What a Day Was Yesterday

Technically, it started with a victory in Chinese Checkers, a midnight snack run, and an unnerving bike ride home through a windy and almost dark night. Then after the quarter to six alarm, a tired shower, making sandwiches and packing snacks enough for two, a phone call to a flaky friend to not surprisingly discover I'll be on my own for the day, I was off on my adventure into the park on the same bike as the night before, down Otto Lake Road towards the highway. At the highway I ditched the bike and began walking in the direction in which the entrance of the park laid thirteen miles down the road, hoping for generosity from the limited number of passing cars. Five bucks later I arrived at the Wilderness Access Center, and reserved my seat on a bus going 90 miles into the park to Kantishna, twelve hours round trip and as far as they let people go.





Our bus was friendly. In the first ten minutes we sighted a grizzly just off of the highway. Throughout the day we saw several more grizzlies, mamas and their cubs and some lone riders, plenty of caribou though none too close up, two beautifully colored red foxes, and one moose with a giant rack. Blueberries grow wild here, and I took time by Wonder Lake to bag some. They're great in oatmeal. There were a couple of backpackers on the bus I talked with and of course became envious of their multi-day adventure they were in store for. I offered to move their car from the day parking to the overnight lot, and they trusted me enough to take me up on it. After handing over their keys, exchanging contact info on old receipts and torn book pages, we said we'd try to meet up at the music festival this weekend as they set off away from the highway and up a mountain.

Mt. McKinley, also goes by Denali, meaning "The Great One"

It was growing late as the bus was on the return trip home, and I wanted to scrape a little bit more out of the day and go explore somewhere. I got dropped off in the general vicinity of Cathedral Mountain, and had roughly two hours to make it back to the highway to catch the last shuttle out of the park. Singing and talking loudly to myself the whole time to notify any nearby animals in hiding that I'm coming, I made my way across a creek, up a steep valley then around a crest and up another vertical stretch to what I thought was the peak. From the top another peak on the other side of a deep canyon was visible, much higher and with a visible trail circling around along ridges and slanted scree slopes to the base of a crazy steep scramble to the top. I had fifteen minutes before I had to turn around and still be comfortable on time. I went for it. Running where I could, being careful where I needed to be. After a few falls and a bloody couple of fingers, I made it to the top twenty minutes later. A quick rest in gusting winds and it was time to turn around, sliding down the rocky slopes, running around the ridges and taking shortcuts I was now aware of. Then what sounded like the shriek of an eagle caught my attention, and I saw two wolverines skirting around on a rock quarry. Wolverines are some of the rarest animals seen in the park, and known to be pretty ferocious, especially for their size. I hesitated for a second, now reminded I was alone out here in this wild place, and took the long way around, singing louder then ever in my anxious hurry back to the road. I made it back into the valley I came up through, except now as I rounded a bend in the mountain in front of me was an enormous mama grizzly and her two cubs, about a hundred yards away and blocking my way back to the road. Encountering a grizzly when hiking is never a good situation, add to it your alone and she's got two cubs with her and you didn't see them until you're a little too close for comfort and its worse. Again I hesitated, then bent low and slowly backed away hoping they hadn't yet noticed me. I backtracked up the valley a bit, climbed over a ridge now separating me from the bears, and, singing and yelling still louder, made my way down to and across the creek and back up to the road. It wasn't long before the next bus came. I let the driver know to look for the grizzlies, and we sat on the side of the highway looking down into the valley I had just come out of. As I listened to a bus full of tourists like myself 'ooohing' and 'ahhing' at the size and beauty of the animals, I sat back and relished in this moment, in this safe seat in a safe bus a safe distance away, in my experience of terrifying adventure that in hindsight is the always best kind.

From the actual top of Cathedral Mountain, just before the real adventure began

I enjoyed meeting more great people on that bus, sharing my stories and hearing what they're up to around here. I found the car I was responsible for and moved it to the appropriate location, accepted a ride to a bar from the grandparents and granddaughter I sat next to for the last few hours of the ride, relaxed with friends over a drink, went and had a hearty half-off burger with a couple of guys I work with, and then back to the house where I gratefully laid down and passed out, exhausted from a day that could not have gone any better.