Denali trip report

“To celebrate our 20th anniversary, my wife and I went to Denali. It was great fun. We decided to go last Feb or so and coordinated it with my parents' trip to Alaska which was nice and made for great memories.

My parents drove, pulled a camper and then Mom flew back with us. They met us at the airport in Anchorage and took us up to the park. We had a clear view of the mountain going in and leaving, but never saw the mountain from inside the park.



Upon arrival, we had to hurry to fill out the paperwork, select the units in which we would camp and get a stern lecture about the repercussions of firing a weapon inside the park boundaries...we were able to catch the last bus out and selected the Savage river area for our first two nights. We saw some caribou walking in and started the climb to our campsite.


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Our plan was to hike west down the ridge to our next unit. We found the slope ascending the ridge to be very talus we weren't comfortable carrying all that weight over it so we settled for this gorgeous campsite overlooking the river and explored the area from there.

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That's our tent in the lower left hand corner of the last pic. We took a three man thinking we might have to sit out some rain and that ended up being a good call. The first four days the weather was spectacular. Very little rain and very clear views. One fail however, on the hike up to the first campsite I lost a nice waterproof point and shoot camera...about an hour into our trip. I went down twice and retraced my steps looking for it, I think someone probably picked it up. I would miss it greatly later!

We stayed at that site two nights as per the rules, explored the area (mostly looking for water) and returned to the road via the same trail. We stopped by the river made breakfast and cleaned up some before climbing the ridge on the other side.

If my memory is right our first units were side by side 26 & 27, 27 being the west side of the same ridge. Primrose Ridge.

Water really had me worried on this one. We would search with binoculars for areas that looked like springs and make our switchbacks to cover them. Time and time again, we found them dry or only moist and buggy. Just about the base of Mt. Margaret we found a decent spring and lingered there eating and tanking up to finish the climb.

Once we reached the top of the ridge we started looking for a campsite. We were tired and the ground was extremely rocky. The wind was picking up too. We continued west where we finally found a place to make dinner (not a great place) and some shelter from the wind. We had rehydrated some pot roast back at the spring and gorged ourselves that roast and mashed potatoes. The stuff really came back nicely. While I cleaned up the dishes my wife went scouting for our next site. She found one, and it was ok, but it was at the crest of the ridge with only a small windbreak and I thought we could do better so we pushed on and in about another mile or so we found the best site of our trip.
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Now the wind was a steady 20mph or so but the those rocks provided a great windblock and place to sit and view the valleys north of the ridge. We set up out tent with the bullet vestibule into the wind and immediately discovered an uncomfortable bump in the center. It was and old tent stake from the last residents.. kinda busted up our illusion of solitude..
I loved this place tho. I found a good spring about a quarter mile away (down..kind of a drag, but still) and we stayed there for two nights. We would get very close to some dahl sheep.

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Our last night at this site we awoke to steady 40+mph winds from the exact opposite direction as when I set the tent up. Now the wind is pushing on the wide vestibule and I'm thinking "this thing is coming down any minute". It looked like a storm was moving in. We sat there and packed everything back in our packs while debating whether we should leave a perfectly good shelter or be forced out because it collapsed. The corner was actually inverting and springing back out! We pushed our packs in that corner while the debate continued.. we decided to go.



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My parents were staying at Teklanika river campground and had our food cache so we came down there and spent the night with them in their camper. They also had my 1974 J-50 I won on Ebay just before I left. Couldn't stand to leave it so I brought it and played a couple campfire tunes for my parents. Thanks Spam for the inspiration, it's brought me alot of joy even tho I'm really not very good, lol.
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I was raining now.. So we dayhiked down the Teklanika river back to the road and caught the bus to the visitors center. We actually saw alot of animals taht day from the bus. My best wildlife picture of the trip was this rare glimpse or a wolf with a squirrel in his mouth. There are only 70 wolves in the park.
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Our next units were south of the road just below Eielson Vistor center 65 mi or so west of the park entrance. We stashed food there in lockers and descended down thru head high wet willows to the valley floor. We hoped to cross the Thoroughfare river and hike behind Mt. Eielson to our next connecting unit. This was not meant to be. We could never find a "good" place to cross but did find a nice bench about 75ft off the floor in a canyon east of where we intended to go. Great spring, beautiful flowers and lots of rain.


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our kitchen.

our tent site.
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Here is where I really start missing the waterproof camera. We didn't take that many pics because the rain was getting heavy and we didn't want to risk getting the slr wet.

