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City Slickers Need to Stay out of the Wilderness


Nate

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A teenager was on her cell phone talking to her mom when she fell off a cliff

 

First of all, I've been in Denali Park. It is wilderness. this time of the year, the grizzly bears are out of their dens and looking to eat city slickers.

 

Now as a note on safety for you City Slickers, talking on the phone while driving is SAFE compared to talking on the phone as you walk across wet rocks at the top of a cliff

 

Then, if you fall 30 feet and are still alive, what you don't do is panic. Your mom on the other end of the phone is hundreds of miles away, even if she's an Anchorage, so there's nothing they can do. you need to do for yourself!

 

Anyway, in this stupid tale, the teenager sits down and cries and waits for the State police to mount a rescue mission

 

listen, if you can't get back up a 30 foot cliff, just walk down the mountain. There is always more than one way up or down a whole mountain. all you do is start walking towards the only road that goes through Denali Park. It will be DOWN the mountain, not back UP the mountain

 

But since this moran got rescued, a good life lesson was wasted.

 

Next time you city folk go into the wilderness, turn off your cell phone. You need to pay attention. There are cliffs to fall down and bears out there wanting to eat you. Please pay attention to WTF you are doing so the authorities don't have to spend taxpayer money to come and rescue your stupid ass

 

thank you

 

this has been a Public Service Announcement from Bigwood Nate LLC

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I didn't read the article, my comments are based on your comments - that's how the internet works.

 

Since you've been to Denali you know how big it is.  Simply walking down the mountain probably wasn't an option. 

 

We went on the bus ride about a 1/3 of the way in.  We had our lunch with us and had a little picnic.  After the bus drove away it was amazing how small we felt.  The place is truly massive, wild and open.  We were done eating and had been careful not to drop any crumbs.  As we were packing up were heard a bear in the (likely far) distance.  I almost crapped myself.  All along the ground you could see where the bear had been digging for food.  There is no option out aside from waiting for the yellow school bus to come back and get you.  There is no shelter.  If a bear wants to eat you, consider yourself served.

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 If a bear wants to eat you, consider yourself served.

 

 

that's loser talk! Just what I'd expect from a city slicker...

 

what you can do is stand your ground and make yourself look bigger by waving your arms over your head and talking in a loud deep voice.

 

but even before that, you don't get yourself into that situation to start with. Listen, if you've been there then you know that she had to have been above treeline (its so far north that treeline is only about 2200 feet and the Alaska range averages 10-14K, so most of the place is above treeline)

 

above treeline, everything over 150 pounds knows where every other thing over 150 pounds is for a mile in any direction. You have to be that kind of observant there because you are not allowed guns in the park.

 

From that distance, you can avoid the bear by minding the wind and being smart. You're a human being, for crying out loud, surely you can outsmart a bear if your life depended on it, and in Denali Park it actually does.

 

Anyway, I've been tracked by grizzlies in Denali before. All you need is to pay attention and be a little resourceful and you'll live to hike another day :)

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We were only there for a couple of weeks.  We stopped anywhere we felt and explored.  On one short hike around a small lake there was a sign that said "Warning: persistent aggressive male black bear", being the fools we were we went on the trail anyhow.  We got a short distance in, probably less than a 1/4 mile, and saw a massive footprint in the mud.  The ground was soggy and yet this footprint hasn't yet filled in with water.  We decided to turn around.

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I'll stick to the grime filled city streets that I'm used to, selling drugs to the yahoo bumpkins from the countryside.

 

 at least you know not to be on your cell phone while you're rock climbing

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I wonder if we could cross breed grizzly bears and mountain goats?

 one time there in Denali Park I spent an afternoon with a wild ram. It was really cool. I had seen the Dahl sheep before, and he had seen people before, too. but for both of us it was the first time we were in the same clearing and that close

 

anyway, I had seen him from a far distance and made for the same general area he was heading for. the thing is that an animal coming eating comes in peace. What would you think if something was making its way towards you and not eating anything? so as I approached, I always stopped and grazed on the willow leaves. That calmed him down.

 

Then when we got close, I always made sure that he had an unobstructed route tot eh higher ground. If you get between them and the high ground, you'll get butted, but if they can get to the rocks they feel safe since they are such great climbers

 

So I spent a couple hours there in this little clearing on the side of the mountain near Savage Rock. I didn't try and pet him, he didn't try to pet me

 

and that's how it went

 

When I got back my mom was worried to death I had been gone for so long, but she knew I knew what I was doing and it was a long time until nightfall. Still 6 or 7 weeks at least :D

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you two jokers don't even know what willow leaves are

 

up in the tundra, there's only 2 things that can grow: willows and lichen

 

willows are a scrubby bush with brown leaves. The leaves actually have caffeine in them. Moose eat then 20 hours a day. The buds at the center of a fresh branch of willow leaves are actually pretty good even if you aren't staving to death

 

lichen is just a moss that grows in every color you can imagine. The light is so refracted up there that you get blue and pink and purple colored moss

 

the lichen hold moisture and the willows break up the wind, so you have this micro climate.

