Alaska, Beautifully Untamed.

With the amount of airtime we spent traveling, you would’ve thought we were traveling to another country.

Little did I know in the lead-up to stepping foot in Alaska, we kind of were.

We’ve all looked at maps of the United States, our eyes - almost as an afterthought - trailing north to the state of Alaska, what some call “the last frontier.” We never hear much about the state, as they typically don’t bring much attention to themselves. It spends most of it’s months below freezing and also finds itself a couple of weeks a year plunged into either total, day-consuming darkness or bright, never-ending sunlight.

And while it is indeed one of the fifty states that make up our union, I was surprised with how little I actually knew about it. For instance, that residents get a stipend every year just for living there. Or that combined, spring and summer typically only last from the beginning of May to mid-part of September. Or that there are no state sales or income taxes. Or that the total population of the state doesn’t even top one million.

I didn’t know quite as much as I should’ve about the struggles of the indigenous people who once lived there, their stories strikingly similar to those who were the first to live in our own continental states. I found myself impressed with what it takes to survive winter and the tremendous preparation it takes to make such survival a reality.

And I found the people to be some of the nicest I’ve met thus far in any of my travels.

So yes, Alaska is indeed a part of the United States. Yet with how little I knew of it, it’s distance from the big city of Washington, DC, and the long, bitterly cold months of winter, at times it still seems as though it really isn’t a part of this country.

But it is. In fact, the character of those who live there - their resilience, grit, and wholehearted resolve to survive in a climate and region of the country most would never consider living themselves may just paint the greatest picture of what it means to be an American.

To be isolated, yet finding confidence in the act of the survival. To plummet into the depths of winter’s long cold months and somehow finding warmth in the simplest of life’s pleasures. To be surrounded by uninhabited land for as far as the eye can see, yet still finding a way to appreciate the wonders of the world that surround them.

And while it’s possible that the otherworldly climate and location of such a great state jaded me into thinking of those who live there as, yes, otherworldly, I also believe you won’t ever know until you see for yourself.

To be dropped off by a bus in the middle of millions of acres of protected wilderness, knowing it’s just you and the wildlife which surround you.

To taste for yourself the fresh salmon, pulled right out of the crystal clear glacier water.

To experience a sun that never sets - bathing you in a warm, orange glow from the moment you close your eyes at night to the moment you wake up.

I’ve seen and traveled to quite a number of places these past two years. But none compare to Alaska.

It may just have been my greatest adventure yet.

DAY 1

We landed at the Fairbanks International Airport just after 8PM, myself having endured two layovers, Rhett just the one. And while I was tired as I always am after a day of being stuck in a plane, I also had the familiar feelings of exhilaration of being in a new place. The sun was still halfway in the sky, the temperatures on the cooler side, a brisk sixty-two degrees. We got into our rental car, stopped at a local REI store to grab some last-minute supplies (for obvious reasons, bear spray and liquid propane for our water boiler weren’t allowed on the flight) and set off for Denali National Park, about a two and a half hour drive away.

The first thing that took some getting used to was the road system. The actual system isn’t different in the way that it operates when compared to the continental states, it’s just the fact that there really aren’t many roads.

Like, at all.

The area of the state we landed in, which includes Fairbanks, Anchorage, and Denali is the only real part of the state that’s connected by any organized set of roads. The majority of the rest of the state you have to get to by either water or air, more commonly by bush plane.

The sights we saw on our way to Denali, while incredible, were only a small taste of what we’d see when actually in the park.We stopped for the night at a campground situated at the very start of the park called Riley Creek. It’s one of the few places in the park where vehicles that aren’t operated by national park staff (i.e. bus drivers, rangers, etc) are allowed to drive.

Our interactions with the Alaskan wildlife started off early enough as we passed a moose on our way to campsite that was grazing on some trees.Let me tell you, they’re massive.

It all made sense to me why the lady who gave us the information and keys to our rental car made sure to highlight the number for a towing company.

“You’ll definitely need to call these guys if you hit a moose,” she said.

Seeing one in person, I could see why.

DAY 2

Having successfully tested out the tent that night, it was time to test out the meals we were going to be eating the majority of the rest of the week. In Denali, you're not allowed to have open campfires. That being said, you have to find other ways of heating up your food. We used a jet boiler to help with boiling water and purchased all the dehydrated meals we could possibly need before leaving.

Having eaten dehydrated foods before then, my experiences had always been less than desirable. So to say that I was a little bit nervous about our food situation would be a bit of an understatement.

But our breakfast that morning of biscuits and gravy - in addition to the rest of our meals for the week - couldn’t have been tastier and packed with all the protein needed to keep us going. Never did we walk away from a meal still feeling hungry or that we hadn’t eaten enough. I hope to write another post soon where I talk about all the supplies we packed, food included. I ate better on the trip than I sometimes do at home…

We set out for a ranger station close to the campground where we were hoping to talk with some rangers about what we should consider doing the rest of the week. Our original plan had been to hike a trail in Denali State Park - not the national park - and hike a mountain range called Kesuji Range. But the more people we talked to, the more we realized that not many people knew about it, which is always something to be nervous about when traveling to a new place.

