Denali – a name full of promises, wilderness, fierceness. At the same time northern Americas highest peak and one of the US’ largest Wilderness and National Park Areas. A landscape where human beings are nothing more than small dots in a dramatically beautiful and at the same time potentially dangerous environment. An area, where you are up to yourself and the means you are carrying with you. Denali – land of the bears and wolves, of caribou and moose, of green valleys and everlasting winter .
Arriving at Denali
After days of rain and travel (I left out a few days of the journey for now – if I find the time I will post-post about them) we finally arrive at Denali National Park and Wilderness Area. The very entrance already makes sure what to expect: a lush green area, a big wooden sign “Denali National Park and Preserve” welcomes us. From here on only the wonderful wooden buildings as in so many National Parks of the US. People here really know how to make their protection areas attractive to visitors.
Prepare your visit well
Park regulations are very strict. We had to reserve our lot at a camp ground of our choice already months in advance. And we need to stay for a minimum of three nights. Once for business reasons I guess and definitely also to limit traffic, to avoid masses of incoming and outgoing campers. We decided for Teklanika campground, which is furthest into Denali park and still possible to use with motorhomes.
And still the road continues for nearly 90 miles after the campground, but from Teklanika onwards only the Denali Park’s tour and camper buses may use the mud road. No private vehicle allowed, except maybe you bring your bikes. And good it is like that. The road is so narrow at times that two vehicles wouldn’t be able to pass each other. Another reason: imagine dozens if not hundreds of private cars, each with one or two persons aboard, rolling in and out and stopping whenever they see wild animals, causing long queues after them and in the end harassing the animals themselves. Buses with 30 – 50 people aboard thus reduce traffic by the factor 15 at least. Regulations though strict have their meaning here.
Teklanika camp ground
Our campground is a nice one: just 100 metres away from Teklanika river, now a not so broad stream (or more, an array of smaller and broader streams) in a wide gravel river bed. Still we can’t see it from our site, huge green bushes and trees stand around us and the other campers. Fire pits for the evening steaks are solid – and I mean solid. Solid are the bear proof trash bins too. And for campers that use tents only there’s a little container with the inscription “food locker”. You better use that locker, not because it’s a USD 150,- ticket if you leave anything unattended around your site (you can bet park rangers have an eye on that) but because it still is the animals’ country.
RJ, our tourguide and bus driver the next day tells us that two campgrounds recently had to be temporarily closes. One because young bears became to curious about what’s going on there and the other one with wolves deciding that their new path should lead right through that campground. In both cases they had to kick out the tourists and the let in the rangers and biologists only. Believe me, you don’t want to be the person that makes a (hungry) bear curious – and bears are always hungry, since they have to feed up approx. 30-40% of their summer weight in fat before it’s hibernation time again. Just today I read a newspaper article about a guy fighting off a bear in the middle of the night, just northeast of Anchorage, only a few miles outside of the city. But back to Denali.
First stroll around
We are lucky, today is the first (partly) sunny day again, so we use the day for a short hike along the river. It somewhat feels adventurous, making your way through small forests and bushland to and alongside the river, sometimes stepping out on the gravel and sand banks, crossing smaller arms whenever well-positioned boulders in the creeks allow it. Lots and lots of rabbits, but nothing else. Again and again we check the environment with our binoculars, but nothing comes in sight. My camera us just busy taking landscape photographs, nothing else.
Pa’s finally deciding to wait back at the RV, while Ma and I venture further into the “wilderness”. We make it through the underwood on small paths, sometimes hardly to recognize, sometimes to be “established” anew by us until we arrive on top of a little cliff, overlooking the river to two sides. It already feels majestic! How must it feel, if you hike one of the surrounding domes or even climb one of the larger mountains! However thus must wait until another time, with better equipment and better, ah, physical preparation. Still the views of “our” small cliff are worth the short stroll into the wildlands.
