VIOLATOR

DENALI NATIONAL PARK AND PRESERVE, ALASKA-2025

We planned this trip a week out. I was scrolling Pinterest late one night while making a brisket shirtless in the dark listening to Personal Jesus, saw photos of fall Denali, and FaceTimed my buddy on the spot. Dude. You have to see this. We have to go. He agreed immediately. He called in sick to his job the next morning telling them he caught COVID without a second thought which tells you everything you need to know about exactly how this is all going to pan out.

REI run in Bozeman. The salesman asked me where we were camping. I said oh uh. Denali. REI salesmen usually hear about weekend warrior trips, not the Alaskan bush. He just said oh. Like he had a hunch we were already scheming on how to leverage the return policy. We bought everything we needed. REI itself did not know we were going to return everything afterward claiming it was faulty. That was the REI method back then. How else does a broke college kid get to Alaska. We walked out of there with five grand worth of gear smiling ear to ear like we'd just pulled off a scene from Ocean's 11. We were already violating something and we hadn't even left the parking lot.

Cashed in our Delta SkyMiles. Flew Bozeman to Seattle, Seattle to Fairbanks. Too young to rent a car or be trusted with one so we rented a Uhaul van instead, and the heater didn't work. Neither did the four wheel drive. Loaded her up with backpacking gear, a case of Miller Lite, Monster energy drinks, nicotine pouches, and enough Old Trapper beef sticks and Cliff bars to last five days. This was the meal plan. Three thousand five hundred calories daily. We waltzed out of Safeway like we were getting ready for a mission. Which is what two people say right before they learn some serious life lessons.

I Can't Tell You Why by the Eagles the whole drive down from Fairbanks. Head out the window like a perfect imitation of my Australian shepherd, and I may or may not have had my tongue out. The fall colors on that highway are something nobody can prepare you for. Gold and red and amber going on forever. Two kids in a Uhaul going quiet for a long stretch of road. We thought we were in a music video.

Before heading into the backcountry we had to sit through a mandatory orientation with a grizzled park ranger who had clearly been doing this a very long time and had very little patience left for the general public. There was a couple in the room. Every single time the ranger referred to the mountain as Denali the husband raised his hand and said um actually it's Mt McKinley.

Every single time.

The ranger's face did something different each time it happened. By the fourth correction something in him broke. The ranger called the man some things that are not appropriate to repeat here and that you would not expect from a federal employee in a professional setting. It was beautiful, honestly. A man finally being honest about what he was thinking.

We did not correct the ranger.

First night at Riley Creek Campground in the back of the Uhaul. Cold enough to lose your downstairs manhood and not notice until morning. Zero light pollution. I'd been to Alaska once at ten on a family fishing trip. That didn't count. This counted. We cried looking at the sky. Appropriate reaction for those who've seen it. But we were already planning the party we'd throw when we got back.

Packed into Unit 6 the next morning. Entire Denali campus closed except one ranger station. Nobody goes to Denali in shoulder season. Six million acres and not a soul in any of it except us. Which meant nobody was watching. Which we took as permission to do whatever the hell we wanted. We quickly realized those Pinterest photos were taken from the road.

We were not on the road.

No camp stove. Beef sticks and Cliff bars for five days. Monsters ran out around day two. Caffeine withdrawals in the Alaskan backcountry in the rain are a humbling experience. And by God we were humbled. Wading Alaskan rivers then hiking miles on end in the pouring rain will give you onset trench foot which I know now because I got it and have the blood stained boots and empty Keflex bottles to prove it. Mud in the tent at 2am. Laughed until tears anyway because we'd already violated so many rules that adding a moldy tent and possible pneumonia seemed redundant.

Glacier runoff filtered straight from the river was the best thing either of us had ever tasted. Earned water is different. And despite breaking most other rules, filter we did. Because Giardia infested waters taste different going down as they do coming back up. One of the few lessons learned as a kid.

Hadn't seen another person in days. No trails. No signs. Just tundra going amber and red in every direction and a silence you can actually feel pressing against your chest. The kind of silence that makes you understand you're completely alone out there. Which we were. Miles from anything. Miles from anyone who could stop us or help us or audit our adventure.

Woke up one morning and found fresh grizzly tracks just outside the wash we'd been camping on. We followed them down to the Teklanika River.

She was just sitting there. Large sow. Right in the middle of the river staring at us like we'd personally insulted her. First she looked surprised, two gangly monkeys will do that. Then she lowered her head and paused halfway in the river. Eyes boring into us. Move she said telepathically.

We violated her space. Her sanctuary. Her right to exist undisturbed in six million acres in one of the last places left to do so. She looked at us. We looked at her. And then we just kept existing in her space like we'd paid for a permit. Which we had. She wasn't in the mood to ask for it.

That's what humans do. We monetize violations and call it a portfolio.

Got back to the ranger station with the Uhaul covered in mud. It had been raining the whole time and the dirt parking lot outside the entrance to unit 6 was a swamp. We tried to drive out. No four wheel drive meant the tires just spun freely in the mud. We placed rocks under the tires for traction. They fired out from under the spinning tires into the adjacent forest like cannonballs. We just looked at each other and started giggling. Then grabbed bigger rocks. By the time we got out of that parking lot we'd weaponized geology.

The park rangers looked at the Uhaul, then at us, giggled like schoolgirls, then decided we'd passed the Alaskan litmus test. They invited us back to ranger housing that night. Said they were having people over. We showed up and it was already chaos. Music loud. Someone had brought a keg. Someone else had brought a blown out JBL speaker. Shoulder season was in full swing and there were no pompous Alaskan cruise visitors they had to act professional for. My home away from home.

The sow was out there somewhere. The silence was still out there. Alaska was still out there watching us be exactly what we are. And we were inside a log cabin with people who got it. Who understood that humans are built to show up where we don't belong and throw parties about it.

And remember. Nobody parties harder than gay guys in Vancouver and Alaskan park rangers. And they both love Depeche Mode.