Denali National Park 4K (September 2021): Hiking & Packrafting The Toklat River (short-form)

Описание: This day hike is part of a larger 7-Day trip to Denali National Park in September of 2021. This is a short-form day-hike edit of a longer form video.

This chapter see us take the Denali Green Hiker Bus from our home base, at Teklanika, to Sable Pass, the Ghiglione Bridge, Polychrome Pass, The Toklat River, and the surrounding areas.

Once we arrive at the Toklat River we descend into the Toklat River drainage with the intention of trying to make it to the Polychrome Glaciers. These glaciers are about 10 miles into the drainage, and the hike is all off-trail route finding.

It's as wild as hiking can get.

We brought our ice axes, rappelling rope, carabiners, and micro spikes in case we needed to traverse any glaciers. We knew the weather might dictate whether we could make it out there and complete a 20-mile day hike in that terrain... but we were going to give it a go.

It became apparent, fairly quickly, that the decision we chose (to follow the Toklat River braids out to the feet of the distant mountains) was going to be a challenge that a day hike wouldn't afford. We needed to packraft across inaccessible river braids, portage to the next crossing, and so on and so forth. It was too time consuming to allow us to complete our initial goal and make it back to the last Hiker bus at Sable Pass 6pm to take us back to our home base at Teklanika.

Had we missed the last bus, we would be stuck 40 miles into the deep Denali wilderness, with no tents, sleep systems, or shelter of any kind. It was a risk we didn't want to take... and one that we almost put ourselves in ANYWAY!

Regardless, this adventure was probably the most exciting and thrilling of the entire trip. Packrafting adds an element to hiking that cannot be more underrated. It allows you to go to places you otherwise wouldn't normally have access to, it allows you to fish on high alpine lakes, it lets you run whitewater, and it's just straight up fun! Packrafts may be our favorite piece of gear that we've ever purchased... and we have a LOT of gear! And the beauty is that there are ultralight packrafts that basically add nothing to your base-weight. The return on investment is exponential.

You'll see what we mean in this video. There's just a different level of fun that you'll discern. A different intensity of the smiles on our faces. It's palpable.

As for some of the trip logistics, for those who are interested...

Denali only has one road that bisects the Park, and the Park is gigantic! In order to get from one point to another, you must either travel this road… or take a bush plane. At a certain point in The Park (Teklanika Campground), only the Denali-run Green Hiker Buses are allowed on the Parks Road (in order to shuttle visitors in and out of The Park beyond that point). Teklanika is a little more than 30 miles into The Park, on this road. It’s a very difficult campground to secure, for the reason that it’s as far as civilians are allowed to drive into The Park. This makes it extremely popular for visitors. You also need to book Teklanika for at least 3 consecutive nights, due to its high demand.

We were staying in Teklanika at this point. We didn’t have too hard of a time securing a site, as this was the second to last week that visitors are allowed to drive into The Park, on the only road into it. Otherwise, you’d need a dog sled team or a bush plane to take you in.

This trip was fairly spur of the moment for us, and we weren’t sure if we were taking too big of a chance going this late in the season. We could not have been more wrong! The Autumn colors, bluebird days, mild temperatures, and easy hiking was an absolute dream. Not to mention that we basically had the entire Park to ourselves.

We hope you enjoy joining us as we explore this wild and massive wilderness playground. If you did, please consider subscribing, as we will be dropping more content like this regularly. Not to mention that it really helps justify all of the hard work we put into it, to provide you with a little bit of cool entertainment that we hope you enjoy. Thanks!

Love Always and Forever and Ever and Ever,

noBear (specifically Buldo & Evan, on this trip)