Overnight backpacking trip in Denali National Park

Now that we are getting settled into our next area of Alaska I finally have some time to post some of our adventures from our time spent in the interior of Alaska.

During the last couple days at camp, Lucas, Jerrod (another employee we worked with) and I had the great idea to go on one last overnight backpacking trip. With the weather starting to get colder and waking up to frost and slight flurries we decide, what the heck, lets try out our winter gear. So on September 17 we stuff our backpacks with all the essential gear and head off into Denali National Park.

The trail that we mapped out for our 1 night excursion was called Triple Lakes Trail, which is about a 9 mile trail that goes beside 3 lakes in the park, go figure right? 🙂

After about 6 miles we finally found a camping spot that was decent enough to unload for the night, we hung up our hammocks and started heating up dinner over the cookstoves (sadly we weren’t allowed to have a campfire in the park.) As it started getting dark we hear this voice in the background saying “Hey Bear!” (its what they tell you to say as your hiking, especially alone to let the bears hear you coming) and as we look around we see this light bobbing up and down above us on the trail making its way down to us. About 10 minutes later we meet Matthew from San Jose, California, who was hiking the trail solo. He ended up spending the night with us down near one of the lakes, and was great company for the night and following morning. It was nice to meet someone else on the trail and hear about there travels and where they are heading next.

The trip was awesome, and such a great way to end our time in Denali.  Although there will be other backpacking trips, this one will always be one to remember.