Summer Vacation 2010: Denali National Park Hiking

Our second full day in Denali National Park we planned to exercise one of the more unique features of the park buses, which is that in addition to yelling "Stop" to bring the bus to a halt in order to take pictures of wildlife, you can also just get off the bus whenever and wherever you like, barring places directly adjacent to wildlife and certain protected spots like the wolf dens.  Being from the east coast, where "stay on the path" is the mantra for public wilderness, this was different enough to cause us to do some math.  Based on the length of the park road and the number of people who go hiking in Denali (I think we got that info from a brochure or something) it works out to something like, for every 250 feet of road one person gets off the bus to go hiking per year.  Thus, the only paths are those made by animals in most places.

We were most fortunate in that we had one of the very few clear, sunny days of the summer for our jaunt and this made for incredible pictures in addition to just plain being more fun than being out in a downpour.  We were up early again (made easier by the extreme quantities of light and jet lag) and greeted by nice views even from the campground.

 View from the road in front of the campground

We wanted to have plenty of time to go hiking and return to the road before the buses stopped running, so we went to the bus stop early enough to be first in line and to get seats on the first bus out into the park.  The sunlight gave a much different view than the clouds of the day before, and some nice pictures as the fog burned off.

 Natural Beauty

 Wildlife - note that we saw a whole bunch of bears too, go see them on Flikr.

MORE Natural Beauty

And eventually we came around a corner and discovered that not only was it nice out, but Denali itself was clear.  This can change very quickly, so we stopped the bus and got pictures in case we never saw it again.

The mountain remained clear though, we had unobstructed views for the rest of the day.

This one is from Eielson Visitor's Center, a few dozen miles closer than the previous picture.  Standing there it feels like the mountain takes up half the sky.  They have telescopes there to zoom in and see details - could probably have seen climbers if it was in season for that, but it wasn't.

We got a few tips from the rangers at the Vistor's Center on the best place to get off the bus for our intended destination - the toe of the Muldrow Glacier, which is actually less than a mile from the road.

Our disembarkation point - note the complete lack of anything but wilderness and how nice it is out

 We discovered that the tundra here was incredibly deep and springy - might have your foot compress the moss six inches when stepping - was like walking in low gravity or something

 The tundra heavily featured wild blueberries, and the dew on them prompted Ana to take about a hundred pictures to try to catch the sun in the dew.  Practically, I ate blueberries while this was going on.

 We saw clouds crossing over the top of the Alaskan Range, and it was good.

The tundra bushes were somewhat deep in places.

We found tracks indicating that in the last week or so, grizzly bears had stood exactly where we were standing at the time.

We came to the dead ice at the bottom of the glacier - the black cliff over there is exposed glacial ice with dirt and rock ground into it.

Exploring around the edges of the dead ice, we found an ice cave which was pretty neat to look at.

Ice cave video

We found some exposed ice where the different layers of grit could be seen between sheets of ice.

We also discovered that Muldrow Glacier mud is deep, sticky, and quite possibly corrosive, based on what the boots looked like afterward - took the paint right off the metal.

A river that might have been cross-able on a cold day was more than we were comfortable fording due to the sun causing there to be a lot of glacial runoff - note the concrete color of the water due to the silt.

As we couldn't cross the river, we couldn't get up on top of the main body of dead ice - may have to go back and follow the dead ice up to the dogleg turn where it becomes live ice someday, but that's about 14 miles and a lot further from the road than we were going to be on this day.

For comparison, here is a point that a freshwater stream and a glacial stream mix

We made it back from our minor off-road adventure safe and sound, picked up by a different bus headed back towards the entrance.  Couldn't really have asked for a nicer day for our short hike.  We both feel like we need to go back to Denali National Park for more adventure, preferably a multi-day hike into the wilderness rather than staying at a camp site, which was perfect for this trip but limits where you can get to.  After this second day, all that was left was the ride out, and the next day was still clear, so we got to see the mountain almost all the way to the front of the park - on a clear day it is visible for something like 80 to 100 miles.

Last look on the way out

We took a bus back to Anchorage, which was faster and cheaper than the train, but substantially less scenic, which was OK because I think we slept though most of that drive.  Back in Anchorage, we took it easy for a couple of days, eating in fancy restaurants and buying souvenirs like caribou jerky and seal-oil candles, before flying back home to attend various weddings and see our families.