The July day was clear with sunny, blue skies. About 100 miles away we could see the magnificent, icy peaks of “The Great One” and couldn’t wait to arrive. Bill and I had no intention of trying to scale Mt. McKinley herself, which only a few could attempt, but we eagerly anticipated three days’ camping within Denali National Park and invigorating, long treks to picture-perfect scenic heights. But when we arrived at Teklanika Campground, the great mountain was no longer in sight. The struggling vegetation of the permanently frozen ground was sparse, with only low trees instead of the towering evergreens we had imagined. The places we were allowed to wander were unimpressive, rolling hills, not mountainous at all.
At the Denali Park Visitor Center we had received a two-page caution sheet about wild animals, especially bears. I had fed bears along the highway in Pisgah, North Carolina, as a child in the nineteen-fifties, when rangers hadn’t yet figured out that a “fed bear is a dead bear.” Today I was eager for a new encounter until I read the warnings, and then I was frightened.
The Park Ranger didn’t alleviate my fears when I asked him where we should hike, and he responded, “I can’t say because I have been so busy with bear closures today. ” Not understanding, I said, “You mean sewing up people who were malled?” He replied, “No, closing areas where bears have killed.” Terrified, I asked, “How many tourists were killed?” He laughed and explained that a male bear had killed a cub, so the area had to be closed to hikers because the mother bear would be angry and defensive. With my alarm only a little reduced, we set out for our hike, expecting many other people to be along the way with us. But when the shuttlebus stopped to let us off at a suggested place, no one else disembarked and several muttered, “You’re really brave!”
As the bus pulled away and we realized that no matter what happened, we were on our own for the day in the Wilderness. My imagination soared, and my heart fibrillated. There was no trail except the ambling creek to guide us. Although we followed instructions and called out, “Get out of there, bear!” whenever we couldn’t see what lay ahead, the long adventure was only mildly difficult, almost boring, with just berry bushes and tundra as scenery: No glimpse of the mountain herself, and no big bears, wolves, moose, or wild cats to out-maneuver… in short, no adrenaline rush, no amazing stories to tell, and no great peak which I conquered and could add as another notch in my belt of mountain- trails- to-boast.
Our Denali adventure was turning out to be disappointing, yet it would be scandalous to admit it. I inwardly sulked and wished to be at Mt. Rainier, which had been far more beautiful in my experience. At Rainier we had ascended for hours through fields of wild flowers, watching deer and other timid forest animals. We had made slippery crossings through snow fields and glacial ice, labored up challenging rocky ridges, and trudged exhaustedly through thick, evergreen woods, always with the breathtaking view of her majesty luring us onward and upward, inspiring us when we were exhausted, enabling us to take another, and yet another, step on our arduous hiking adventures.
But Denali is different, as the ancient Athabaskan native people who named her realized, and I think all other deeply moved human beings who come here learn. At the Park Ranger program that night, huddled around the midsummer campfire in cold, silent darkness, I began to understand the wonders of the Denali Wilderness and came to appreciate the world of nature I had seen but never noticed. The ranger taught me how to look with my heart and how to become a part of the wonders surrounding me.
The next day we took the eight-hour shuttlebus tour to Eielson Visitor Center where the view of the mountain is superb on clear days, which occur for only about one-third of the tourists who arrive here. The weather was perfect, so we were hopeful. It was thrilling to watch enormous grizzly bears through binoculars when the bus stopped along the way. Seeing how huge they are, I was gratified not to have met one behind yesterday’s berry bushes! At one place the bus shut down quite a while for a silver wolf to move her seven cubs out of the road to safety.
Animals here are supreme, and people wait. However disappointment greeted us at Eielson where the dense smoke of a forest fire, caused by lightning, obliterated any view of Mt. McKinley. Instead, we took a guided hike to learn of the difficult struggle and amazing adaptations the wild flowers make to the harsh climate and permafrost ground. Enormous caribou watched us as if we were zoo animals.
Returning to the campground we meandered the expansive, braided, stoney trail of the milky-gray glacial melt, finding smooth rocks in vivid colors, red, orange, purple, blue, green. We silently watched a family of ptarmigan fowl, the state bird, perfectly camouflaged in the dry grasses, so that our little schnauzer didn’t even detect them just a few feet away. Denali has many quiet wonders, and her vastness welled up in me, inflating my soul like a helium balloon. And I realized: I didn’t conquer Denali; she conquered me.
She is beautiful beyond words, yet I never saw her. She is too vast, too noble, too high in the clouds and grants only the luckiest intruders a brief sighting. But with my imagination’s eye I saw her breathtaking grandeur, cloaked in eons of snow-pack and blue-green glacial ice, touching proudly the azure sky, commanding rain, or snow for herself alone at whatever peak she desired it, for she creates her own weather. I saw her deep, frightening crevasses, which no being wishes to explore. Mentally, I huddled against her side, crouched to endure her 150 miles-per-hour winds, and watched beneath frost-coated eyelashes the soft snow-drift around me. I mentally wrapped myself in thick, grizzly bear fur from her lap, to protect me against her minus 148 degree nights, and I stretched my hand upward to gather a basketful of nearby stars.
