- Joined
- Dec 5, 2017
- Messages
- 1,397
July 26-29, 2026
After last summer's trip to Alaska, we knew we wanted to go back and arranged to do another guided trip in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. That ended up being incredible and will eventually be a Part 2 post. Beforehand, we spent 3 nights along the Kesugi Ridge Trail in Denali State Park, which is on the other side of the valley from the national park and about 40 miles from Denali. I had wanted to do a Denali trip and was looking at the map and noticed the state park, which I had never heard of. A few google search clicks later, I had learned about Kesugi Ridge (on trail, about 30 miles if you do the route we did) and figured we could do it without a guide, which was correct. I really wanted to see Denali and hoped that 4 days would provide some views, but in the week leading up to the trip the forecast was bad - lots of rain. I was bummed. Well, we got incredibly lucky with only 1 wet day. The rest of the time was spectacular! On Days 1 and 4, we had terrific views of Denali for hours at a time and I was thrilled. I have learned that I do not know (yet) how to photograph beautiful scenes way off in the distance. Most of the pictures of Denali and the Alaska Range are zoomed and cropped a lot, since the non-zoomed/cropped photos barely show the majesty. Everything in Alaska is BIG!
Auspicious start: On the drive from Anchorage, we had great views of Denali - The Great One - off in the distance.
We drove to Byers Lake, left our car there, and got shuttled to our trailhead at Little Coal Creek. We went up through the woods, but after not very long - perhaps 40 minutes - we were already getting views of Denali and the Alaska Range behind us.
It had rained for 2 straight weeks prior to our arrival. The ground was wet, wet, wet. Kesugi Ridge could have been named KeSoggy Ridge.
This berry is from the same kind of plant as the pink flower I saw later on (below).
It was thrilling to get up on the ridge and have such great views of Denali and other peaks in the beautiful Alaska Range. With the evening sun behind the mountains in the western sky, the lighting wasn't great. But that was ok - we were seeing The Great One!
Rocks here, rocks there, lots of rocks were everywhere.
I had never seen this flower before. And I think I only saw it this one time.
Lots of water and mud to either cross or go around
We saw no bears on this part of our Alaska adventure. But lots of ground squirrels!
Looking north
8:28pm
9:13pm - at our 1st night camp
These pretty flowers were tiny and didn't want to let me get a clear picture.
This flower is from the same kind of plant as the red berry above, but it was at higher altitude and therefore earlier in its life cycle.
Such beautiful red leaves
Beautiful water source near camp
10:28pm
10:40pm
11:00pm - time to get in bed!
We knew that the forecast for Day 2 was full of rain, so we decided to get up early in hopes of packing up dry. Here's the northeastern sky at 5:36am.
8:15am - We were on trail and the clouds were coming close.
It rained on and off for 24 hours. Thank goodness it didn't pour, but we definitely got wet.
The boards were intended to be helpful, but with all that water and mud they often were submerged.
After we passed the Ermine Hill trail junction, there were a bunch of really interesting rocks (granite, I think) and a lovely little pool. (Interestingly enough, when we got home I watched a few videos of this route that I had previously watched when planning the trip, and the pool didn't exist in any of those. I decided the pool was a silver lining to make up for our rainy day and all the mud we slogged through.) We decided to camp in this area, which proved to be a good choice as it would have taken hours to get to a decent campsite if we had pushed on. The rain let up for a little while, so we set up tents as quickly as we could. Then the rain started up again and we took refuge in the tents. When the rain let up, we ventured out to eat, but it started raining again so dinner just ended up being a handful of nuts shoved in as quickly as possible. Early bedtime. The next morning, we took our time getting up and were glad to see the clouds lifting. We explored the rocks while letting things dry out a bit and then packed up.
So nice to see blue sky again.
We set out around noon, going through these gates.
We needed to go down, down, down to the valley below, and then back up, up, up.
Going down, the woods were pretty but much more challenging than we expected. The wet, muddy ground was very slippery and it was quite steep in some spots.
