The Denali Chronicles

Last week I took leave from my job of mucking around the woods in the rain and voyaged north to Denali National Park to muck around the tundra in the rain with my little sister. We had such a phenomenal time that I couldn't possibly put all my pictures on the blog, so please check out my special Picasa album for the full details.

I will tell the story of the Great Bear Encounter of 2010. It was Tuesday night (technically Wednesday morning) and the rain was still coming down. At 1:30 in the morning the two of us were half asleep, listening to the rain on our tent, and the rustle of our tent shifting around. That's funny, it doesn't seem too windy...All of a sudden two big paws came from nowhere to rest on the corner of the tent containing my feet. I sat bolt upright and roared, "IT'S STEPPING ON ME!!" Sarah immediately joined me in yelling, shouting, and bellowing as the feet rapidly disappeared. Breathless and wide awake now, we looked at each other in bafflement. "Maybe it was just a marmot", Sarah said. I looked to my right, through the mesh side of the tent, and saw a giant nose pressed up against the fly. "THERE'S A NOSE!!", I yelled, and the hullabaloo resumed, with the addition of shaking the tent and various expletives. The nose disappeared, but soon enough something was batting at the fly on Sarah's side. At this point we were both wondering what to do if it didn't go away. Neither of us wanted to open the rain fly to see what was on the other side. My trekking poles were looking like pretty inviting weapons but luckily the bear seemed to lose interest after that. We continued our noise making for a good 15 minutes anyway, and it was a full half hour before either of us felt brave enough to take a peek at the outside world. There was nothing there but rain and fog and the twilight that passes for night in northern Alaska. Neither of us slept very well after that.

The next morning the rain was still coming down, and even though our bodies were sound, the tent unscathed, and our food untouched, we decided to head back to the road. During our invigorating bushwhack through head high, interlocking willows we both decided we were way more scared of moose than bear. As such we sang and yelled and yodeled our way through the soggy bottom lands. It's a good thing we came out when we did because neither of us had much of a voice left.

The rain continued that day, and the next, but then decided to clear out for our bus trip on Friday. We saw a long-legged lynx, herds of Dall sheep, a tricolored fox, arctic ground squirrels, hoary marmots, caribou up the wazoo, four brown bears, three moose, two golden eagles, and a loon in an alpine pond. Mt. McKinley even made an epic appearance. It's simply massive, dominating the skyline and making the rest of the Alaska range look like foothills. Thank you, Sarah, for living in such a beautiful place and letting my come visit!