Celebrating Wilderness in the Midnight Sun

Is it really already my fifth week of work?

A few weekends ago I completed my first official hike up the Mt. Healy Overlook Trail. Most of the park is trail-less, backcountry hiking, but in the frontcountry (near the Denali Visitor Center and park headquarters) there are around 25 miles of maintained trails. This particular trail led to the top of Mt. Healy, a rocky, forested mountain that I can see from my bedroom window. About 3 miles round trip from the trailhead, this dirt path climbs over 1700 feet to the overlook, with an opportunity to continue climbing along the mountain’s ridge even higher (and on 10 miles to the town of Healy if you're ambitious). After eating lunch and climbing awhile up the ridge, we decided to turn around—my legs were beginning to shake with the strain of a continuous uphill climb.

Two weekends ago was the Solstice Festival, a celebration of the midnight sun. Though the solstice was actually June 21st, it was celebrated with a long weekend previous to the real date. Even now, it's still light here throughout the night. The 49^th State Brewery (which also showcases the abandoned bus prop featured in Into the Wild) put on a festival of live music, drinks, and dancing. It was definitely by far the longest I have stayed up in years. 

Last week I tagged along with students attending Discovery Camp, which is put on every year by the Murie Science and Learning Center and the Denali Education Center. My main responsibility was to photograph the students, rangers, and instructors on the hike for an end-of-camp slideshow (as much as possible when it wasn't raining, at least). On Monday I was fortunate enough to go on a 4 mile hike with an extremely intelligent group of seventh and eighth graders, my supervisor Ellen, and National Geographic freelance writer and photographer, Kim Heacox, and his wife. He recently finished writing a book titled The National Parks: An Illustrated History. I also attended his presentation this past Sunday, which was beyond inspiring! He autographed another book of his that I'd bought a few days before.

On one of the hikes we were lucky enough to see a moose in nearby Horseshoe Lake! Kim gave me photography advice while we watched it from barely 50 feet away. Here are just a few of the shots I was able to get.

Erin, Sarah, me, and John

This past weekend, my biology partner-in-crime Sarah Swanson came to visit me from Fairbanks along with her fellow intern, Erin, and we went on a 9 mile hike here known as Triple Lakes Trail. The path started out along the rushing Riley Creek, crossing a suspension bridge built of materials hauled in by sled dog teams. It then took us farther up until we were climbing along the mountain ridge by three lakes settled in the valley. What an amazing day!

It's been a crazy couple of weeks but I hope to have another post about what I'm up to at work soon, so stay tuned!

 “Our vision of a wild America has become rooted in a vision of ourselves. Our National Parks, preserves,
monuments, forests, and wildlife refuges speak of
gratitude and hope, renewal and redemption.”

—Kim Heacox,

Visions of a Wild America:

Pioneers of Preservation, 1996

I also volunteered at the Moose Scat Scoot, a half marathon/
5K/fun run that took place in the park.
Photo credit to John Gibbons

Journey to the Center of the Park

"We who are gathered here may represent a particularly elite, not of money and power, but of concern for the earth for the earth's sake."

~Ansel Adams

Things have been happening fast here in Denali National Park and Preserve. I’ve now been at work for two weeks, which is usually just enough time to start settling into my living situation, the environment, and the responsibilities of my job. Nature is making changes, too. Cotton from the aspen trees drifts through the air like snow, collecting on the ground in blankets of fuzz. Wildflowers are in full bloom in some areas nearby, including arctic lupines and dogwood flowers. Today was our first day of full sunshine this week, and it was much needed. As a part of my two-day interpretation training, a ranger drove me, three Student Conservation Association (SCA) interns, and three high school interns into the park.

For a national park, Denali is very unique.

First, there are three parts to the park: 1) the original 2 million acres designated as a national park in 1917 is now “wilderness”, the highest designation of conservation a piece of land can have, 2) the national park, and 3) the preserve. All of these areas added together make up the 6 million acre National Park Service (NPS) unit.

NPS photo

Second, there is one 92-mile road that travels into the park (when you look at a full-size map, you can see how much expansive wilderness is still left untouched). But here’s the catch: personal vehicles are only allowed to drive up until mile 15. The rest may be traveled by narrated tour bus, shuttles, or camper buses. Denali was one of the first national parks to create this shuttling system. It came as a result of the completion of the highway connecting Anchorage and Fairbanks in 1972. In order to reduce impact on wildlife and scenery, the NPS created the mass transport system in anticipation of an increase in visitors. The first year the highway was completed, visitor count doubled.

The large white mountain on the left of the photo is Denali.It is often
obscured by clouds and is visible only 30% of the time.The mountain
is still over 80 miles away from where I took this picture.

Today I traveled into Eielson Visitor Center at Mile 66. Because of the winding nature of the road, driving this distance took nearly 3 ½ hours. The views and wildlife were worth it. Within 20 miles, we spotted a mama grizzly bear and her two yearling cubs off the side of the road in the willows brush. Later, we were able to see many caribou, a moose, and a Dall sheep resting on a cliff. The grand mountain Denali even presented itself today.

View from the Eielson Visitor Center

On to the final reason that Denali is so unique...

