You can scroll down to view the pics, or to the title "Toklat River" to just get the actual backpacking report.  I tried to fit the experience in as short a TR as possible, so you probably can tell how incredible a place Denali is by seeing how utterly I failed.  Enjoy!

Two weeks in Denali, does it get any better than that?  Well I will have to wait a while before I think I'll find something to top this trip.  I flew out to Anchorage on Friday the 2nd.  Originally my flight was supposed to arrive in Anchorage at 6pm, but it got moved back to 8pm.  So I didn't have as much time as I wanted to roam around. 

Anchorage

Landed in Anchorage Friday evening and headed out to the Int'l Hostel where I would be staying the night.  What irritated me initially about this trip was everyone I encountered always asked me if I was in the Army.  There's nothing more bothersome than being mistaken for an Army guy, especially if you used to BE in the Army.  I had shaved my head and brought my old Army duffle so I wasn't helping the cause, but still.  On the bus ride to the Hostel, I had to hear this guy's story about how he was a Ranger in the Special Forces.  After a couple of questions I realized he was completely bullshitting me, but I didn't have the heart to tell him that he was full of it, so I endured the 30 minute bus ride hearing about all his ‘adventures'. 

I got a chance to talk to a guy at the Hostel who had just summitted Mt. McKinley.  He had been hiking and climbing for a good 2-3 months straight, just living in the backcountry and assorted Hostels, and he shared his ambitious plans to skirt the Alaskan Range.  He didn't know if it was doable, but he was ready to find out.  He looked emaciated, and he confessed he lost 25 lbs on the McKinley climb because he just didn't feel like eating.  I remember reading somewhere loss of appetite is one of the effects of altitude sickness. 

I try not to be too judgemental when going to new places, and I know it takes more than a short evening to get a ‘feel' for a city, BUT Anchorage was pretty underwhelming.  The city just didn't seem to have a personality.  Sure you had some tall Conoco buildings, a few gift shops, many hotels, plenty of annoying seagulls, and some lively bars (where most of the city seemed to be at the time), but that was about it.  It was nice to see some Native Americans roaming around among the populace, though a good portion of them were homeless and living on the street.

I tried to get a good night's sleep, but it was difficult because it was midnight and the Sun was still out.  My sense of time was totally thrown off and finally I had to just cover my face with one of my shirts to fall asleep. 

The next morning I boarded the Alaskan Railroad Train.  It was a nice ride into Denali.  I spent most of my time in the ‘Dining Cart' eating Reindeer Sausage and Eggs, and just reading and writing.  There aren't many roads in Alaska and it was interested viewing the landscape go by me.  When the train passed over a clear stream I could literally eyeball packs of salmon and other assorted fish hanging out in the water.  It looked like you could just grab them out of the creek.

It was interested passing all these homesteader houses, just people that live out in the woods without too much civilization about.  I wondered what kind of lives they lived all the way out here, for the most part self-sufficient and on their own.  Every house we passed the people always stopped and waved at the train.  I assumed they didn't get too much traffic coming through.

Denali Visitors Center

We arrived into the train depot in Denali to a small army of tour buses.  90% of the train occupants got off the trains and headed directly for the buses as part of some $3000+ tour undoubtedly.  I waited for the Denali shuttle and headed out to the Visitors Center to reserve a campground and hopefully book my hiking itinerary for the park.

Well between determining where to stow my food supplies while I was hiking, finding open ‘units' that were available to camp, and coordinating each leg of my trip with the bus schedule it took me almost 3 days to get everything situated.  I came there reasonably prepared, with an idea of what ‘unit's I wanted to camp in, but entire process was a little more time consuming than I had hoped for.

One thing about Denali, there wasn't as many backcountry hikers as I was led to believe reading books about the place.  Sure there were a few here and there wanting to camp, but the VAST MAJORITY of visitors were older tourists (often foreign) who were planning on not spending a night out of their RV's and in the wild.  Needless to say, they were everywhere, and were highly annoying, not understanding the first thing about ‘leave no trace' and hiking etiquette.

Thank God they had a separate ‘Camper Bus' which serviced campers only.  I didn't want to have to endure 6 hours riding through the park with the tourist crowd.

Toklat River

My first stop in Denali included a 3 night stay at the East Branch of the Toklat River.  It was a popular area and I was lucky enough to get in.  Denali has a strict ‘quota system' which means the park is separated into units and they only allow a certain amount of people in any unit at any given time.  So I had roughly 14,000+ acres to share with 5 other people!  Increases the chances I don't have to see anyone's ugly mug my entire time there.

