Backpacker – September 2019

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019

BACKPACKER.COM 17

tumbling down. Several seconds

later, I hear its rumble. The mountain

seems alive.

The next day I clamber across the

moraine of Peters Glacier and up the

adjacent hillside where the hiking

is better. I’m walking atop the same

foothills I’ve seen in every photo-

graph of Denali taken from Wonder

Lake since Ansel Adams, except

now I’m in the picture, noticing tiny

details in the patchwork tundra.

One more hill brings my first

close-up view of the Wickersham

Wall—it rises higher than I think pos-

sible. But, oddly, it isn’t the scale that

awes me; it’s the silence. Having left

the river behind, the quiet adds to the

sense of space. It almost seems unfair

to have it to myself. Almost.

But then, in the other direction, I

see the 20-plus miles I need to hike by

4 p.m. tomorrow to catch the last bus

back to the park entrance. I take one

la st look at Dena li a nd decide it ’s not

unfair to claim a front row seat you’ve

earned. It’s the entire point.

TRAILHEAD McKinley Bar PERMIT

Required; obtain at the Denali Visitor

Center no more than 1 day in advance.

SEASON For experienced packraft-

ers, late June to early September; for

hikers fording the McKinley River,

late August to early September NOTE

Experts only INFO nps.gov/dena

For more than 17,0 0 0 years , humans have

hunted, fi shed, and lived along the swampy

banks of the Ocmulgee River in what is now

Georgia. The lack of development on much

of the land means that hundreds of historic

sites sit undisturbed among the cypress trees

and chalk prairies. This cultural history drove

Congress to quadruple the size of the Ocmulgee

Mounds National Historic Park (formerly a

National Monument) in March, but researchers

at nearby Mercer University say it’s not enough.

In order to protect the ancient burial mounds,

as well as younger sites like Muscogee Native

American settlements and African-American

cemeteries, the researchers propose protect-

ing 50,000 more acres along the river. When

Congress renamed the park, it also gave the

NPS three years to study whether nearby land

was important enough to protect—research-

ers are providing their reports to the Service

to help urge them toward “yes .” To learn more

about the eff ort to protect the historic land, visit

ocmulgeepark.org

SAVE THE OCMULGEE

MOUNDS NATIONAL

HISTORICAL PARK, GA

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