The Denali Kennels

Highlight of last weekend: I finally achieved my dream of adopting a sled dog! (Just kidding.) It's only for the summer, but this is my new walking buddy for the next three months. Three times a week I head down to the kennels and take him for a walk. His name is Lucor and he's an official sled dog ranger for Denali National Park and Preserve. You can check out his bio on the official kennels page!

The Denali kennels are special--they are the only operating sled dog kennels within the National Park Service. Harry Karstens, the first ranger and superintendent in what was then known as Mt. McKinley National Park, used his teams of sled dogs to control poaching within the two million acres of wilderness in the park's early days. The kennels continued to grow throughout the 1920s and 30s as sled dogs aided rangers on patrol and hauled supplies to construct backcountry winter cabins.

In 1980, Mt. McKinley National Park was renamed to Denali National Park and Preserve and tripled in size. The original two million acres became wilderness, "where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain." In other words: no motorized transport or equipment within the wilderness area during the winter season. In the last few decades, the Denali kennels have been restored in full force as the sled dog teams continue to patrol the park, stock backcountry cabins, and transport scientific research equipment throughout varies parts of the landscape. The park wouldn't be where it is today without them.

This barely scratches the surface of how much I have learned here in the last two weeks. I can't wait to see what else I will discover in this beautiful environment. I hope this will be the first of many deep excursions into the park!

Stay tuned!

Lindsey

P.S. I attached a few more photos taken today to the bottom of this post. J

There is a small white dot on the edge of the brown cliff--a Dall sheep!

The fox and the magpie

Planes, Trains, and Moose Encounters

MONDAY MAY 30^th

Anchorage, 5:30am AKDT

One day of traveling down and one to go! My flight to Anchorage and transfer to hotel went incredibly smoothly. I was dragging my suitcases into my room by 9pm Alaska time (which is midnight in Minnesota) and fell asleep by 10 pm.

On the flight, any leftover nerves were completely washed away near the end of the flight when I leaned forward in my aisle seat and saw ridges upon ridges of rocky, snow covered mountains (it was actually hard to keep from grinning like a crazy, mountain-loving fool). As I disembarked the plane an hour later, a beautiful airport welcomed me to Anchorage, with wooden beams reminiscent of log cabins and glossy, granite floors. A mounted moose was the first thing that greeted me as I came off of the gangway.

The shuttle ride to my hotel also proved interesting. I learned that my driver had once been a taxi driver in Manhattan and the Bronx of New York City, and the family of three behind me declared that they were from “North Pole” in casual conversation (yes, that is a real town up here). I still have a couple of hours until I leave on the Alaska Railroad to Denali. I can’t wait to finally see my home for the next three months.

Denali National Park and Preserve, 7:15pm AKDT

What a day! I started tossing and turning at around 4 am, finally waking up to shower at 5:30. The hotel shuttle took me and all of my gear to the Alaska Railroad train depot at 7, where I checked in my luggage and waited for our train to arrive. Before long, a young tour guide called “All aboard!” and I boarded Car C with my backpack and viola in hand. I was lucky enough to land a window seat on the west side, but even so the train was barely half full.

I spent the following hours roaming between the café car, my seat, and the open-air vestibules between them. Tour guides narrated the majority of the ride, filling in details about railroad and Alaskan history. At one point along the tracks, we passed a community called Chase, which consisted of about 40 people living in the “bush”. In other words, the small train that passes every day is their only contact with the outside world. About a third of them have running water, while the rest go to the river for water and also lack electricity and indoor plumbing. What a life!

The scenery along the tracks was some of the most beautiful that I have ever seen. We sailed around curves through the birch and spruce forests, sped over river crossings, and gradually made our way through the mountains north towards Denali National Park.

When I stepped off of the train at the Denali depot, my supervisor was waiting for me. We loaded my luggage into her car for the short drive up to where I would be staying. I have a bedroom on the top of a quadruplex, with three windows in a corner that look up to a spruce-covered mountain through the poplar trees. Can’t complain about the view! Bathrooms and showers are located in a separate building a short walk through the woods.

Another view from the Alaska Railroad

WEDNESDAY JUNE 1st

A 300-foot-deep gorge that we crossed!

It's hard to believe that I have only been here for two days. I’m still working on settling in and adjusting, but I thought I’d post an update before I was here for too long. In recent news, I was warned upon arrival that there were multiple active moose cows (with calves) in the visitor center and park housing area. In fact, moose feeling threatened have charged visitors and employees. This morning on my way to breakfast, I walked out of my door and saw a moose around 25 yards away in my path! Unnoticed, I decided to take the gravel road the long way to breakfast, only to find another one not 10 feet from the road in the trees, munching on the underbrush for breakfast. It was without a doubt the closest I have ever been to a moose in the wild (they're so big!), and I was careful to watch her behavior as I passed quietly. Luckily she didn't seem to mind I was there.

For anyone who isn't sure, moose can be highly aggressive and dangerous animals if disturbed. If one were to ever charge you, RUN AWAY. (This is tricky because if you encounter a bear in the wild, DON'T RUN.) For moose, dodge behind trees and large objects or, if you're out in the open, run in a zig-zag pattern. This is something that I learned after arriving to the park--I've never been sure what to do with moose encounters until now! I suppose it's fairly useful knowledge if they can obstruct my path to breakfast.

More photos from the train below. Thank you for all of the support and encouragement that has been sent my way!

Lindsey