We saw this pile of scat but didn't see any moose on the whole trip.
Did I say it was wet?
Yuck
Dinnertime for the flies at Cow Parsnip Cafe
False Hellebore flowers
Fireweed - at lower elevation. (On the 2nd part of our trip, we frequently saw dwarf fireweed, but not this regular tall variety.)
Skinny Lake
3rd night campsite - Denali is somewhere behind those clouds...
4:29 am - Final morning - I wasn't sleeping very well and decided to poke my head out of the tent and see if there was anything to look at. When I saw this, I'm sure I gasped aloud. I pulled on my shoes, grabbed my bear spray and phone, and ran around taking photos for awhile. Exhilarating.
4:35am - When I turned in this direction, I gasped again. The moon was glowing orange. I kept turning back and forth between the moon and the mountains to watch the changes as sunrise approached.
4:36am
4:50am - first light hits the top of Denali and turns the snow pink - just perfect (Too bad I didn't manage to get a crisp, clear picture. Oh well.)
It was a full moon, so as the sun rose the moon slipped below the horizon.
4:51am - A few other parts started turning pink
4:59am - It was around this time that I realized I should wake up my husband and our friend so they could enjoy the show, too.
5:19am
5:25am
5:57am
6:31am - blinding sunlight!
Famous reflection shots of Denali are from Wonder Lake inside the national park. I'm guessing lots of photographers were there snapping away and getting stunning pictures. We had this all to ourselves.
7:37am - Our friend took this fabulous picture. It's a bit misleading, as one might think we were very close to the mountain rather than 40 miles away. But I love it!
After gawking at the view for awhile, we eventually packed up and had a beautiful hike along the rest of the ridge and then down to Byers Lake. We had Denali views for hours, and I was grinning with delight the whole time. Watching the color, lighting, and clouds change throughout the day was just incredible. We were so lucky!
Pretty good spot for a rest break
Devil's Club - not easy to get around in the muddy trail through the woods.
All done. We drove back to Anchorage to have a rest day and get ready for Part 2...
After last summer's trip to Alaska, we knew we wanted to go back and arranged to do another guided trip in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. That ended up being incredible and will eventually be a Part 2 post. Beforehand, we spent 3 nights along the Kesugi Ridge Trail in Denali State Park, which is on the other side of the valley from the national park and about 40 miles from Denali. I had wanted to do a Denali trip and was looking at the map and noticed the state park, which I had never heard of. A few google search clicks later, I had learned about Kesugi Ridge (on trail, about 30 miles if you do the route we did) and figured we could do it without a guide, which was correct. I really wanted to see Denali and hoped that 4 days would provide some views, but in the week leading up to the trip the forecast was bad - lots of rain. I was bummed. Well, we got incredibly lucky with only 1 wet day. The rest of the time was spectacular! On Days 1 and 4, we had terrific views of Denali for hours at a time and I was thrilled. I have learned that I do not know (yet) how to photograph beautiful scenes way off in the distance. Most of the pictures of Denali and the Alaska Range are zoomed and cropped a lot, since the non-zoomed/cropped photos barely show the majesty. Everything in Alaska is BIG!
Auspicious start: On the drive from Anchorage, we had great views of Denali - The Great One - off in the distance.
We drove to Byers Lake, left our car there, and got shuttled to our trailhead at Little Coal Creek. We went up through the woods, but after not very long - perhaps 40 minutes - we were already getting views of Denali and the Alaska Range behind us.
It had rained for 2 straight weeks prior to our arrival. The ground was wet, wet, wet. Kesugi Ridge could have been named KeSoggy Ridge.
This berry is from the same kind of plant as the pink flower I saw later on (below).
It was thrilling to get up on the ridge and have such great views of Denali and other peaks in the beautiful Alaska Range. With the evening sun behind the mountains in the western sky, the lighting wasn't great. But that was ok - we were seeing The Great One!
Rocks here, rocks there, lots of rocks were everywhere.
