Day 25-27, Denali Nat'l Park

On Tuesday Madison and I embarked on our epic and long-anticipated trip to Denali National Park, home of Mt. McKinley and one of the last remaining tracts of unspoiled wilderness in North America. We brought Ike and Mason with us- neither of them had been to Denali before, even though they were born and raised in Alaska. Madison and I understood: Even after living in Atlanta for 5 years, I still have yet to eat at the Varsity or see the World of Coke. There was substantial road construction on the Parks Highway, which winds north from Anchorage towards Denali and Fairbanks, AK. At the Irish pub with the pirate band we'd met a friend of Michelle's who drives a tractor trailer between Anchorage and Fairbanks- Monday through Thursday evenings he leaves with a tandem and returns around 3am with empty containers or fresh cargo. Rugged job, but necessary- almost all of Alaska's supplies are shipped in through Anchorage: millions of tons of food, clothing, machinery, and incidentals pass through the port each year, mostly to support the state's extraction industries. Michelle explained that the pay was excellent.

We arrived at Denali in the early afternoon, with tickets on a 2:00pm bus to our campground. In order to minimize environmental impact and avoid accidents on the unpaved mountain roads, the Parks Service doesn't allow autos in Denali. The bus driver loaded everyone's camping gear into the back of a dark green school bus and we lurched off down the bumpy dirt road to our campsite. No sooner had we gotten underway did we realize that the bus ride was 6 hours long. No one commented, but we hadn't expected such a grueling journey (rations: meager) and the air of situational resentment was palpable- until we realized how utterly spectacular the ride would be.

Now, we've seen some incredible landforms on this trip, and some pretty serious wildlife. But Denali National Park totally knocked it out of the (forgive me) park. Our bus driver was very informative, stopping for wildlife at every turn. I was glad that my mom had insisted I take binoculars, and shared them with our fellow passengers. We had seen a lot of bears, a substantial amount of moose, bald eagles, and caribou by this point in the trip, and Alaskan fauna had lost a bit of it's novelty... When the bus stopped at the top of our ridge and the driver pointed out a bear trundling across the plain below, many passengers crowded over to the windows. "This sort of stuff doesn't interest me anymore," said the driver, "It's a far-away bear (Mason termed far-away animals "nature blobs"). But we'll stop anyway, because this might be some of you folks' first bear sighting ever." I agreed- although I wasn't nearly as jaded as our guide, a bear munching on foliage represented nothing new- we were looking for the REAL action... and we got it.

A few hours further into the bus ride, after a run-in with some Dall's sheep, mountian goats, moose, and a couple more bears, we stopped on a mountainside overlooking a gravelly plain and a lazily meandering river. "There's a wolf den down there," said the driver, "Keep your eyes peeled." Sure enough, we saw a wolf trotting across the valley floor. Once our eyes had gotten accustomed to picking out the animal's shape, we noticed more. And more. And more. There were multiple adults and a whopping half-dozen pups! Most wolfpacks bear only a couple of puppies at a time: they represent a tremendous drain on the pack's resources, and wolves (like most large carnivorous mammals) must operate in an environment with the requisite carrying capacity in order to breed so prolifically. Such habitats are fast receding under the relentless onslaught of modern economics and industry, and there is no doubt in my mind that our children will never see such a healthy group.

Scant minutes later a monstrous grizzly bear reared up out of the brush uncomfortably close to our bus. The driver eased us to a stop and we watched as her cub ambled over. They pawed eachother and playfully teethed for a minute or two- until the mother lay back and the cub began to nurse! I was amazed. Even the bus driver had gotten up and pressed his binoculars to the window in awe. It was INSANE. After several long minutes they wandered off, and we sat there stunned. The bus reeked with a collective sense of "Holy crap, did that just happen?!?"

We arrived at Wonder Lake with empty stomachs. Madison, Ike, and Mason pitched the tents while I brewed up a hearty stew. We feasted. The mosquitos were atrocious, but we had brought plenty of DEET. Though terribly carcinogenic, it was a happy alternative to being airlifted into a tree and sucked dry by the hungry insects. Our camp was at the base of Denali, formerly known as Mt. McKinley but now restored to it's native name, meaning "The Big One." Denali was shrouded in fog, and we waited until 3am in hopes of the summit appearing. It teased us mercilessly, but in the morning I looked out of my tent and saw the massive peak against a cloudless sky. "MADBUS, WAKE UP!!!!" I shouted. He told me to shut up. I insisted, and he resentfully looked up. For several minutes we basked silently in the majesty of the world's tallest mountain (Everest is higher, not taller: imagine Kaufman standing on a chair- he'd still be short).

Two days of camping passed quickly, and before we knew it we were back on the bus to the ranger station. I wasn't sure that anything could top our bus ride out, until we saw an artic red fox sitting quietly at the side of the road, not 5 feet from us. "He's waiting for a squirrel, if he doesn't have his eye on one already," explained the driver. The fox immediately leapt up and FLEW off a few yards ahead of us. We saw a squirrel dart out of the bushes and into a little drainage culvert. The fox followed, and emerged a split second later, the wriggling squirrel clenched firmly in his smiling jaws. He gave it a quick snap with his neck and a few chews, then calmly trotted up the hillside, dug a little hole, and buried it for later. HOLY CRAP, DID THAT JUST HAPPEN?

We drove back to Anchorage in a daze. Nothing had prepared us for the park's pure and unadulterated natural beauty. It's a refreshing thought that much of Alaska's wilderness has been deemed protected, and that some semblance of America's pre-industrial splendor will remain, for better or for worse, under federal stewardship.