2026-08-05 to 2026-08-16 - Bikepacking Out West! Soundscape Website (check it out)!
#denali #alaska #bikepacking #animals #acoustics #soundscapes
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Bikepacking out West!
The adventures (and not getting quite enough sleep) continued the weekend of August 8th! I had a friend visiting from Chicago who's into bikepacking, the weather was gorgeous, and I had a flexible day off from working last weekend, so it was the perfect chance to finally get out and see the west side of the park beyond the landslide and almost-officially-completed Pretty Rocks Bridge.
The setups! Rented from a local shop - I also had a backpack on that I used to carry snacks, some layers, and water.
Gotta go around the landslide somehow! No dry feet allowed on a proper Denali adventure...
...unless you waited for this bridge to open.
Early morning climbs for breakfast on our final day!
I've shared a few pics, but honestly, we really just took like 50 pictures of the Mountain because she continues to look GORGEOUS the closer you get. Once you get out further west along the park road, you can see a huge percentage of the mountain's vertical relief (most in the world!!! 💪), including the foothills leading up to the base. Given that, this next section is called: "I swear these photos don't do it justice and don't capture how awe-inspiring looking at a 20,000ft peak is, but I'm gonna include a bunch of them anyways".
Mountain!Mountain!Mountain!
These ones show the road continuing on towards the promised land (where you can see even MORE mountain!)
Looklooklook! Do you see it? Do you see it?
Views from Eielson Visitor Center (which is closed and in need of major repairs, but offers a pretty fricken iconic view of the mountain).
It's the things on the sign! I can see them!
We waved goodbye to a rosy peak bathed in alpenglow as we broke down our campsite at 5am on Monday morning and headed out on a quest to make it back in time for my friend to make it for his flight that evening in Anchorage.
Wildlife (4 out of the big 5 in one trip is pretty good!)
They like to talk about the big 5 large mammals up here: moose, caribou, dall sheep, bear, and wolf. We saw all of them except the wolf, which I have yet to see all summer.
We didn't have too many wildlife sitings while out n' about on the bikes (maybe it was too hot?), just a few caribou here and there and a moose munchin greens off the road.
However, we got some great views of wildlife (although the sheep were so far off their only differentiator from being a rock was that they moved up hill) from the bus rides out to East Fork (the start of the detour around the landslide) and back.
Two young moose right off the bat on the bus ride out! Mama was down the hill.
Look at those antlers on that caribou!
Licking rocks is all the rage these days! Don't knock it till you try it. Not sure how these three got into this position originally, but it was pretty cool to see.
Honestly, from the inside of a bus on the way home is the absolute best place to see a bear during a camping trip. They look so silly when they trot along... but also they can run 35mph...
Overall, it was a really cool trip. Our day out to Wonder Lake on the Sunday is probably in contention for the hardest 60 miles I've done on a bike. The loose gravel and steep climbs combined to make it quite the slog (also maybe the fact that I haven't really ridden a bike this summer didn't help). It was worth it for the views and to explore a new part of the park, but was definitely a long day that included a solid helping of type II fun (Types of Fun) and just grinding out pedal strokes.
Soundscapes of Alaska
I have some fun new digital content for you this week!
As part of the many thousands of hours of audio data we've collected over the years, we end up encountering all sorts of interesting natural sounds. To help out with interpretive and educational programs (and also just because it's really interesting), I've been going through some of the highlights that my supervisor has saved over the years and developing a website to showcase them publicly. These sounds come from National Parks all across Alaska, so they capture environments ranging from coastal fjords to boreal forest to glaciated alpine peaks!
Please take a scroll through at https://mertensia.github.io/alaska_acoustic_highlights/ (mobile or desktop works)
Note: this site also has accessibility features for screen reader use, if you're a screen reader user please tell me how navigable the site is. I'm looking to improve the UI/UX for all users.
I've included some personal favorites, but feel free to explore more - and check out the about page for more details on the spectrogram visualization. I'm actively going through our audio data and working on improving the site, so let me know if there are any sounds you'd like me to try to find or any suggestions on the design.
Otherwise, happy soundscape listening! Throw on some headphones or hook up a speaker, then sit back, listen, and transport yourself up to Alaska via a medium beyond my text or images!
A variety of raven calls These dudes make all sorts of interesting sounds, but the "water droplet" call at ~46 seconds is an especially cool one. More ravens here!
Varied Thrush songs with a Swainson's Thrush singing in the background.. The varied thrush was an iconic sound ringing through the forest when I started my season up here! It's the first bird song I learned to identify (not that I can identify that many more currently lol).
Humpback Whale song and a Sooty Grouse. This one is from Glacier Bay - my supervisor played it in our little office with the subwoofer turned up and the whale song was such a fascinating sound to feel reverberate around the room.
Crisp, close thunder up the ridgeline. Not unique to Alaska, but this one is from a sound station deployment I helped with this summer, so I've gotta shout it out! The second raven call link above is also from the same site this year.
Rock motion on a glacier. This is such a satisfying, rumbly sound. You might be able to make an estimate of the size of these boulders based on the spectral composition of the sound - or you could just picture them as big ol' rocks!
Coyotes making spooky echo-y howls. I mean, a wolf is probably more intimidating, but the sounds these coyotes make are pretty haunting.
An absolutely classic wolf pack howling. From Wrangell-St. Elias - this one actually gave me chills when I heard it for the first time. Plus the spectrogram looks beautiful.