Posts Tagged ‘denali np’

Savage-Sanctuary..

Friday, July 18th, 2014

Last year Tom, Joel, and I floated the classic Savage-Sanctuary loop in Denali NP, and had a great time, though it was super wet. I had been hoping to do that loop again, and finding myself with a Sunday free of commitments, headed to Denali to do it again, with Erica, Heike, Joel, and Tom. In a nutshell, the plan was to do the loop as a ~12 hour day trip, camping at the Denali NP entrance so we could get an early start, driving in to mile 10 or so and parking at the Mountain View trailhead, hiking up Savage River, crossing over to the Sanctuary River, floating to the park road, and hopefully hit the 7pm bus back. The day started out looking a bit wet, but as we drove down the park road to start our trip the rain held off, and we managed to avoid the rain. The hike up Savage River and over to Sanctuary was fantastic – great walking..

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.. Lots of flowers…

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We didn’t see much wildlife, just some birds, including an very irritated raptor/hawk, a few ground squirrels, and a couple of moose seen from the bus and the road. I caught a brief glimps of a caribou as it crossed the stream behind us, but everyone else was a bit too slow to turn around and missed it – and thus was accused of imagining it. We did see lots of remains, though, and the first sheep horn set I have seen in the wild.

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Eventually we reached the Sanctuary River, inflated, and headed back to the park road. The water was fairly high, and we had a huge tail wind blowing us downriver. This section of the Sanctuary River is pretty mellow, with a few rocks, and as we got closer to the road, a tiny bit of wood – pretty mellow for the most part, but nice and scenic.

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I think the total distance was 16 miles of hiking, and 14 miles of floating. We made it out for the 6:30 bus back to the Mountain View trailhead, with ample time to enjoy burgers at the 49th state brewery.

The is a fantastic trip, and highly recommended. We did it as a ~11hour day trip, with a fairly mellow hiking pace, and high and fast water on Sanctuary River. It could take more or less time, depending on water conditions and how fast one walks. It is also possible to do it as an overnight, but it requires a backcountry permit, which is hit and miss. That would be a great option if you don’t mind all the extra work overnighting in Denali entails, and don’t mind doing something else if the units are full up.

A huge thanks to Heike, Tom, Joel, and Erica for making this trip happen, it was fantastic fun!

On a gear note, I snagged a slightly beat up Olympus XZ-1 off ebay, and have been really happy with the images coming off it. It takes the same batteries as my waterproof Olympus point and shoot, is small, lightweight, has a relatively fast lens, and it takes wonderful pictures – yay!

I hope everyone is enjoying a great summer!

Here is map from when I did it in 2013. The hiking is better going up Sanctuary on the west side of the river (river left) – cross over if you can just as you enter the valley, there are great game trails on the west side.

A few more photos can be found

A family bike trip in Denali NP

Saturday, July 2nd, 2011

It seems like every time I go to pick up the twins they feel heavier – they seem to be growing like little weeds. Little weeds who are now big enough to start hauling themselves on trips… and so we found ou selves setting off on a bike tour with the twins on the Denali Park road. I have always enjoyed biking the Denali park road – it is quite scenic, fairly well maintained, and once you get past the first 15 miles the only drivers you encounter are running tour buses. The tour buses always seem to give bikers lots of room and are fairly courteous. Our plans for the weekend were relatively modest – to bike the 30 miles or so into the Teklanika campground, spend the night, then bike back out the next day. The first 15 miles or so are paved and while there are hills, there is nothing tremendously steep so it should be a good introduction to bike touring with the twins.

The twins were very excited about the trip and were very eager to get started and have the adventure begin! After doing all the initial check in and paper work that visits to Denali NP seem to require these days, we started pedaling and were off!

The twins were riding their tag-along bikes , which are sort of a half tandem bike that attaches to the parent’s bike seat post. Nancy and I were hauling the gear in standard panniors, though for such a short trip not much gear is required. We have done bike trips with the twins before, but in those bike trips the twins spent all the bike time in a child hauling trailer – with the tag-alongs the twins could help power us along, as they could now pedal. The pressure was definitely on, because, as Molly pointed out, if they were not pedaling we could tell, as the free wheel makes a clicking noise while freewheeling. Molly and Lizzy are slightly different sizes these days, so they girls each get their own tag-along, and as they are a bit of a pain to swap back and forth, the girls did not swap back and forth between parents. Molly rode with me, and Lizzy with Nancy. The girls were quite good sports, chugging away while we biked up and down the hills on the first several miles of the road. After 7 miles or so a snack break was called and everyone pulled off the road to have a little something to eat. Biking is hard work when your legs are less than a foot long!

Eventually we reached Savage River where the pavement stops and the road is closed to the public. We waited in line with the other vehicles and eventually had our turn to get our passes checked and received permission to continue.

I should point out that we were definitely an oddity – we saw one other biker while biking in, a heavily laden European fellow who looked a bit shocked to see us. I expect passing two five year olds doing a similar bike tour to you makes your experience seem a bit less “epic”. The first section of the park road is open to the public and gets a fair bit of vehicle traffic. The girls had been instructed to wave at the passing cars, and took this to heart, waving to all the buses, RVs, and other random vehicles traveling the roads.

