Denali National Park 6/23-25

The Plan:  Backcountry Units 29-30-31

Start: Park Road just west of Teklanika River

Then drop into the Big Creek Drainage and follow the drainage to its end and then climb into the Tributary Creek Drainage.  Follow Tributary Creek to the East Fork of the Toklat River.  Follow the River south back to the park road.

Team Adventure trip with Steven, Veronica and myself. Also special guest Michael McGahey.

Day 1 at the Tek River observation area.  We would be dropped off a mile down the road and enter the mountains through the saddle behind us. 

Day 1 Tek River into Big Creek Drainage then upstream about 4 miles.

Being dropped off…

In Denali, there is a certain finality to being dropped off on the road.  It’s not as bad as being dropped off by plane out in the bush-- after all there were occasional buses coming past.  Still the immensity of the place and its wildness are daunting.  The silence after the bus pulls away is simply stark.  We were clearly not bailing out on the trip, and the isolation on the trip would be much more dramatic than anything in California.  A recent study indicated that the most isolated spot in CA is about 6 miles from a road.  We would spend most of our trip more than that far from the park road.  Furthermore, Denali is trailess, requiring some true map and compass orienteering.  We would be doing quite a bit of bushwhacking through brown bear country.

We were given a quick introduction to the joys of Alaska hiking.  We left the road and immediately were bogged down (literally) in thick brush, trees and soggy tundra that grabbed and held our boots.  Soon we also donned out headnets as the voracious mesquitos descended in force at our first (and last) rest stop.

We moved up the bog through a low pass north of Sable Mountain, gaining about 700 feet, and dropped down into the Big Creek drainage.

One of the real weaknesses of the topo maps is that they do not, for some reason, count 10 foot high brush as trees. Thus the topo indicates clear sailing about a half mile south of the pass along the creek—wrong! While the tree line gave way, the brush only got worse. This was stressful, both in terms of pace and orienteering.  If the brush was this thick throughout, the minimal visibility could make finding the next drainage a bit tricky.

The weather was spectacular—far better than we had a right to hope for in Alaska.  Not only was the weather warm and clear, it would remain steady for days—a very unusual weather pattern for Alaska, especially in Denali where the Mt. McKinley (or Denali) makes it’s own (usually bad) weather.

The bushwhacking was tedious, but a bolt of excitement came with our first brown bear sighting.  We spotted them, a mother and two second-year cubs, along a ridge that ran on the eastern side of the Big Creek drainage.  It was thrilling, far better than seeing bears from the confined safety of the bus.  Here we were, exposed and alone, and there they were, inhabiting the same space, thinking about the same streams and hills and topography as we.  Of course, it was also troubling.  A mother with cubs could mean trouble.  Furthermore, it was unclear where the bears were going.  They were only a few hundred yards away and they easily could be heading down to Big Creek.  This, of course, would have been trouble for us.  An encounter with a mother in heavy brush would, quite frankly, have been pretty dangerous.

The bears rounded a bend on their ridge and we proceeded, only to again spot them as we rounded a similar bend in the creek.  They were closer now and this time the mother clearly spotted us, turned and stared.  We backed off a bit and decided to cross to the west side of the stream.  At least if the bears headed into the drainage, they would be on the other side of the creek.  This would cut down on the chances of a close encounter.

All turned out well as the bears, as could be expected once they spotted us, continued along the ridge and soon climbed over it towards Sable Pass.

A few hours later brought us to our first clearing of the day.  It was bordered by the Big Creek and, more importantly, a fresh water creek that ran down from the eastern side drainage.  Big Creek itself was glacial and was far too silty for our water filter.  The clearing for these reasons was a good spot to stop for the night and camp.  It was 8:30 pm and we had been hiking for nearly 8 hours and certainly had covered less than 8 miles—the brush was that thick.  We decided to camp and get a good start for the next day.  During dinner we spotted some Dall Sheep on a high ridge above the west side of the drainage.

