If I could go back
If I could go back to a cherished moment in the past, I would choose my backpacking trip last summer to Denali National Park. It all started off as a crazy idea, a thought that some college friends and I have previously discussed over drinks. Us, in the middle of the Alaska wilderness? It felt preposterous! Even if we had all dabbled with backpacking before, the thought seemed like a daydream.
The thing with crazy ideas is that the more we talked about it, the more real it became. Eventually, after we all had graduated college and moved on to different cities, the idea came back. Over months we painstakingly planned the trip and summoned the courage to head out to the wilderness once more.
And then one day in August, just a few days before my birthday, we met up in Anchorage. After grabbing supplies and glaring excitedly at the mountains, we headed up north, and boarded the famed park bus that took us on a long journey into the unknown.
I’ve often wondered, as we drove through the vast expanse of the Alaskan tundra, what is it that draws me to the backcountry? Is it a respite from the humdrum of my daily life? Or is it to chase enchanted views few had seen? As I thought about it, we passed by the gentle rumbling of the Savage River and drove through the slopes of beautiful Polychrome Pass, at times stopping to view the wildlife.
Eventually the park bus came to a stop and we disembarked. We waved goodbye to the driver and felt ready for the start of our wilderness journey, we are now in the Alaskan wilderness, with only our bags in tow.
What is special about an adventure in Denali is that there are no trails. For better or worse, we’re expected to carve our own path. We’ve got nothing but each other, the faint rumbling of our bus far in the horizon, and a whole lot of wildlife.
We were alone, and there’s a long way to go. On our trek over the next few days, we navigated through the bushes and learned how unbelievably difficult it is to walk off-trail. I had a newfound appreciation for trails and the hard work that was put into them. Despite that, we were rewarded with views of bighorn sheep, and occasionally, the great Denali peaking through the clouds.
On the evening of my birthday, my friends surprised me with a birthday cake. Rather, a dehydrated birthday cake powder mix, which really was the next best thing you can get in the backcountry. As I sat there eating the birthday cake, though we all had sore knees and aching feet, though the mountain wind had us shivering in the cold, we laughed. This is the moment I cherish and would go back for.
At the end of it all, as we walked back to the park road and waited for our bus ride out, I thought again. Even if I still don’t know exactly why the wilderness beckons me so much, I know that I wouldn’t go out in the woods without the friends that helped create these memories that I treasure.