So I do still mean to continue with this blog. It seems that I'm always making the excuse of working too much and not finding the time to keep up with writing. Well, it's true. There's a lot of things I could get done if I didn't have to earn money, but I haven't figured out how that could work yet. Anyhow, I do intend to finish blogging about our summer trip to AK. I can take care of day 2 of the trip now. We took one of the park shuttle buses into the Savage River area, which is only 15 tiny miles into the enormous expanse that make up Denali National Park. I decided to mainly day hike on this trip to AK because we didn't really know how backpacking worked up there. There is a permit system that is first come first serve by zones of the park, so you can't really do any sort of detailed planning until you're there. I'm pretty sure we'll take that option next time we go, but for this trip we stayed within a couple hours of the park road. It's amazing how wild the place can feel even in that area. We hiked out along one of the many streams branching from the Savage River, and it was reported that a female grizzly had been sited in the same area within the last day. So considering we were hiking through classic AK scrub or "bush", we had to make a lot of noise so as to not blunder into the big animal. Made me nervous at first, but after a while you come to realize that that's just the way AK hiking is. You're there, and so are the bears. Neither party really wants to mess with the other, and the best bet is to do what you can to alert each other your there and stay out of each other's way. Works out. It was a great experience. I've read a lot on Alaskan bush hiking, and it was wonderful to see it first hand. I'm going back.
Alison in the Alaskan bush:
A couple from Washington D.C. had been on their Surly LHT's for quite a while; nice:
If you want to feel small, go to Denali National Park and hike the backcountry...
No trails in Denali...Checking in on our location, yup, I was right... :)
Alaskan Fireweed growing alongside a braided river...
Large Caribou crossing a dry river bed:
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