 

From about your knees down its about 20 degrees warmer than it is up above the tops of the willows

 

at lower elevations above treeline, the willows can grow head high

 

if you ever go into a thicket like that, make sure the wind is at your back so any bears in there know you are coming. Like I said, willows are good eatin, and so if you can't see up ahead, make sure the wind is at your back

 

they don't call me "Bigwood" for nothing you know ;)

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Its pretty easy to figure. There's summer jobs for college kids up in Alaska. Up near the park there's places to stay and places to eat that get staffed with college kids in the summer. she worked up there and took off to check stuff out.

 

The thing about Denali is they don't let cars in the park. Alaska looked at Yellowstone and how screwed up the Californians let that get and said no private vehicles in the park.

 

There's one road. A dirt road made by the Army Corpse of Engineers way back in the Great Depression. It goes something like 50 miles into the park. It comes within maybe 25 miles of the mountain. Anyway, there's yellow busses running out and back such that every 15 minutes a bus will pass by going one way or the other. That's how she got out there, from there it was just stupid city slicker on a cell phone vs. the great outdoors

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I think the road in is closer to 100 miles.  Cars can drive in for the first 20 or so, then it's the yellow school bus.  There is a lottery once a year where they let a few cars drive all the way in to the hotel at the end.  We were going to stay at the hotel, but they were closed during the time we were there.

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WTF are you talking about? Yellowstone is 1000 miles from California. Maybe you mean Yosemite

 

You're being a little picky here.  Is it west of the Mississippi?  Then it's all the same. California, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah what's the difference?

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whatevah! Sheesh..the thing you geography scholars need to get into your heads is that Alaskans throw the whole lower 48 states into the same garbage can

 

Yosemite, Yellowstone, who cares? They're both a shopping mall compared to Denali park....that's the point

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I think the road in is closer to 100 miles.  Cars can drive in for the first 20 or so, then it's the yellow school bus.  There is a lottery once a year where they let a few cars drive all the way in to the hotel at the end.  We were going to stay at the hotel, but they were closed during the time we were there.

  remember I was there (several times actually) between 1983 and 1992

 

 

who knows what they are up to now. I'm telling you stories from my memory from being there. You Googling morans can sit there and tell me all about it

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yeah that what all you city boys think. Come out here and experience it for yourself, but leave your East Coast mentality behind.

fpfpfpfpffpt

you want wilderness?  Come on over city boy....we got the Okefenokee swamp.  Possibly the most dangerous place to walk by foot in the US.  If the snakes don't get you, the alligators will.  If you survive the gators, there's black bear, florida panthers, and worst of all....swamp people.

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yeah that what all you city boys think. Come out here and experience it for yourself, but leave your East Coast mentality behind.

 

City boy, east coast?  You know nothing.  I live in God's country.  As I sit at my desk here at home I am 100 feet from not one, but 2 designated trout streams and for further definition, I live in a valley deep enough to disrupt cell service here.  City boy?   

 

And for clarification allow me to reference the detailed explanation that Mr. Liver provided..... "Pretty much....big trees and big mean bears.  Not much difference."

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I take that back, stay the hell away from the West. We don't want you East-coasters fucking up our States. You'd probably like it here, so you move here, and then you would try to bring all your East Coast trash with you.

Please just stay where you are.

 

What trash did you take west with you?

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I'm not a Googling moron.  I too speak of when I went there. 

 

fair enough...I was under attack from all sides there

 

the park is pretty big. Bigger than the state of Conneticut, so 50 miles or 100 miles of road...its a long dirt road either way

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I take that back, stay the hell away from the West. We don't want you East-coasters fucking up our States. You'd probably like it here, so you move here, and then you would try to bring all your East Coast trash with you.

Please just stay where you are.

That's pretty funny.....AZ is one of the most fucked up states out there w/ NM right on it's heels.

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That's pretty funny.....AZ is one of the most fucked up states out there w/ NM right on it's heels.

says the man that can't even cut down a tree in his yard without paying a fee to the city tree huggers.

You should sell your house, because the property taxes are getting insane.

Oh wait, that's right....
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says the man that can't even cut down a tree in his yard without paying a fee to the city tree huggers.

You should sell your house, because the property taxes are getting insane.

Oh wait, that's right....

 

OK, got'a give that one to BoSox.  

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