Later on it’s time for a steak, properly grilled outside of our motorhome. Myriads of flies enjoy our presence and the smell of the slowly simmering sirloin. Soon they are as they should: medium cooked (or grilled), juicy and tender, thus giving the perfect diner for a perfect day.
Tour bus day
The next day greets us with some more clouds again. From time to time rain falls, then stops again. At the horizon: a brighter white, thinner clouds, the vague promise of clearing up. We got up already at 6 AM this morning, just to make sure we get our Visitor bus at 7:25.
The bus will take us to Wonderlake and back on the only road that leads into (and out of) the park. Roundtrip duration: approx. 11 hours. They use those old, sturdy school buses to transport visitors and hikers along the road from and to designated stops. Although sceptical in the beginning about the “comfort” of these buses I have to admit that they are better on the streets than our camper – sorry CruiseAmerica, that’s just how it is.
The further we get into the park, the worse becomes the weather. No clearing up, more a closing of clouds to become a full white and grey blanket. We finally stay on the bus, though one could hop off anywhere along the road and go for a hike and take another bus back later and we were considering this earlier on.
Bears day
The sights along the road: grizzlies! Masses of grizzlies! Old ones, young ones, mother sows with their cubs, usually two of them! They seem to not even take notice of us. Maybe thanks to the orders we were given by the driver: if we see animals, he will stop, we can take our pictures, but talk with a low voice only, keep hands and photo cameras inside the bus, opening and closing windows silently.
And we are lucky with our driver: RJ Oliva does his best to keep our moods up, commenting on the wildlife, on passages along the road where we can find certain animals, telling us stories about what he had already experienced in the park and making the bus ride really fun ride without it becoming ridiculous. If there was a Pulitzer prize for bus drivers, I’d vote for RJ!
Back to wildlife and nature: The valleys and passes we pass by keep constantly changing. Lush forest lands, to wide bushy plains, to broad gravel river beds to steep mountain cliffs to grassy patches to … words just can’t describe it. We see gold eagles, a small group of caribou, bears again, eagles, then it’s bears and did I already mention the bears?
Hiking back
Alas, we decide to hop of the bus one stop earlier and hike back to our camp. First along the street, and then along the stream. Wow, it’s still wetter than I had thought. We arrive at the motorhome, wet trousers and muddy shoes. Man, how we fancy dinner today! A huge pot of spaghetti with tomatoes and lots of bacon and sausage – whatever we could find in the fridge. Yummie!
Then it’s next morning again, time for having a sleep in. It’s rain again, and we cannot find the motivation to give hiking another try under these circumstances. So we decide to leave one day early and pack everything up.
Key in the lock, turn to start the engine and – nothing! Our battery is empty. Well, reinforce it with the camper battery of our motorhome, try again – nothing. It’s raining and both our batteries are empty. Thanks god there is a very helpful institution here: the “camp ground hosts”. A middle-aged couple, they look like park rangers (I am not sure if they really are). It seems they have seen already more than one case like ours. They immediately have a quick starter battery available that we can use. And it does work out, so soon after we head for the park exit, stamping a few post cards with the Park authority’s stamp at the exit and posting them to good old Europe. Good bye Denali for this time! I hope to be back sometime in the future.
Talkeetna
About 250 km further south we arrive in Talkeetna, capital of those folks who want to climb Denali (or Mount McKinley, as the US calls the mountain officially). And it’s one of the cutest little towns I have seen here, though completely different than Dawson or Whitehorse.
It’s sun again here and there’s lots of people on the road and in the cafes along the streets. In one shop they have fantastic poster size photographs of the mountain that has refused to show up under his cover of clouds and other motives. They might look great in my little Viennese flat, giving a touch of “openness”. But then again USD 500.- is not exactly an occasion, even with the current exchange ratio. So we decide to spend the afternoon in a café and walking around town, before chosing a camp site at Talkeetna Camper Park, where I write this update. It’s 11 PM and the sun is just about to set behind the horizon. It will be another well lit night here, at a nice small Alaskan spot.