In my mind I climbed her rugged, unforgiving heights to see not a breathtaking view of all below, but thick, wet, whiteout and the shrouded mystery of her peaks which no one can fathom. Yet she showed me a clear view of the mysteries of the universe and of my own soul. I, a little speck in creation, had expected to control and direct my adventures here for my own enteratinment and adventure. But I was given neither entertainment nor control; I was given far more. I was granted a new vision of myself and of the vastness of the Great Universe. I am an arrogant little dust particle in the spectrum of the Cosmos. But Denali spoke to ME!
By her unchangeable stubbornness of not showing herself to my sight, she revealed the great, un-manipulatable power of the Universe. Through not allowing me to conquer her, she forced me to accept my limitations. Yet she awakened me to the unlimited powers of my spirit when aligned with the Great Spirit of nature, which is what we go to the Wilderness to experience. I discovered my spirit is already free, part of this vastness, this untamable Cosmos, so orderly and so immutable to our own little wills.
Denali became a part of me. I entered her Wilderness, and it entered me. I discovered that the neatly laid-out trails of other mountains, (with their guard-rails, board walks, switch backs, steps, warnings, and informative notices, offer thrills for the camera and exercise for the muscles, but Denali’s soft, spongy thickness of tundra, with its beauty so insignificant that one needs a magnifying glass to appreciate it, offers a deeper thrill in the wonder of its very existence and the struggle for life it undergoes daily in the harsh environment. Its beauty is in its life, not in it showiness. I learned that the unmarked trail, without “point of interest” signs, offered the thrill of discovery and accomplishment at every footfall, if I only took the time and observed with awe.
All around me in this Wilderness there were bears, wolves, caribou, moose, and other wild animals I could not see. I had anticipated that they would be waiting for me to photograph them, without a zoom lens, but my camera and I were deprived and disappointed. I discovered that the very anticipation of the wild animals, whom I met only in my mind, gave me a safe passing each time I “saw” them. The rule at Denali is “Leave no traces,” to protect both the hiker and the Wilderness environs. No litter, not a crumb. Why do I not respect this precious earth in such a way everywhere I walk her breast?
I gained respect for the very elusiveness of the large animals, who could subsist on the meager offerings of these tiny plants and could hide themselves so completely in the low bushes. As I watched the birds of Denali’s Wilderness I realized that some of them migrate to my home thousands of miles away, twice each year making the arduous trip we made. But they have no RV full of provisions and no stations along the way with ample replenishment of fuel. These birds endure whatever environment we offer them en route and return faithfully to this incredible place, which is still pristine as new creation. What pollution do we send on their wings and in their bellies?
The Willow Ptarmigan
which resembles a small chicken, is the ALASKA STATE BIRD. It is well camouflaged and shy. In winter it turns white and has feathers on its feet to enable it to walk about on the subzero ground safely.
Whatever we do in our own lifestyles affects this earth, all of it. For it is a total cycle of which we are part:… a powerful part in our destructiveness, for we are the only creatures willing to soil our own home and package our refuse in plastic to be preserved for decades. We are the only creatures who take more than we can use without giving back to this earth. How can we hope to continue life if we only use up our resources?
Denali showed me that everything is part of a great cycle. Why must we continue to be the only harmful part of that cycle? When a mountain shudders, rocks move. Perhaps Gaia shakes off what is not beneficial in this great cycle of existence, which man controls not a whit. As views of the remains of Mt. St. Helena prove, everything could be gone in an instant.
I came to Denali eager for its glorious peaks to thrill my eyes and ennoble my thoughts. I expected tall firs and spruces, and well-worn trails to lead me to the loveliest views. I counted upon being thrilled and entertained at this, one of nature’s most highly-acclaimed attractions. The ticket price had been three weeks’ arduous journey, and the road was long, lonely, bumpy, and not the most beautiful I had ever traveled. In my arrogance I thought Denali owed it to me to be spectacular… After all, I had driven thousands of miles to see her! But she pays no homage.
Now I leave Denali a changed being. I take her vastness with me in my soul. I have received from her the thrill of the Cosmos: the great, almighty , unspeakable power of the Life-force. I learned from her that I am a tiny, insignificant part of the Universe. What a relief! I am not in control!
I can rest and relinquish all fear. I can fit in, not conquer, for truly I cannot control any more than can the great bear I saw roaming peacefully, eating tiny berries. I cannot dominate anymore than can the tiny Arctic ground squirrel who chided me noisily and tried to move me when I lay down beside his little burrow. I cannot change the mighty Universe, nor her Laws of Nature, any more than can the scrubby little trees who have to surrender to the gales they endure.
But I can accept Nature’s great offering as a Trust To Us. I can yield, adapt, bend, fit in, appreciate, and protect. I can peacefully go with the flow and fulfill my tiny part in nature and become a harmonious contributor who lives with respect, awe, and honor for the vastness itself and for the Great Force which created and controls it all.
Real Travel Adventures 