After getting to the ranger station and talking with one of the rangers at length about what our options were, she asked what our hesitation was with unit hiking, where you hike in one of the many units throughout the park without the use of trails, also known as trail-less hiking. This had been something we considered prior to leaving for the trip, but Rhett and I had both agreed that since this was one of our first big hiking trips that we should take it easy and not go over the rails with the amount of hiking we’d do.

When we told her our hesitations, she told us there’s no pressure to stay out in whatever unit we’re assigned for the length of time that we originally sign up for. So if we were to sign up for a four-day pass, there’s nothing saying we couldn’t end our trip earlier than that and come back if we ran into any problems.

The longer we talked with her, the better impression we got that she was really trying to convince us to take a leap of faith and go for it. And the longer we talked, the more I wanted to.

To give you some background on unit hiking, there are some forty units throughout the park, each of which you’re able to hike during the summer months. In each unit, only a certain number of people are allowed to hike at any given time. For the unit that we selected, there were only six permits available for any given day. On the day that your permit is set to begin, you board a shuttle bus that takes you into the park and are dropped off once you get to that unit.

To reiterate, unit hiking is also trail-less hiking, which means there are no marked trails. This means that once you’re dropped off, you’re set to pretty much go wherever your heart so desires, so long as there’s a physical way in which do so, which is much easier said than done.

I’ll talk more about that later.

After having some of our fears relieved, we decided to go for it. Asking her what unit might be the best for those doing it for the first time, she told us unit ten is one which offers stunning views of Denali itself and which navigating isn’t hard to do. Being a twelve by five mile area, there would be plenty of hiking for us to do over the following four days.We were required to watch an informational video about interacting (or lack thereof) with wildlife if we encountered any, how to store our food to prevent bears from wandering into camp, and basic navigation and survival information. We were given a bear resistant container (BRC) to store our food in to keep it safe from bears. After that, we were set to go, purchasing a bus ticket for the next morning to take us to the unit.

We went to bed that night unsure of whether we had made the right decision or not, though ready to actually take it on.

Little did we know the incredible experiences we were about to encounter.

DAY 3

The big day.

We boarded our bus around 9AM and set out for our unit. In Denali National Park, regular vehicles aren’t allowed to drive down the main road. Past a certain point at the very beginning of the park, the only way to get in is by shuttle bus. This also means that there’s only one road in and one out. As we rode along, we took in the wide range of Alaskan scenery that one typically sees only in photographs. Wooded areas with pine trees as vibrantly green you could imagine, snow capped mountains stretching high above into the clouds above, glacial rivers running through valleys that never seemed to end.

We also got to see some wildlife, including a fair amount of caribou and dall sheep.

Interesting facts about the park were doled out by our shuttle bus driver at regular intervals, things such as the National Park Service using dog sleds throughout the winter months for transportation. Or that the park stretches to 6 million acres. Or that during that weekend we were in the park, there were a few hundred people on Mount Denali itself attempting to reach the summit.

The start of our unit was conveniently located at a rest stop that marked the halfway point of the road leading into the center of the park. Starting at a river called the Toklat River, we cinched our bags up, tightened our boot laces, and said farewell to the last humans we’d be seeing for the next few days.

Setting off on a riverbed that led into the heart of the unit, we watched as our bus turned around and set off the way we had come. Turning to Rhett, the look on both of our faces said it all:

This is really happening.

But how excited we were. It didn’t take long before we started noticing signs of wildlife everywhere. Like, irrefutable signs – bear prints, wolf prints, you name it.

We weren’t in civilized society anymore.

We ended that day on a bit of a more frustrating note, having been unable to find a point where we could safely cross the Toklat River to the other side of the basin, the side which we had been told is better to hike. And just as we were about to call it quits and settle in for the night, lo-and-behold we came across some human faces – a couple from Australia also on their first unit hiking adventure. They had been having the same challenges as us with crossing the river, so we knew we weren’t alone.

And while it was a bit of a frustration, that’s also the beauty of trail-less hiking. You have no way of knowing whether the “path” you’re on is one which will get you to where you hypothetically think you’re going. It forces you to use gut and instinct when making a decision, in which many times it’s the wrong one.

We settled in for the night halfway up a mountain with stunning views of the valley below us. While we weren’t sure what our plans the next day would be, I had no doubt the adventure they’d entail.

DAY 4

Anyone who knows me knows that I cannot start my day without a cup of coffee. In my opinion, it’s a law similar to manslaughter which should never be broken. And on those days where I don’t get said morning coffee, innocent bystanders often pay the price.

That being said, I typically woke up earlier than my counterpart each morning, allowing me the time to get some coffee into my system and to read some of the magazines, newspapers, and books I had brought with me.

It was honestly one of my favorite parts of the week, being able to wake up each morning with stunning mountain scenery around me, reading the things I love all the while sipping on a warm cup of coffee. The weather was typically cooler, forty’s-to-fifty’s, so I stay bundled up all the while.