We stayed at that site one night and then proceeded back out along the river west looking for a place to cross. Never found it. As the rain grew more steady you could almost watch the river swell. So we continued west into our next units in front of the mountain and made our next site 4 or so miles west of the visitors center below the road. Our worst site. Rocky, wet, buggy and rained a very hard drizzle for about 18 hours. Little clear creeks became silty, larger ones became difficult to cross. After some time we made our way back to the climb up to the visitors center, again thru wet, head high willows and after reaching the top my wife gave me that look like 'I'm on vacation' and we bailed on our next unit. It was a miserable climb and our next unit was high and completely socked in. No views at all were possible. She convinced me to go back to Riley campground at the park entrance, get showers, and enjoy the rest of the time in Denali from there. I wasn't too happy about it at the time but in hindsight, it was a good call.
It was Independence day weekend and the campground was full, however, they have a separate campground reserved for walk-in backpackers and we had much of that place to ourselves. It was really nice, $14 a night, $4 shower (as long as you want), $8 firewood and real good coffee at the Merchantile. I washed the tent body there, got a shower, and went back and sent it up again..in the rain.
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Our trip still wasn't over, but our time in Denali was. For the last couple days we rode buses to the different kinda touristy exhibits and hit the restaurants and gift shops. I guess if there is something I want to tell you folks about Denali NP it would be the ease of visiting without a car. Cheap shuttles are available from the airport. A "camper bus" pass was about $70 for the two of us that was good for our whole stay. This includes your park entrance fee. It was easy to get around outside the park too and most places you would want to go offer free shuttles.. Airfare was by far our biggest expense. As long as you can be comfortable sleeping on the ground, staying in Denali is fairly economical, however, other lodging is pretty expensive. I checked a big bag (backpack with bearvault ready to go) and carried most of my spare food and electronics in my carry-on. There are many places in the park you can stash spare food so you don't have to carry everything. In those ways, it was unlike anyplace I've ever visited and I plan to go back with a kid or two some day.

Here's some more pics:
http://s1230.photobucket.com/albums/ee495/onecamper/Denali%20AK%202011/”

“Great pics and trip report. Glad yall had fun. Thanks for sharing.”

“It's my first trip report here yotaman, hope to see ya again in Jan..”

“What a great trip report and pictures! Sounds like an amazing adventure.”

“Thanks CD! It was our first time in AK, and the most time we've spent alone together in our 20 years. She got me into backpacking in the early years, but mostly we've car camped with the kids...whole different experience.”

“Sounds like you've come full circle. Life is funny and interesting that way. :)”

“Looks like you had a great time woderful pics especially the one of the wolf”

“That was my most rare, definitely. We saw one other, walking a ridge below that second site, but it was so far away we couldn't tell if it was a coyote or a wolf.

I did leave out one incredible detail. After we left my dad at the airport, he drove from Anchorage to Virginia beach in six days!”

“WHOA!”

“a good shot of the mountain taken from Talkeetna

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“Oh, that is a great trip report, 1camper, and looks like you guys had a blast despite some wet weather. Yeah, it can be pretty grey and wet up that way, for sure. Your wife is a trooper! So you guys were on a trail or not? Seemed sorta bushwacking...

Thanks for sharing, man!”

“Anchorage to Virginia beach in six days...when is the movie coming out”

“Not much bushwhacking. Going to the first site we used one of the few official trails in Denali. It goes to a footbridge over the Savage river. We walked the trail to the bridge and then continued on up the plateau. Where we ended up was a petty well used campsite behind an outcropping about 1700' above the river. That's about where the serious talus started..

From then on it was all trailless, but not really bushwhacking. Even areas that appeared to be dense forest are easy to cross. Moose have gone pretty much anywhere you would want to go, all you have to do is follow the deep ruts they leave. There will be room for even the biggest backpacks.. the toughest brush was the willows on a slope. Moose must avoid the slopes.

My wife isn't all that tough. I carried all the food, all the shelters, cookware, fuel, binoculars, handgun, and an extra gallon of water at times..lol.

She does enjoy backpacking every bit as much as me, and I probably wouldn't be backpacking except for her. She may regret that sometimes when I leave her for days.”

“Yep six days, and was pressured into shooting a moose that was critically injured by another vehicle.”

“I'll bet he never went over 60mph, just drove about 20 hrs a day.”

“nice pix 1camp!”