The last 15 miles or so of the of the road from Savage River to the campground we were staying at are on a fairly nice dirt road. When we were there it was in great shape, without a lot of mud, dust, or washboarding. It has some hills but nothing particularly steep, and having the twins help power up the hills was very nice – I could definitely notice when Molly was pedaling.

The riding with kids is a bit slower than with adults, as they are not quite old enough to snack on the bike, and of course need the occasional distraction. We stopped every 7 miles or so for a snack break. The twins got very good at spotting the mile posts along the road.

We also stopped to let them explore anything interesting on the side of the road, like culverts waiting to be installed.

One of our stops was at a pull-off with outhouses that is also used by the tour bus companies. When we arrived there were several buses pulled up and a the tour guide (perhaps color commentator is more appropriate description) was well into giving a talk about life in Alaska. Sometimes I wonder how the tour companies select these folks, as the talk mainly seemed to involve oil tax regimes and was given in a AM radio talk show style a-la Sean Hannity – riveting. The vistors were milling around and since we were doing something interesting like biking with kids and not talking about such exciting subjects like oil taxes a fair number of people came up to say hi and say how impressed they were we were out biking the road. This was fantastic positive reinforcement for the twins, as here real live grownups were saying they could never do this as it would be just too hard. It was also a bit depressing from my point of view, as really this trip was not particularly epic, and almost everyone I saw would have been capable of doing what we were doing, and a fair number of them would probably even enjoy it more than riding in a cramped bus. Such is life.. Eventually we arrived at the campground.

We biked around the two loops that form the campground, found a spot, and unloaded. The twins were very excited as our campsite was surrounded by small spruce with enough understory they could play under them – it was almost like having their own tree houses. They had a great time exploring and were very busy running around and checking things out. Nothing was left unexplored, even a random pile of gravel near a tent site, were they found a rock that could be used to draw on other rocks – exciting stuff!

Eventually we set up our tent and made dinner.

After dinner we joined the other campers and attended a talk put on by an interpretive ranger that included a wide range of subjects and ended with half the audience getting blindfolded and hugging a tree. Lizzy did the honors for us.

After the talk we headed back to our tent and got everyone ready for bed. While we were getting ready one of our campground neighbors who arrived in a large RV came by and talked to us for a bit. She seemed very baffled as to how we could survive the night and asked us “What do you do when it rains?”. She seemed very baffled by our attempts to explain that we had rain gear, and a tent, so rain was no problem. Eventually everyone was ready for bed, but alas sleeping in a tent is a bit exciting, so it took a while for everyone to calm down enough to go to sleep.

It took a while though.

It rained on and off all through the night and was still raining when the morning arrived. The twins were unfazed, as they have rain gear, sandals with plastic bags covering their socks, and rain paints, making them very rain proof.

The biking was quite good on the way out, and a fair bit faster as this section of the road has more downhill overall on the way out. It was a bit more muddy though, which Molly enjoyed, but Lizzy less so due to Nancy’s lack of fenders.

The road was still in good shape though and everyone had fun even with the mud.

When we reached the pavement we started seeing motivational signs and the occasional aid station – it turns out we arrived just before a half marathon was to start.

The last miles on pavement zoomed by, as they are almost entirely down hill. By the time we reached the parking lot everyone had impressive mud stripes.

After visting the bathroom for a little “de-mudding” we headed off to glitter gulch to get some pizza and ice cream. This was a fantastic trip – everyone had a great time even with the wet weather. Our first bike trip where everyone pedaled was a success, which bodes well for future bike trips. There are so many wonderful roads in Alaska to explore and as the kids get bigger I am looking forward to doing some fun bike adventures with them.

Major kudos to Molly and Lizzy for being such troopers!

A Cast of Thousands on Riley Creek

Monday, July 12th, 2010

The king of pack rafters (at least Interior ones), Ed Plumb organized a trip down to Riley Creek near the Denali Park entrance. This creek is very accessible and is rumored to have some nice class II boating with at least one class III drop. It was supposed to be a short 1-2 mile hike followed by a several hour float. Ed recruited a very large posse (13 people total) for this adventure – I guess the short nature of the trip and the potential fun floating made it pretty attractive.

I was unfazed by the unlucky number 13, as my morning coffee was filled with good signs.

After meeting up at Lulu’s we all left town shortly after 9 and were on the trail hiking at a little before 1 in the afternoon.

The hike was fantastic – the trail is in great shape and very fast walking. We had a major train of people –

I was pretty bouncy from the latte and probably annoyed everyone around me with my endless babbling.

Fortunately people shifted around a bit and thus I got to spread my annoyance around.

Eventually we left the trail and dropped down to the creek.

Where we put in on the creek the water was moving moderately fast with more water than I expected – it looked pretty fun.

This creek has quite a bit of character – at the water levels we floated it at there were quite a few nice rocky sections with fun obstacles to maneuver around.

