Last Days in Alaska: Denali and Kesugi Ridge

After three months of leading camping tours all over Alaska, I wanted my own adventure. It was an amazing summer. Wild animals, wild weather, campfires, sockeye salmon, skyscraping glaciers, fantastic folks and some of the most humbling mountain scenery on the planet. It was also a lot of work: exhausting but tremendously satisfying. In a typical day at work under the midnight sun, I wore a lot of hats. Chef, driver, doctor, guide, naturalist, mechanic, bartender, boatman, storyteller. The adventures (and misadventures) were all worth it, but by the time early September rolled around, I was ready for a solo ramble. I rented a car, picked up a bear can and headed back north, Denali bound. Traveling without a plan has seldom let me down, and those ten days were no exception. 

I ended up visiting friends, laughing a lot, learning a little mandolin, meeting some wild characters, runnning into a few grizzlies, enjoying a few very tasty brews, munching my way through miles of blueberries, counting Dall sheep, catching a few snowflakes and enjoying the best Alaska Range views of the summer. 

 Dwarf birch

 Late fall in Denali

I started off by heading into Denali for a few nights in the backcountry. In the park, the fall colors were a little past peak, although the golds, browns and few remaining reds cast an austere beauty over the landscape. I hiked 6 miles along the Upper East Fork River, straight into a stiff south wind coming down off the mountains. Along the way I almost had a run-in with a mama grizzly and her three cubs who were foraging in a blueberry patch. Despite following all bear safety guidelines, despite constantly scanning with binoculars, despite clapping and yelling in thick brush to avoid a surprise encounter, I still almost walked right into them. 

I had just shouted myself hoarse bashing through a little gully chocked with yellow-leafed willows. Back in the open, I quieted down a little and started taking pictures. I pulled up the binoculars and scanned in all directions. No bears. Out there, on my own, I didn't really want to see bears. I've seen enough, and although seeing a bear up close in the wild is a powerful experience, it usual means a detour, delay or change of plans to avoid them.

I clapped a few times and started walking again, straight into the wind. The berry patch was covering an old gravel alluvial fan, debris that had flowed down off the mountain. There was just enough of a rise in the middle of the patch to prevent total visibility, and suddenly my heart was in my throat. As I came over the crest, I saw that big hump, and her neck muscles working as she browsed the berries, head down. The tips of her fur glowed gold in the sun. She was sixty feet away.

Within a few seconds, I was pushing back through the willows and crossing the cold river, putting as much distance between us as I could. The Upper East Fork is a braided stream hundreds of yards across at that point, almost completely flat gravel bars with just a few cold channels twisting back and forth down the wide, open valley. It wasn't until twenty minutes later, sitting on the opposite ridge, that I realized how lucky I'd been. From a half-mile off, I saw the three cubs, furry blobs following their mother slowly up the ridge, away from me. She hadn't scented me, she hadn't seen me, and she'd been too busy eating. I was able to get away quickly and quietly.

 Digging a tundra toilet

I had a great few days exploring the valley from my base camp, visiting the glacier at the head of the valley and doing a little rock hounding. The Alaska Range is full of amazing, multicolored rocks that tell the story of the folding, thrusting and faulting that made those mountains. I passed the afternoons drinking coffee and watching the Dall sheep on the mountain across from my tent. The rut hadn't started yet and the rams were off on their own somewhere. A big band of ewes and yearlings moved slowly along the steep slopes. I counted 28, while also watching a lone grizzly about a mile away, north of the sheep. From my vantage point, he spent hours pawing at the tundra slope in vain. Looking for ground squirrels?

During my final night the wind swung around to the north, and it started snowing around midnight. I woke to 28 degrees F and a couple of inches around the tent. No matter, I was warm and had coffee and a hot breakfast of peanut butter oatmeal. I hiked back out, following the hours-old tracks of a lone bear as I went. His tracks were still fresh in the snow, and he'd ripped up clumps of tundra here and there. The lone male I'd seen the day before? I kept a sharp look out but never met him. Instead I dug the ice on the river and dreamed of a hot shower.

  Fresh snow on the peaks along the Upper East Fork

 Mandolin and beer at the cabin

 McKinley and the Alaska Range from Kesugi Ridge

After getting out of the park, I hid out from the snow and gray skies at my friend Sue's cabin for a couple days. I read, slept on the couch and managed to learn Friend of the Devil on her old mandolin. Just as I was wondering what to do next, the weather cleared. Despite swearing not to believe another Alaskan weather forecast ever, the multitude of sources predicting a few days of clear skies got me moving. Over the course of leading trips all summer, I'd driven past the Denali viewpoints on the George Parks Highway eleven times and seen the mountain once. That's not a good average. But every time I drove by, I'd look the other way at the trails leading up to Kesugi Ridge, a long lump of granite famed for incredible views directly across to to the Alaska Range and Denali itself. In good weather, naturally.

After waking up and having a cup of coffee, I hit the road. Within three hours, my mind was blown. I was standing knee-high in peak fall tundra staring slack jawed at the entire range, with Denali front and center, thirty miles away but close enough to touch. Not a cloud in the sky. I sat down among the crimson, orange and yellow of bearberry, blueberry, dwarf birch and willow and stared and stared. I had that view for two full days and most of a third. I walked for 28 miles along the ridge, from Little Coal Creek to Byers Lake, past tarns and finger lakes, down through a birch glade, across a bog and back up above treeline. It was the best three-day Alaskan finale I could have hoped for. I encourage all you to do it if you get the chance.

Waking up to The Great One