After four summers and one winter we finally spent our first night backcountry camping in Denali NP. We have never been able to in the past because of the Boss dog, which is ok because there are plenty of other places to hike and camp, but it's interesting that our first time was in the winter. The park road is not plowed in the winter and there are no motorized machines allowed, so the only way to travel is on snowshoes, skis, or by dog team. The park service still patrols the park by dog team which I think is very cool. So, after leaving Boss with the cousins for a couple of days we set off on foot with snowshoes and had a humble experience of winter camping in Denali NP. All went well, even the torturing thigh deep sugar snow, until day two when Andrew turned around and pointed out that one side of my nose was white (the first stage of frostbite!). We headed back to camp and my nose returned to the normal red color of cold, wind burned skin. Not long after that we decided the weather wasn't in our favor and hiked back to the car. Here's a few pictures we took while in the park.
The wind scoured park road that we hiked in on until we came to the drainage that we wanted to follow up to the ridge.
Stopping for a snack while hiking up a ridge. The temp was barely below zero with a steady 15 mph wind and gusts up to 30 mph bringing the wind chill to nearly minus thirty degrees!
Me, on the way out coming down the trail we broke up to our campsite.