Hiking the South Fork Eagle River & Cantata Peak
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Hiking the South Fork Eagle River & Cantata Peak

The colors were amazing, brilliant oranges and yellows, worthy of a painting but instead only captured by cameras. It was with that brilliant light that I fell in love with the wilderness. This was my first time truly outside. Not just in the woods, or a few miles from a road. I’d been backpacking in West Virginia and North Carolina before this, but never had I stepped foot in true wilderness.

Golden Hour - Savage River Denali Alaska
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Golden Hour Hiking at Savage River, Denali National Park

Officially, Denali National Park claims to have no trails in the wilderness. There are official, marked trails in some places, notably the park entrance and Eielson, but when asked, Rangers will never mention other trails. But there is a trail beside the Savage. It begins about half a mile south of the camp, when an unmissable bluff rises on the west side of the river. It’s a flat, smooth game trail which continues up to the point where the river enters the mountains.