I had never seen this flower before. And I think I only saw it this one time.
Lots of water and mud to either cross or go around
We saw no bears on this part of our Alaska adventure. But lots of ground squirrels!
Looking north
8:28pm
9:13pm - at our 1st night camp
These pretty flowers were tiny and didn't want to let me get a clear picture.
This flower is from the same kind of plant as the red berry above, but it was at higher altitude and therefore earlier in its life cycle.
Such beautiful red leaves
Beautiful water source near camp
10:28pm
10:40pm
11:00pm - time to get in bed!
We knew that the forecast for Day 2 was full of rain, so we decided to get up early in hopes of packing up dry. Here's the northeastern sky at 5:36am.
8:15am - We were on trail and the clouds were coming close.
It rained on and off for 24 hours. Thank goodness it didn't pour, but we definitely got wet.
The boards were intended to be helpful, but with all that water and mud they often were submerged.
After we passed the Ermine Hill trail junction, there were a bunch of really interesting rocks (granite, I think) and a lovely little pool. (Interestingly enough, when we got home I watched a few videos of this route that I had previously watched when planning the trip, and the pool didn't exist in any of those. I decided the pool was a silver lining to make up for our rainy day and all the mud we slogged through.) We decided to camp in this area, which proved to be a good choice as it would have taken hours to get to a decent campsite if we had pushed on. The rain let up for a little while, so we set up tents as quickly as we could. Then the rain started up again and we took refuge in the tents. When the rain let up, we ventured out to eat, but it started raining again so dinner just ended up being a handful of nuts shoved in as quickly as possible. Early bedtime. The next morning, we took our time getting up and were glad to see the clouds lifting. We explored the rocks while letting things dry out a bit and then packed up.
So nice to see blue sky again.
We set out around noon, going through these gates.
We needed to go down, down, down to the valley below, and then back up, up, up.
Going down, the woods were pretty but much more challenging than we expected. The wet, muddy ground was very slippery and it was quite steep in some spots.
We saw this pile of scat but didn't see any moose on the whole trip.
Did I say it was wet?
Yuck
Dinnertime for the flies at Cow Parsnip Cafe
False Hellebore flowers
Fireweed - at lower elevation. (On the 2nd part of our trip, we frequently saw dwarf fireweed, but not this regular tall variety.)
Skinny Lake
3rd night campsite - Denali is somewhere behind those clouds...
4:29 am - Final morning - I wasn't sleeping very well and decided to poke my head out of the tent and see if there was anything to look at. When I saw this, I'm sure I gasped aloud. I pulled on my shoes, grabbed my bear spray and phone, and ran around taking photos for awhile. Exhilarating.
4:35am - When I turned in this direction, I gasped again. The moon was glowing orange. I kept turning back and forth between the moon and the mountains to watch the changes as sunrise approached.
4:36am
4:50am - first light hits the top of Denali and turns the snow pink - just perfect (Too bad I didn't manage to get a crisp, clear picture. Oh well.)
It was a full moon, so as the sun rose the moon slipped below the horizon.
4:51am - A few other parts started turning pink
4:59am - It was around this time that I realized I should wake up my husband and our friend so they could enjoy the show, too.
5:19am
5:25am
5:57am
6:31am - blinding sunlight!
Famous reflection shots of Denali are from Wonder Lake inside the national park. I'm guessing lots of photographers were there snapping away and getting stunning pictures. We had this all to ourselves.
7:37am - Our friend took this fabulous picture. It's a bit misleading, as one might think we were very close to the mountain rather than 40 miles away. But I love it!
After gawking at the view for awhile, we eventually packed up and had a beautiful hike along the rest of the ridge and then down to Byers Lake. We had Denali views for hours, and I was grinning with delight the whole time. Watching the color, lighting, and clouds change throughout the day was just incredible. We were so lucky!
Pretty good spot for a rest break
Devil's Club - not easy to get around in the muddy trail through the woods.
All done. We drove back to Anchorage to have a rest day and get ready for Part 2...
