks. Ken talked about living in his cabin and seeing bears. He told us of a story where he saw a mom and two cubs. The mom left the cubs to go look for food. Meanwhile the cubs were interested in Ken on his boat. They climbed partially up the side to inspect the boat. At one point, they tried climbing over into the boat. Ken started reaching for his shotgun and the cubs, at that moment, knew that they were supposed to get off. Ken wasn’t worried about the cubs though; he was worried what Mama Bear would do if she saw her cubs on his boat.

We talked for a long time. Remember how the sunlight does weird things? Well, I looked down at my watch and it was already 10:30PM, all in the blink of an eye. It was really fun talking to them.

The next morning I did a short walk around the river bed before getting on the bus to take me back to the park entrance. When I packed up my things and told Ken and Vini goodbye, I went to catch the bus. From here, the bus ride is roughly 2 hours from the park entrance. It was a very clear day, and I could see Denali’s snow covered peak, very far away at this point, clearly above the rest of the mountain range. It is truly impressive. The views of the rest of the park are also incredible. Eventually we made it back to the bus depot. I had one night at Riley Creek to await the train ride back to Anchorage the next day. After five days of being inside the park eating camp food, I was craving a good, cooked meal. There are a few restaurants and stores a mile north of the park. I went to one of the classier eateries and ordered the salmon, as you do in Alaska. I also got some souvenirs at the shops.