Shortly after packing up camp and eating breakfast, we hiked to the top of the mountain we had camped on. On our way down the mountain we saw some blonde-ish looking animals at the bottom of it, maybe three hundred yards off. Pulling out our binoculars, they weren’t just any animals.

They were grizzlies.

*insert dramatic music here*

Okay, so it really wasn’t that exciting. Sure, it was cool to see bears from a distance and watch them in their natural habitat. But after about an hour of watching them, I think we were more annoyed with them than anything else. We couldn’t go anywhere else on the mountain except down, and we were quickly running out of water. We wanted to wait until they got downstream a bit more (much further away from us), before making the leap of faith of going to the riverbed they had just been at.

After we were sure they were far enough way, we clambered on down the rest of the mountain through brush and thicket, all the while talking fairly loudly to warn them we were coming through.

I lost count of the amount of times throughout the week in which I shouted, “HEY BEAR, COMING THROUGH.”

Getting to the riverbed, we made the decision to cross at the next portion of river that there was even the slimmest possibility of us being able to successfully traverse. There was no way I was going to be on the same side of the river as the bears were, and I was also hoping to get to the other side of the river to where there was said to be more hiking.

We eventually came across a portion of river that proved most likely to allow us across and did the damn thing. Halfway across, with the current pushing against us and nearly knocking us off our feet, we said “to hell with it” and kept pushing forward. We got to the other side, thankful that our adventure of bears and river crossings for the day hadn’t been more than we could handle.

DAY 5

Our last day in the unit.

We had hiked far enough into it to where we were starting to get to portions of the unit where there were actual glaciers that you could hike. Having expended our fair share of adventure up until that point, we decided we probably shouldn’t push our luck with glacier hiking, a form of hiking that takes years of practice and which should be done with extreme caution.

So we decided instead to pick a mountain – any mountain that surrounded us and mount the summit. The one that we settled on was around 5,500 feet, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but is.

Trust me.

The thing about the mountains in our unit was that the terrain varied so greatly from one part to another. At the lower area of various mountains, you’d be hiking on what’s called lichen, a form of plant that’s almost like a sponge, cushioning your steps as you walk along. And then halfway up the mountain, you’d be on a rock scramble, looking below you as you’d slide backwards with misplaced steps, wondering if you’d soon be tumbling down the mountainside.

Higher and higher we climbed, our breath catching in the cold air, cold glacier-frozen air swirling around us, the tips of mountains in the units around us peaking up from behind those which surrounded us, making our family of mountains that had encircled us all that week a community of mountains instead.

And while we didn’t get to the top of the mountain (it wouldn’t have been safe without equipment to correctly and safely rock climb), we got just high enough to where we saw Denali herself, rising out of the landscape like no other mountain around her. High enough to where clouds obscured the top, it’s elevation about matched the feeling of elation we felt being on the side of an incredible mountain in a landscape which pictures could do no justice.

We sat there for an hour or so looking out at the fantastic panorama that surrounded us.

By far my best memory of the trip.

Scaling back down the mountain just in time to our camp, a thunderstorm forced us to spend the rest of the day in our tent, listening to old school country music and reminiscing about the best parts of that week.

There certainly could’ve been worse ways to end the trip.

DAY 6

Waking up early that morning, we started our long trek back to the road that we had left behind just a few days before. Getting closer to the road and seeing busses passing, we thought we were in the clear and that no more challenges stood before us.

Except that Denali had one more trick up her sleeve for us.Another river-crossing

*insert eye-roll here*

By then we were pros, having done it once before. Donning our waterproof gear, we trekked across it without any problems, boarded the next bus that passed, and were on our way back to the main entrance of the park in no time.

In the time spent waiting for the next bus, a woman who was on a guided tour who was waiting for her own bus to leave caught sight of us, bedraggled looking, unshaven, with dirt-stained clothes. We likely looked like a couple of hobos.

“Were you out there hiking?” she asked, thumb pointing back behind her towards the unit we had just spent the past four days in.

“We sure were,” I said, telling her some of the things we had seen and experienced.

She shook her head a little bit, and muttered, “what, are you crazy?”I laughed. Maybe we were a little bit, pitting our own sense of adventure against the wild, untamed nature that surrounded us. But I like to think we fared well, learning plenty of lessons, but also seeing the things we could accomplish if we only put our minds to it.

Bidding us goodbye, she started walking away, but not before turning around and calling out to us, “And one more thing: Don’t forget to call your mother!”

You better believe that’s the first thing we did once we got back within range of cell service.

The rest of the trip passed easily enough. We loaded up on ice cream, Doritos and cheap beer for our last night in celebration of our accomplishment and waited for the next day when our flight would leave.

And all the while as we drove out of the park the next morning, the wild Alaskan landscape passing us by, I couldn’t help but think how more people need to see this wild side of America. The pure and utterly majestic beauty of it all.

Because in all of the travel which I’ve managed to accomplish in the past couple years, Alaska was the place in which I felt most alive, noting my mortality and how my days really are finite.

The world that surrounds is enormous. But given the opportunity, it can be yours to see.

Don’t let it slip by you.