A concern was our slow pace.  If we continued at this pace we would have real problems getting back to the road on Tuesday—a problem given that we had tickets for whale watching first thing Wednesday morning in Seward—almost 400 miles away. If the brush remained this thick throughout, we would put our whale watching in jeopardy. There was also concern about finding the Tributary Creek Drainage through the thick brush.

Day 2 Big Creek into the Tributary Creek drainage to East Fork of the Toklat River.

Another bright day, and as always, things feel much better on the second day of a trip.  Steve and Terry were greeted by a truly transcendent experience first thing in the morning.  Stretching after getting up, a caribou came trotting out from the bush into the middle of our camp.  It hardly seemed to notice us and trolled right through our camp and moved further downstream.  What a way to start the morning!  Poor Steve, looking at Terry stumble back to the tent to get a camera, was initially convinced a bear was charging from behind. 

After breakfast we discussed our options.  No one wanted to go back the way we had come, but I was still concerned about our pace.  We agreed to push on, but that if we did not find Tributary Creek by noon we would turn back.

We pushed on and the brush soon let up as we slowly made our way to the upper end of Big Creek.  The central problem now was finding the correct branch of the Creek to take us to Tributary Creek.  The topo indicated about 4 branches, but there were more like 7.  Fortunately we made a critical identification of a 5,000 foot peak that was a significant landmark leading to the pass into the Tributary Creek drainage.  Having identified this peak, we knew that our branch of Big Creek would head directly towards the peak and then curl to the south.  Knowing this, we easily identified the correct branch of Big Creek.

We were heading upstream, following Big Creek to its source—now a series of small snowfields in a ravine near our pass.  This part of the trip was surely the aesthetic highlight.  We gained about 1,000 feet in elevation as we followed the creek higher and higher through the mountains.  The setting was truly alpine.  Beautiful mountains and ridges, ravines and gullies filled with snow—and no brush!!!  The brush gave way around 3400 feet, leaving us with firm walking (except when we crossed snow) towards our pass.  The small snowgullies were filled with large brown bear tracks, heightening the sense of wildness of the place.  The creek soon swung to the south and we could clearly see our pass—prominently marked by two knobs on the its east and west edges. 

As we climbed to the pass we were greeted with one more treat.  A small herd of caribou swung across the front of the pass to catch a drink from the snow filled gully that marked the upper terminus of Big Creek.  As they approached the creek they were only about 50 feet away.  The herd consisted of  a clear bull, some females and a number of fawns.  Again the presence of young animals made the situation a bit dicier than it would have been otherwise.  Generally, caribou, unlike moose, are not particularly jumpy so our presence did not seem to bother them, except for some long and intense stares from the bull.  We moved to the right of the ravine and made a wide arc to the pass in order to give them some room.

The pass, as passes always are, was both an end and a beginning.  We were relieved to have finished our climb out of the Big Creek drainage, but upon cresting the pass we were greeted with the fabulous views of Igloo Mountain and the dozens of gullies draining into Tributary Creek, whose valley shot directly west before curling to the north towards the East Fork of the Toklat River.  It was a triumphant moment.  We had navigated our way up the correct branch of Big Creek and now the way was obvious.  Tributary Creek could not have been more obvious; indeed there was hardly anywhere else to go.  I was relieved as the main orienteering challenge of the trip had been overcome.

Made it!  Atop the pass out of the Big Creek Drainage.  Mike plans our next move. 

After basking on the views and warm sunshine, taking some pictures of ourselves on the pass, and sneaking another view of the caribou, we descended to Tributary Creek—the main challenges of the trip evaporated.  All was smooth walking from here.

Well, not quite.  We were proceeding down the creek when we spotted another brown bear.  Like the bears yesterday, this one was on a ridge along the creek drainage. Unlike the bears yesterday, this bear was loping down the ridge, clearly making a beeline for the creek.  The bear dropped into the creek and out of our view about a half mile downstream.

We pulled up into a ravine to get about 30 feet up from the creekbed and deliberate our next step.  Following the creek was dicey as the bear might be heading upstream towards us.  However, the only other option was to climb to the south up and over the ridgeline next to Igloo Mountain and either hit the park road near the Igloo Mountain Ranger station or traverse further west and cross into the East Fork of the Toklat River valley (about 3 miles south of the Tributary Creek intersection).

