Day 8 - 10: July 11-13th
Denali
Spent the
night in a campground just north of Healy. Woke up and headed into
the park to sign up for our backcountry permits. After seeing what
was available, we chose Area 7 for two nights with a first night at
Wonder Lake.
Luckily, our original plan was unavailable because, as it turns out,
we probably would have died of exhaustion. Instead of what was listed
as a demanding loop with a several passes, we opted for an "easy"
river walk up the East Fork of the Toklat River.
We took the camper bus into Wonder Lake Where wind and hot weather
kept the mosquitoes down. We hike about half of the McKinley Bar Trail
until the wind stopped and the mosquitoes came out in force. They
seem to find Tim especially palatable.
Got back, ate and Tim's nose started to bleed (insert story here
when we come up with it.)
Next morning, took the camper bus back to our back country unit and
headed out into the great outdoors.
One hour later, pain is intense, we are short of water, my pants
are ripped. Tim has already decided this is not his cup of tea. (Read
Bill Bryson's "A Walk in the Woods" for a more wordy explanation,)
After some faulty map reading which lead us to believe
that global 
warming
had melted the glacier we were heading for we see our first bear.
In honor or Timothy Treadwell, we name him snoogums. He is a good
bear as stays to the far side of the valley and works his way away
from us.
We "sleep" in a windy gravel bed in the river.
The next day we walk up the rest of the valley and find that the
glacier still exists, just several more miles up the valley. Apparently
we didn't get as far as we thought we had.
Also realize that our original plan would have killed us. Several
Caribou walk passed our camps or meal sites during the hike and we
see lots of dall sheep on the hills above. Lots of Caribou and some
wolf and bear tracks around.
We
climb up the valley to the glacier then head back. There are no trees
so we search our willows that are at least four feet high for shade.
Temperatures are in the nineties and everything is very dry. As we
are setting up our tent for the night we see two more bears on the
hillside above us, a sow and a cub.We name them Pudding and Pie and
they work their way over the ridge. Our tent was set up between a
pile of bear dung and some bear prints in the sand.
The next morning we hiked the rest of the way out and crawled up
a hill to wait for the bus for an hour.
<<Day 7
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