Adventure in Denali, Alaska

I always think what Alaska is to the U.S is what Tibet is to China. It’s more like a ritual thing than just regular sightseeing, so there are more preparations involved before this trip. During Spring break this year, 3 of my friends and I flew 8 hours to Anchorage.

The main reason why we were in Alaska is Denali National Park, although, at this time of the year, most of the park is closed due to the weather condition. But that is exactly what we want: fewer tourists! To be honest, I never thought that there were so many tourists coming from China and Japan when we first got out of the plane. There are signs and all kinds of tourism leaflets written in Chinese and Japanese in the airport which I have never seen in any other airports in the U.S. We’ve come to Alaska to escape from the people surrounding in our lives not to join another group of crowded people. With that in mind, we then flew from Anchorage to Fairbanks and drove to Denali.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

– Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken” (1951)

“Water?” “Check!” “Energy bar?” “Check!” “Batteries?” “Check!” … With all the food and gears in our bags, we put on our snowshoes and started walking to Mt. Healy (At least we thought it was. It was really hard to tell with all the heavy snow covered and no map and GPS signal.)

Just as we expected, no one was walking on the trail to Mt. Healy at this temperature. As I walked and climbed the mountain, I started to sweat, but once I stopped to catch a breath and drank some water, all the warmth was gone and the sweat on my back became freezingly cold. When I was on the 2/3 way to the top of the mountain, the water in my plastic bottle has become totally ice and I was thirsty as hell so I have to put the freezing bottle inside my clothes to heat up the ice. It may sound painful from what I just wrote, but, trust me, the view you get on the road is totally worth it.