While deliberating, Steve suddenly called out “The bear is here! The bear is here!”  We turned to see a beautiful brown bear coming around the near bend of the creek—about 50 feet away.  Instinctively, we called out “Hey bear!” and with a grace and quickness surprising for such a large animal, the bear spun on his heels and darted back downstream.  As the common expression goes, he was more scared of us than vice versa.

Still we were plenty scared and decided to climb over the southern ridge and back towards the East Fork of the Toklat south of the Tributary intersection.  However, as is often the case in cross country travel, we overestimated our progress downstream to point of the bear encounter.  As a result, instead of a 600 foot climb to a breezy 4000 foot pass, we found ourselves encountering a series of false summits that were well over 5000 feet.  We reached 4500 feet and decided to aim for a pass (probably around 5000 feet) to our south.  However, this proved to be a bad idea almost immediately as Steve and Mike began traversing a loose slide of talus and scree.  We had no rope for belaying and the traverse was clearly dangerous.  We decided to turn back and descend to the creek again and take our chances with the bear.  We needlessly climbed 1200 feet and lost about 90 minutes, but the main thing was that everyone was OK and we were back on track.

Heading down to Tributary Creek.  This drainage ended at the East Fork of the Toklat River-- our destination for the day.

Once again we were failed by the USGS.  The topo map indicated wide gravel bars about two miles downstream towards the river.  This would have made for breezy hiking and a good pace.  Instead we were greeted with some of the thickest brush yet.

Travelling in such brush, especially in a steep drainage, is extremely claustrophobic.  Typically we could not see more than 15 feet or so ahead of us.  On the occasional clearings, we could not see the end of the creek as it slowly twisted from due west to the northwest.  It lent of feeling of being trapped in an endless cycle of brush and ravine edges that come right down to the creek itself.  The animal bones along the creek only heightened this claustrophobia.  These animals had clearly perished during the winter and the heavy winter snows had buried their bodies.  Now, with break up almost complete, their bodies had been exposed for some time—what was left for us were skulls and skeletons half buried in the snow.  We also saw our first signs of human life in over a day—a few boot prints.  Later we would find a pair of sandals and a canister of bear spray.  Clearly the gear had been ripped off people’s packs by the thick brush.  I would later find that one of my own Teva’s had been ripped off the back of my pack as well.

Once again, a caribou sighting provided relief.  It was standing in the middle of a branch of the creek munching on the brush.  As with the other caribou, it was perfectly oblivious to our present.  We were quite close (about 25 feet) before we even noticed it and pulled back to take pictures.  Fortunately, it soon pushed downstream (it was standing on our route).  We followed it down a game trail, but it soon left us far behind.

The monotony was seemingly never ending, but changes were noticeable.  We were slowly losing about 400 feet as we descended into the East Fork of the Toklat River valley.  At 3100 the tree line returned.  The creek also clearly had turned to the northwest and now we had a clear view of the mountains on the far side of the river valley. 

With the trees came extremely boggy, though somewhat less brushy conditions.  However, we could still not actually see the river or the river valley, only the mountains on the far side—which were, of course, many miles away.

Suddenly, we caught a glimpse of the riverbed and then, quite dramatically and unexpectedly, we burst through one final line of trees and brush and stumbled, quite literally, out of the brush and onto the moonscape of the riverbed.  It was a triumphant moment.  We had found our way through the brush, overcome a bear encounter and hacked and climbed our way miles downstream and had arrived at the river. The river brought immediate relief.  As with all of Denali’s rivers, the East Fork of the Toklat river bed is about a half mile wide and consists of broad swaths of gravel with an occasional small channel of water.  The openness provided beautiful views of the polychrome mountains and a much-needed sense of openness.  The river also provided cold water for our blistered feet.  Most importantly, the river provided an unmistakable path back to the park road (about 5 miles to the south).  We could not get lost at this point even if we wanted to.

