As Great as Flowers Are

This past Tuesday through Thursday Mk, her mom (who came up from Dallas to visit for a week), Megan, Taylor (Megan's visiting friend also from Texas) and I ventured back up to Denali National Park. This trip was much more relaxed than last time we went up to visit. This trip we went on an ATV tour, went on a hike through the wilderness, went rafting, and went on an interpretive hike. Now, you may be wondering what the difference between the two hikes was. I will tell you.
The day started off promising. I thought to myself, "We don't need to go on the interpretive, touristy bus. We need a shuttle. To take us out to the wilderness." In Denali National Park, you are allowed to hike wherever you want. There are very rarely trails because they don't want to disrupt the wilderness. Mk and I wanted to blaze our own trail. On our way out into the park on the shuttle, Mk spotted a lynx on the side of the road and calmly pointed it out to me. We were saying, "Oh! That's pretty cool." But we were fine with continuing on. Except the lady behind us (obviously several months behind us as far as Alaskaness goes) began to practically hyperventilate from excitement and began screaming, "LYNX, LYNX STOP THE BUS I MUST GET A MILLION PICTURES OR ELSE I WILL DIE FROM LACK OF ALASKAN WILDLIFE SHOTS!!!!!!!!" Or something like that. The same thing happened when a moose was spotted. I thought to myself, "That moose is very small, and I feel superior to these silly tourists who don't know what a real moose looks like. I'm more Alaskan than any of them."

Sinking into the permafrost

So, after these encounters I was feeling pretty good about trekking through the wilderness. I was much more rugged comparatively and felt rather prepared to face whatever we might stumble upon. Mk and I hopped off the shuttle about an hour and fifteen minutes into the park and took off. We were feeling rather adventurous as we bounced through the tundra. Even though the brush was attempting to steal our jackets and the ground was a bit wet, we didn't let these small set backs bother us. We were stronger than the brush and our invincible hiking boots were keeping our feet cozy and dry. But after a little while we realized that there was another enemy that we, embarrassingly, had not accounted for.

Mosquitoes.

At the top of the hill

After realizing that we had not brought bug spray I was astonished at how confident I had been in my Alaskaness before. Any good Alaskan knows that going hiking at the end of June without bug spray is basically asking to lose a pint of blood. But, we, still in our baby stages Alaskaness,  had managed to forget that small detail. Because of this, we could take no breaks or else the mosquitoes swarmed for a meal. We hiked to the top of a hill, and even with the breeze they were relentless. Therefore, our hike was cut a little shorter and our pride was lowered to a more reasonable level.

The hike the next day involved a guide with a can of bug spray and an extremely well-maintained trail. Pretty different, I would say. But when it comes down to it, I will probably remember being moved forward by a swarm of mosquitoes longer than I will remember being told the names of various flowers. As great as flowers are.