06 June 2007

Kesugi Ridge in Denali State Park

for memorial day weekend, Jason and I headed down to Denali State Park to hike Kesugi Ridge...I have to say this was a much nicer way to spend Memorial Day weekend than the Memorial Days of my youth -- the opening of tourist season and shleping pizza or coffee or waiting tables or cleaning rooms, etc etc etc etc.

We drove down, about 3.5 hours south of Fairbanks, on Friday after work and camped out with a beautiful view of the Alaska Range. Saturday morning we prepared our food and packs. We stuffed the bear bin with as much food as possible, and still had some loose to eat. There was some concern about overdoing it with food, but come to find out the two of us can put away quite a lot....! I think the only major leftover was the oats. And some Tastee Bites.

** I am currently soliciting any and all suggestions on good backpacking foods --> high calorie, low weight. We're going out for six days in the Brooks Range in ANWR in July and need some new ideas! **



Day one was beautiful. The trail heads up immediately to the ridgeline, and then follows it for a long ways. We hiked a total of 17 miles, from Little Coal Creek to the Ermine Trailhead.


A leisurely post-lunch tundra nap....


The first night and through most of the second day the weather fluctuated between overcast, raining, hailing, windy and solid snow. Pretty much typical of my experiences on the trail, almost always. I'm just lucky like that, I guess...

It was beautiful, though, and felt kind of hardcore when we were up at this point where it cliffed out on one side quite sharply. Sadly my camera had a streak down the front of it and I had nothing dry to wipe it with on hand...


We camped out the second night near the trail junction with the Ermine Lake trail. The granite rocks and general tundra landscape is incredible. We had a great dinner, hung out on the rocks, watched some Pacific Loons in two separate tundra ponds on either side of our camp, and had a lovely last night on the trail. Monday we hiked out, down an incredible lush trail to the Parks Hwy. We hitched a ride with a very colorful man back to the car at Little Coal Creek. The ride back was rainy but nice.

Overall a fabulous trip - good company and an incredible landscape. You really can't go wrong...

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