There are a couple of sections where the creek runs along smallish rock walls, but nothing too exciting.

The forum post that spawned this trip, circa 2007, mentioned a rope across the creek near a cable. Well, it turned out that there is still a rope across the creek under a cable, near a foot bridge.

It appeared the rope was used to haul stuff back and forth across the cable, but its seemed that having it dangle just above the water was unnecessary, especially since there is a foot bridge just near by. NPS’s legendary safety paranoia seems to be a bit missing here..

Shortly after the footbridge we encountered the rail road bridge and a brief exciting section. This bit could be a bit tricky – at the water levels we floated it at it was fairly fun and not too tricky. We took out just after the parks highway bridge and made our way back to the cars.

Quite a fun day trip and highly recommended. Its very similar to windy creek, but at the water levels we floated it slightly harder with a few sections that are a bit more challenging. The total time for the hike and float was around 5 hours so it makes for a nice mellow day trip hike-and-float. It was pretty fun to float in such a large group. There was quite a selection of paddles, different sorts of boats, and several generations of spray skirts all of which it was fun to see in action. There was also a wide range of gear folks were taking. One of the pack rafters sported a neat helmet cam made from a gorilla pod and also going super lightweight style with no pack – just strapping his pfd to his life vest – most impressive! Hopefully some of the videos he took will get passed around, as they might make interesting viewing.

More photos here:

Riley Creek Packrafing trip

A short spin on the Denali Park Road

Saturday, May 22nd, 2010

Because of some work day shuffling I ended up with a Wednesday free with nothing to do and decided that it would be a good day to bike a section of the Denali Park road. Wednesday would be the last day of the spring when the public can drive the first 30 miles of the park road, allowing me to skip biking the first 30 miles, which are not quite as interesting as the rest of the road. I left two at 8am, and got to the Denali park entrance a little after 10, and made it to the Teklanika camp-ground at a little after 11.. there was a surprising large amount of traffic on the park road which made travel a bit slow.. I was on my bike at 11:30, and the fun began. The park road is truly a great bike ride – its normally in fairly good shape, the drivers are all very nice, the views are interesting, and occasionally you get to see wildlife up close and personal. This time there was tons of wild life – I saw more wildlife than I expected and in some cases saw it a bit closer than I wanted too. It started off with a fox chasing a hare across the road in front of me.

The next wildlife sighting was a sow bear with two cubs hanging out on some gravel bars on the East Fork of the Toklat River. I spent a bit of time watching them, but quickly lost interest – they were too far away to enjoy and I have seen lots of bears before, so the novelty wore off quickly.

While climbing up the road into Polychrome Pass, I was surprised to see a sheep hanging grazing right next to the road.


Near the top of the pass I encountered a small group of rams hanging out right next to the road, sun bathing.

I spent 15 minutes or so watching them.. they didn’t seem at all traumatized by the traffic on the road or the party of wildlife paparazzi taking pictures of them.

On the way back I had my most interesting animal encounter. While climbing up into Sable Pass I came around a corner and there was a smallish wolf sniffing around a bridge. I watched the wolf for a while, and it either didn’t notice me (the wind was blowing fairly hard at this point and I was down wind of him) or he didn’t care. Once he was finished inspecting and marking the bridge he then headed right at me at a fast trot.. this caused me a fair bit of surprise, as I was expecting it to bolt off as soon as I was noticed – that is what normally happens anyway.

My other wolf encounters had involved me madly digging out my camera while the wolf in question zooms off at great speed after noticing me. In this case the wolf saw me, then apparently decided to run up to me and check me out. Alas this plan was foiled by my surprised high pitched girlish yelp and my quick grap for a nice rock to chuck at it – I am afraid I reverted to my dog defence mode and yelled while grabbing for a rock to bean it with if it got too close. Fortunately the wolf was surprised by my antics and veered off of the road and into the bushes instead of charging me. Which was probably good, as I expect pelting the wildlife with rocks is not approved Denali Park visitor behaviour.

This encounter gave me a nice adrenaline boost and I zoomed up Sable pass and was back at the car much, much faster than I expected – it took about a third of the time to bike out as it did biking in, in part probably due to my picture taking and other goofing off, but it was still quite surprising. I was back in Fairbanks at 7pm.

The park road is a super scenic bike ride. Polychrome Pass is particularly dramatic as the road is cut into the side of the mountains and offers great views.

In some places the the below the road is a un-interrupted steep scree slope dropping of over a thousand feet.. It feels very dramatic.

This is my favourite section of the road, and should not be missed if one is to spend any time biking the park road.

The surface of the park road is all dirt (besides the first 15 miles which are paved) and varies a lot depending on the conditions. There are a fair number of climbs but nothing too difficult – everything is fairly easily climbing in granny gear while spinning. This time the road surface was super dry and a bit dusty, though some of the other times it was pretty muddy – this is obviously weather dependant.

The dust was not too bad though, and the drivers tend to be super nice and slow down so you are not completely dusted out.

On the way out I encountered one of the road hazards of park road – animal caused traffic jams. In this case everyone was queued up to watch some caribou way off in the distance.