A portion of the Toklat River has been closed to campers because a pack of wolves was roaming the valley and they wanted to minimize human encounters.  What this mean to me?  Well a pain in the ass for starters!  I had to hike 3 miles around the closure zone in order to drop into the valley and begin my trek.  All in all I was glad though to be finally in the backcountry, and done with the red tape at the Visitors Center.

I dropped down into the Toklat Valley and proceeded to hug the River.  I knew at some point I was going to have to cross over the river going South into the valley, but it was very deep in places, so I continued on looking for the most braided (and shallowest) portion.  I couldn't find a decent section to cross one mile into the trek, and I was being squeezed by a bluff to the north.  I was hoping that I would be able to find a narrow path along base of the bluff to make my way across, but I eventually had to drop into a deep part of the river.  I got out my waterproof socks, sandals, and rain pants. 

The sun was really heating things up, so I waded into the river braid up to my belly, trying to stay close to the bluffside.  It was cold, but the combination of gear really kept me from cramping up, which I usually do in ice cold waters.  It was difficult to maneuver in swift running water with 45 lbs of gear on my back.  I was able to edge my way to the other side and hiked further into the shrubby interior. 

I took a break to change back into my boots, when I realized that my gaiters had somehow got dislodged from the outside of my pack and probably floated down the river somewhere.  Damn!

The day was nice, so I wasn't going to let any little setbacks mar my enjoyment.  The terrain was really wide open so I could still see the main road from a few miles out.  We are required to camp ‘out of site' from the road, but I will have to find a good spot to keep from sight distance from the road. 

I hiked through a nice lowland area with a clear stream.  It takes some planning in Denali to make sure you are hiking to spots with clear streams, as most rivers and streams are filled with glacial silt and are thus a little too muddy for water filtration. 

As I was perusing a spot to possibly set up camp I ran into a group of 6 people, including some noisy kids.  They were obviously NOT in their proper section, since the Toklat unit only allows 5 people total.  I chatted with one of the guys setting up his tent, and I guess they had gotten caught up in the rain the previous night and had wandered down from their proper unit in the highlands down to the Toklat.  No biggie, so I decided that I was going to just ‘go deep' into the valley to get away from those intrusive humans.  Children were the last nonnative species of animal I wanted to encounter out here.

I tried to get some good distance into the valley, and I found a great bluff with a nice green meadow sitting over the top of it.  It had nice views of the entire valley, allowing me to see anything that would come my way.  I consulted my topo map, which showed a clear stream close by.  It was actually sitting 20 ft to the side of the bluff.  What an excellent spot! 

I set up my tent and had a nice dinner.  The ground was really spongy, which was a welcome change from the feet-eating river beds below.  When the sun came low on the horizon it cast it's rays like a spotlight on various areas of the valley.  I just sat with camera in hand marveling at the beauty of the area, and where I was.  It was like a nature's show with an audience of one.  The green hills leading up to the mountains across the valley from me were spectacular in the sunlight.  I sat there for hours just staring.  So much to take in at once. 

Later that night at about midnight I woke up to relieve myself and was surprised to see a large caribou with an impressive rack of antlers casually gnawing on a bush upstream about 100 ft from me.  He saw me with some shock as well.  I tried to appear as non-threatening as possible as I walked parallel to where he was up on the slope above me.  He couldn't take his eyes off of me, but continued.  Then I got too close, so he decided to move on.  The Sun broke through the clouds right as the Caribou crested the meadowed slope to the side of me.  The rays cast light in a bold array of colors on the mountains behind the animal.  These mountains were known for their dramatic light, as they are composed of a variety of colored rocks.  They reflected the light and cast a bright orange shade.  I once again took a seat and just watched the mountains from my position.

In the morning I felt all the aches and pains as I scrambled out of my sleeping bag to put my boots on.  As I tried to need out the soreness I caught something brown and fast moving on my periphery.  It was a small bear, a cub, sprinting across the stream near my tent!!  I wasn't sure what to do.  This little guy, or girl, was moving quickly toward something, and all I could think of was ‘where's momma?'  Across the stream, the mother Grizzly lumbered into view.  She had a gorgeous blonde coat of hair and she was so close I could actually make out the facial features.  She didn't see me at first.  The cub playfully jogged around mom, and dropped down near the stream.  I was afraid that the little guy might accidently get too close then I'll be momma's next meal.  So I stood up calmly.  Momma bear squinted her eyes in my direction in recognition.  I wanted her to know I was there, but I wasn't about to start yelling and waving my arms.  Thank God I had my camera with me all this time!

They obviously were coming down from higher up in the slope to chow down on some soapberries which littered this meadow.  They stayed on the other side of the stream, expertly stripping the bushes of fruit.  The Mother came into view, as if she was going to come over near my tent, but then went the other direction with the cub, and soon they were no longer visible.  I waited an hour or so before cooking anything.

