In pursuit of The Big One

Alaska is a much sought-after destination. Mere mention of the state conjures up thoughts of vast stretches of untamed wilderness and - at least for me - jagged mountain peaks. Our field site doesn't exactly personify that image of Alaska. We work at the edge of Fairbanks, the second largest city in Alaska, at a site where locals take their dogs for a stroll along the Tanana River. There are no mountains. There are no bears. But there are orange-crowned warblers, and that's all that matters.

All that matters for work, that is. But believe it or not grad students do get to have some fun every once in a while, so when our last nest fledged on July 9th we packed up our camping gear and headed straight for the nearest national park - Denali.

Denali National Park is located within the Alaska Range, a mountain chain that is within view of Fairbanks and is only a 2-hr drive to the south. Established in 1917 as a small reserve, the park has since grown to encompass more than 6 million acres of Alaska's interior (roughly the size of Massachusetts). The centerpiece is of course Mt. McKinley - or, as the locals prefer, Denali, a name that means "The Big One" in the native Athabaskan tongue. We were well-warned before getting there that seeing The Big One was not an easy chore - in fact, the mountain is famous for its cloud-cover and only reveals itself once every 3 days during the summer months. Realizing this, my companions had more reasonable goals in mind: more than anything else, Helen wanted to see a long-tailed jaeger and Jongmin wanted to see a grizzly bear. But I still wanted to see the mountain...

We got to Denali in the late afternoon, arranged our trip at the Wilderness Access Center and proceeded to set up camp at the park's entrance. The next morning we awoke bright and early to catch our bus. You see, Denali is unusual in that there is only one road going into the park and there is limited vehicle access on that road. The result is that everyone has to take shuttle buses to and from their destinations within the park. So on the bus we went.

The first hour was exciting. We saw a fox playing with her pups, a caribou grazing along the river, golden eagles soaring through the sky, and....we saw The Big One. It was in the far-off distance and its base was obscured by neighboring mountains, but the cloudless peak was visible and our bus driver kindly stopped for an "insurance photo" in case the mountain went out of sight. We were thankful. The sky was cloudy and the forecast was calling for more of the same. And indeed, partway down the road the mountain did go out of sight behind a thick layer of clouds.

But the bus ride was still exciting. We spent the remainder of our 5½-hr trip winding our way through the tundra landscape, gawking at the surrounding mountains and keeping watch for our next big wildlife sighting. The highlight was seeing a wolf, but I also enjoyed watching Dall sheep navigate over the rocky terrain and a marmot peering out over the riverbed below.

Eventually we reached our destination and unloaded our gear at the Wonder Lake campground. The location boasts one of the best views of Mt. McKinley within the park – one of the primary reasons we were there - but the clouds were holding tight to that secret, so we went on a hike down to the river and later enjoyed a ranger talk about the gold rush of the early 1900s.

The next morning we hopped on a bus and headed back in the direction we had come the previous day. There are only a handful of hiking trails within the park, and instead of taking one of those visitors are encouraged to forge their own trail. So we asked to be left at a spot that we had deemed interesting on the way into the park and set-out on a hike of our own making. It had rained hard the night before and low-lying clouds hung immediately above us, so we had a dark, wet trek through the alpine tundra. But the plants were brilliant. Small and delicate, with flowers of every hue, we had a great time examining the microcosm below us with each passing step. For the first few hours the only wildlife we saw was a lone caribou. But then we had a flash of excitement in and around our lunch spot. First we spotted a family of willow ptarmigan, then a group of 14 caribou grazing on the hillside above. The caribou seemed uneasy with our presence – moving one way, then another – and then quickly moved down-slope just as a grizzly bear appeared out of the mist above them. While we watched the large bear meander across the hillside, two of the caribou came to graze beside us and a long-tailed jaeger took off and kited in the air above. We had chosen a good hike, it was immediately decided, and continued onward, pleased with our day despite the dreary sky.

That night was our last at Wonder Lake, and our last chance to see The Big One from this prime camping spot. I was disappointed to see a wall of clouds when I opened the tent door the next morning, but – amazingly - holes began to appear in that wall shortly thereafter. The clouds first parted in the distance to reveal a 12,000 ft mountain that was astounding in its own right. But then they began to part on Denali itself, and the neighboring peaks were soon dwarfed by the colossal 20,000 ft mountain rising up from the 2,000 ft valley below. Eventually the whole range was clear and the snow-capped peaks glistened in the morning sunlight. I’ve seen some amazing mountains before – I grew up in the Canadian Rockies, for goodness' sake – but this was something special. It was a view I won’t soon forget.


The rest of our day was spent on the bus, stealing views back at Denali as we made our way towards the park entrance. Our time in the national park was over, but thankfully we still had another day to spend in the Alaska Range. We met up with a couple we knew from Fairbanks – Nathan and Kelly - and set off to the east along the Denali Highway. Our goal on the remainder of our trip was simple: to find an arctic warbler.

An Old World species, arctic warblers are dull in appearance but exciting in migratory habit. From their wintering grounds in southeast Asia, some individuals migrate north to breed in the subarctic forests of Eurasia but others travel all the way across the Bering Straight to breed in western and central Alaska. In June and July they can be found in particularly high abundance along the Denali Highway, so we were excited at the prospect of spotting this unique little bird.

That night we set up camp 30 miles down the road, and the next morning we set out to find our bird. The immediate area did not prove fruitful, so we continued to drive until we reached the Susitna River and its surrounding floodplain. It was there that we saw our arctic warbler. It was small and cryptic, hiding in the dense willow thicket, but we saw it and gleefully added this Old World warbler to our respective life lists.

A fitting end to an incredibly successful trip, we crammed back into Nathan’s truck (our rental car is not permitted on unpaved highways) and proceeded to drive back in the direction of the national park. We picked up our car where we had left it and turned north, out of the mountains and back to our cabin in Fairbanks. Our trip had been a short one - only 5 days long - but was the most time we'd had off in the previous 5 months. A nice reward after a long, tiring field season, all of our goals had been accomplished - Helen with the jaeger, Jongmin with the bear, me with the mountain, and all of us with the arctic warbler. A successful trip indeed!

(Note: if interested, you can scroll down the side panel to see a list of birds spotted during the 2008 field season; visitors of the Smithsonian site will need to click here first, then scroll down.)