Denali Overnighter

At the start of this week, I decided to take an overnight trip in Denali. The shuttle buses in the park weren't operating yet, so my options for where to hike were rather limited. I ended up parking at the Savage River Campground, about 15 miles in from the park entrance, and hiking up Savage River, then back down Jenny Creek.


The view looking south towards the Savage River terminus. I hiked back towards the mountains in the distance, and ended up climbing a ridge to the left before turning back north on my way out.


The walk in entailed quite a bit of following moose trail and schwacking through brush. I encountered little bear sign, with a couple of exceptions.


As I started to get further up the valley, more and more inviting ridges beckoned. I passed on this one, but found it to be quite aesthetically pleasing.


In a couple of spots along the river, the rocks were tinged this yellowish color. I'm not sure what causes it, but it's a pretty cool contrast with the normal grey.


I did end up picking a ridge to climb. This is a view looking back down the valley that I'd hiked up.


Camp in the high country. A wind picked up soon after I'd pitched my tent, with gusts up to probably about 40mph. I was quite proud of the tent for keeping it together - I didn't have to re-stake or adjust anything, and it held the whole time.


I thought this bird was planning on joining me at my campsite for the night, but he departed shortly after I took his photo.


The next morning I followed the ridge around for a while. This is me looking haggard on top of the highest point I reached in the ridge. If you look carefully, you can see faintly in the background Denali, the highest point in North America.


While the snow was almost completely melted on the south-facing slopes of the ridge, north-facing slopes were still holding a fair amount of snow in some sections. Much of it was nice to walk through, like this stuff, easy to punch steps into. Some of it, though, was a bit sketchy - icy and slick and tough to get a good grip on.


The icy sections I encountered convinced me to descend into Jenny Creek rather than trying to follow the ridge for a ways longer. This is looking down Jenny Creek. I was hoping that the snow would be hard overflow ice, but that didn't last long and I ended up fighting through brush again for several miles.


I ran into these 4 caribou towards the end of the day. The second day ended up being a bit longer than expected, and I was provided a solid reminder of what walking through trail-less Alaska is like, which is to say it kicked my behind. A good toe dipped back into the waters of the Alaskan backcountry, with hopefully some more to come shortly.