There was a large forest fire and Mike had noted earlier in the day that he smelled fire.  Here the fire, which was actually hundreds of miles away, had turned the sky a hazy grey and the sun a bright, blood red.  Sitting along the gravel bars, we made dinner and watched the sun follow its odd Alaskan arc across, rather than behind, Cabin Mountain.  Over the hour or so we eat dinner, the sun hardly set at all—rather it continually moved to the north, zipping along the top of the ridges.  The sun, of course, would not be setting for some time.  We arrived at the river at 8 pm (11 hours after breaking camp in the morning) and the sun would not set until well after midnight.  Even then it would not get dark, as the sun would be rising around 4.

The gravel bars of the East Fork of the Toklat River.

After getting water from nearby snowmelts (the river was glacial and thus silty) we are a celebratory dinner and packed up.  The plan was to hike a few more miles before bed in order to have a quick trip to the road the next day.  This would get us back to Anchorage early so we could prepare for whale watching.

However, this plan quickly came untracked.  About a half mile of hiking brought us to a point where the river swerved across the entire riverbed and hugged the east facing cliffs of the river valley.  To proceed we would have to ford the river.  We were tired and the river was running higher because of the day’s run-off from the glaciers feeding the river.  We decided to camp and get an early start the next day.

Totals:  10 route miles, 2200 feet elevation, 1 bear, 15 caribou, 1 dall sheep skull, 12 hours total hiking, 2 stream crossings.

Day 3:  East Fork of the Toklat River south to Park Road—5 miles, no elevation gain.

This was the victory lap for our hard work.  The gravel bars provided great footing, wonderful views, and a clear route back to the park road.  The main challenge would be the river crossings.  The river was a bit lower in the morning, but we clearly faced a serious ford.  Our creek crossings had been shin deep at best—now we faced something deeper (at least knee deep) and wider (20-30 feet).  We spent some time scouting for the first crossing and we were all apprehensive.  Because we were finishing today, we decided to do the crossing in our boots to facilitate better traction and foot protection.  We went in linked in a line with the biggest (Terry) in the front and smallest (Veronica) in the back.  The plan worked well.  We slowly sidestepped our way across the knee to thigh deep river with no problem.  The water was painfully cold, but at least it numbed our bruised and blistered feet.  On the way to the road we would cross the river about 10 times—one crossing being nearly waist deep.

After our first crossing we made good time over the firm gravel bars.  In a couple miles, we were able to see the south side of the ridge that we contemplated traversing they previous afternoon.  We could see that it would have been a very dodgey affair.  The pass we were shooting for led to a very steep bowl down to a rugged ravine, which then dropped, literally, about 15 feet right into the river.  It probably would have been a dangerous trip.

At this time we encountered our first people in two days.  They had camped along the river a few miles from the road.  Wimps!!

Another couple hours of walking put us within sight of the park road.  It was a bittersweet moment.  We had safely completed the most challenging trip of our lives.  On the other hand, it meant the end of this wonderful trip and a return to the social world with all of its hassles and trivial concerns.  Mike was not so conflicted as he practically ran to the road!

We had a bit of bushwhacking as we had to climb out of the riverbed to access the road.  We burst through the last bushes and were suddenly on the road.  We had done it!

We spent the next hour sitting and basking in the sense of accomplishment and the amazing views, which included the glacier-clad Alaska Range.  We also were able to enjoy the stunned look of the tourists as they drove by in their hermetically sealed buses.  They, in all likelihood, had already seen a fair number of bears on the ride and were now surprised, if not alarmed, to see some humans sitting in such a perilous place.  It was a very satisfying feeling.

We were picked up by a camper bus and headed back to the park headquarters.  It was satisfying that it took the bus over a half-hour to get back to our drop off point.  The bus stopped back at the Teklanika river rest area and we were able to see the pass we traversed on our first day.  The landscape, exactly unchanged in three days, could not have appeared more differently in our eyes.

Total: 5 miles, no elevation gain, 10 river crossings.

Total for trip: 21 route miles, 3000 feet elevation, 5 stream crossings, 10 river crossings, 4 brown bears, 2 dall sheep, 16 caribou, 2 hikers (within two miles of park road).

TRAVELS