Well, after a long drive to Talkeetna and an even longer night at a local roadhouse--seems we walked right into a musical fundraiser-- we were finally at the park. The snow cover at the entrance was excellent, and there was lots of it. We went to the winter visitors center and were discouraged to hear from the rangers that only one musher had been west of the Toklat River and he was rewarded for his efforts with broken sled runners from bouncing off rocks. Not good. 
They listened to our plans, we filled out the necessary forms, went over our gear list, and paid our fee. They made it clear to us on more than one occasion that we were completely on our own out there. Having traveled in Denali's back country during winter before I was expecting this frank talk. Its what makes the trip worthwhile; self-reliance. We then spoke with another ranger who had been out mushing recently and she gave us some more info: the trail to Toklat was doable, but beyond that it was questionable at best. She informed us that the mountain passes were barren. We left the center knowing right then and there that Kantishna was completely out of the question, but a round trip attempt to Toklat sounded reasonable. We saddled up our sleds and gear and headed through the kennels and out the trail. Almost immediately the dog trail crossed another older trail that headed downhill....that was the trail through the Hines Creek drainage, only they weren't mushing on it. The trail we were on ran uphill and directly onto the seasonally-closed park road. We thought it best to stick to a freshly packed trail and proceeded to slog uphill to the 9 mile drainage. The temperature was hovering right around zero that day, with a breeze that held the windchill at about -15. Did I mention that I had the flu? I blew bubbles out my nose for the next 6 or 7 hours as we climbed nonstop. It was a grind, though not unanticipated. There was new snow on the road; untrodden and windblown. Fresh moose tracks crossed the road in multiple places, along with a few sets of large , deep-set wolf tracks.
They listened to our plans, we filled out the necessary forms, went over our gear list, and paid our fee. They made it clear to us on more than one occasion that we were completely on our own out there. Having traveled in Denali's back country during winter before I was expecting this frank talk. Its what makes the trip worthwhile; self-reliance. We then spoke with another ranger who had been out mushing recently and she gave us some more info: the trail to Toklat was doable, but beyond that it was questionable at best. She informed us that the mountain passes were barren. We left the center knowing right then and there that Kantishna was completely out of the question, but a round trip attempt to Toklat sounded reasonable. We saddled up our sleds and gear and headed through the kennels and out the trail. Almost immediately the dog trail crossed another older trail that headed downhill....that was the trail through the Hines Creek drainage, only they weren't mushing on it. The trail we were on ran uphill and directly onto the seasonally-closed park road. We thought it best to stick to a freshly packed trail and proceeded to slog uphill to the 9 mile drainage. The temperature was hovering right around zero that day, with a breeze that held the windchill at about -15. Did I mention that I had the flu? I blew bubbles out my nose for the next 6 or 7 hours as we climbed nonstop. It was a grind, though not unanticipated. There was new snow on the road; untrodden and windblown. Fresh moose tracks crossed the road in multiple places, along with a few sets of large , deep-set wolf tracks. By the time we stopped at dusk to make camp my throat was raw from sucking frozen wind all day. We made camp, boiled lots of snow to eat and drink. I filled Nalgenes with boiling water to put into our sleeping bags. The temperature dropped to about -20 that night, and my flu was about to go from bad to worse.
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