“Fun Hog” month is how we refer to March in Denali. It is the long anticipated arrival of spring for year-round residents. Spring in Interior Alaska does not evoke birds chirping or tulips popping out of the ground; there is likely still over a foot of snow and nobody flinches if daytime temperatures don’t make it above -20°F. The arrival of spring here means only one thing for certain: daylight. The sensation of going to bed and rising with the sun is one that has almost been forgotten. For Alaskans, it is time to cash in vacation days and go play.

For my first winter camping trip longer than a weekend, I could have done without the -30°F thermometer reading when my musher, 10 sled dogs, and I hit the trail. The two-week adventure would take us from the entrance of Denali National Park to Kantishna and back. For someone who spends all summer inside the Park, it was an incredible thing to see Toklat River frozen rather than flowing, Eielson Visitor Center blanketed in snow, and an empty Park Road. For the most part, the winter skiing & mushing trail stays off the road, wandering its way through the river valleys instead. Every once in awhile, we would hop onto the road for a low, straight stretch. It was surreal to see a 30MPH sign sticking out of the snow, signaling cars that hadn’t passed that way in months.

I would have written it off as a ridiculous notion if three years ago someone told me that I would seek out and be thrilled by a winter camping trip where temperatures stayed below zero, 15-30 miles of skiing per day would be involved, and better yet, I would be sleeping in a tent in winter, not a cabin. But I found myself with a smile on my face, in nothing but a base layer at -10°F relaxing in the sunshine. I was looking at Denali with a bluebird sky backdrop eating a well-deserved Snickers after skiing up and over Stony Dome. I had spent the last several hours skiing after a team of sled dogs going faster than reasonable for pulling 500 pounds of sled, musher, and gear.

I have camped more nights than I can count in wilderness all over this country, but no trip quite compares to stepping out in the morning to rosy, snow capped mountains, frozen landscape, and nothing but deserted horizon.