The tourists, he said, were horrified. Stepping off the road onto the tundra, we didn't look back as the bus sputtered away. A few thousand miles of wilderness spilled before us. I carefully studied the terrain under our feet. From afar, the tundra looks like a short-shag rug, a uniform stretch of shrubs and plants.
Closer inspection reveals a complex microcosm of life.
In the moist valleys where we walked our first day, the tundra grows thick with willow and birch. As the tundra grades into higher, drier regions, plants grow ankle-high and colors explode as flowers begin to process the spring sunlight. We spent our first night in the valley, popping the tent about 300 yards from a creek. Dave prepared pasta with sun-dried tomatoes on the portable camp stove while I filtered several liters of drinking water. Few fish tolerate the glacial silt in Denali's waterways, but those waters contain the waterborne parasite giardia and other stomach-twisting organisms that can wreck a hiker's vacation.