After breakfast, I had the entire day to myself to day hike further into the valley.  I wanted to hike to the glaciers that fed the Toklat River.  The river actually branched into two valleys, one would require me to cross and recross the river to get to.  The other I might be able to bypass crossing by staying up high on the ridge on my side of the valley.  So I chose the latter route.

I was able to find an old game trail sitting steeply on the side of the ridge up over the main branch of the river.  It was definitely for the sheep, narrow and sketchy in many spots.  I was fine till I got to a precarious section of the trail along a loose, rocky slope where it was obvious the trail had washed out.  The trail had just disappeared, though I could see the other end of it about 30 ft over the washout.  I looked upslope to see if there was a possibility of getting up and around to the other side.  It didn't look very good, and this wasn't the type of terrain to go screwing around, there wasn't anything downslope to slow me down if I fell.  I would slide straight off a small bluff into the deep portion of the river.

If I went back and dropped down to the valley I knew it was unlikely that I would be able to ford across the river, it was just too deep and fast.  I didn't have anyone to call help if I slipped.  I could tell there were a couple of footsteps in the washout section where it looked like some of the sheep may have gotten across.  I figured I outweighed the heaviest dall sheep by a good 80 lbs, so it was a gamble to see if the loose rocks would stay put under my weight.  I figured I would take it slow, make sure that the rocks would hold me and pace myself across.  It didn't help that the first foothold required me to stretch my body just to get to it.  I got in the middle of the slope, realized that every foothold and handhold was on rocks that shuffled down at the tiniest bit of movement, took a long breathe in and out.  I decided looking down wasn't helping my confidence, so I centered on where I needed to go and just advanced.  Finally I got to the trail on the other side.  Pheww!!  Now how am I going to get back across that washout?

The route slowly descended back down to the valley and the river snaked away from the ridge, so I was able to drop down and walk on river beds the rest of the way.  There were some gorgeous dropping waterfalls in the mountains along the way.  I saw a shining glint of light high up on a ridge and fought the urge to scramble up and take a closer look. 

Enormous hanging glaciers steadily came into view and I was snapping away with my camera like Ansel Adams on steroids.  It was like finding some gold at the end of the rainbow.  I was so glad I kept going, none of these glaciers were visible from the main valley where my tent was, and I didn't expect to see all of this here.

I got really close to a few Dall Sheep, but I was in the midst of trying to ford waist deep water and by the time I got across the stream, if you can call it that, the Sheep had moved to higher ground.  I am sure my yelling obscenities at having tripped on a wet rock gave them all the warning they needed to take off.

Before I knew it I was ON a glacier, which I didn't realize due to all the rock and rubble that sits on it.  I saw that the river was fed at the base of an enormous fingerlike glacier projecting itself into the valley.  The exposed portion of the glacier was still another mile ahead and it didn't look like there was a safe route to get there.  The main river was fed by three rivers that came spewing out of three natural ice caves situation below the glacier.  The portion I was standing on had a very large ice cave underneath where the main body of water ran through. 

I scrambled over a portion where I was situation directly above the outlet to the three ice caves and realized I could go no further.  You get a good idea on how a glacier moves all the debris down a valley just by hanging out here for a while.  I spied exposed sections of glacier and the debris periodically slid down the sides in huge chunks.

You could hear the sound of avalanches revertebrate off the sides of the mountain periodically.  I made my way back down the glacier and headed back to the campsite, still nervous about making it across the washout.  I was relieved to get back across safely.

I spotted a group of Dall Sheep up on a ridge on the way back.  It's impressive how high they can get up on these ridges, and they go straight up if you watch them.  Then they park themselves on any old steep ledge, mostly on the ones that have a little vegetation.

It was late by the time I got to my tent, and the Caribou was once again in the meadow, only this time he was about 20 ft adjacent to my tent.  He even let me get about 10 ft from him.  I guess he sensed that I was no threat from the other night.  I was snapping away with my camera.  I walked slowly around him to get the beautiful mountains in the background.  His rack of antlers were large and fully grown, with velvet covering it's exterior.  I was watching him for what seemed like hours before he finally walked up the ridge out of sight.  I could tell those antlers must have weighed a ton as he had to pull his head up and balance it on his head when he walked.
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That night I woke up again at about midnight and figured gazing at the amazing scenery would be my new nightly ritual from here on out.  It was really hard to sleep with so much daylight late in the evening, and I wouldn't get a view like this in a while.   

The next day I got my gear together and dropped down to the valley for the trek back.  I decided to take a shortcut to the road that one of the Park Rangers had suggested.  It took some serious uphill bushwhacking, but I finally found a game trail up to the road. 

I dropped my pack, waiting for the Camper Bus to pick me up for the 2nd leg of to Mt. Eielson.