Words by: Rickey Gates // Photos by: Matt Shapiro
In a country that’s young, in a state that’s even younger, there’s a trail that may as well have been built yesterday. Separating the milky-grey waters of the Susitna and Chulitna Rivers, the Kesugui Ridge offers a gentle, rolling trail above the thick bush of the Alaska interior. If the weather gods are in your favor, views of the Talkeetna Mountains to the east and the Alaska Range with Denali towering above all to the west can provide enough excitement to carry one from beginning to end. If not, a plethora of blueberries will have to suffice.
A stroke of luck combined with the generosity of friends-of-friends earned us a couple nights in a homesteaded cabin near the trailhead of Kesugi Ridge. Though the sauna was challenging our desire to go for a long run, we pried ourselves away and drove up the road to the start of the Kesugi Ridge Trail.
Harry, Matt and I made our way up Little Coal Creek past the flanks of Kesugi Mountain. A quick glance over my shoulder to check on my companions forced me into a stumble followed by a dead stop as the view just beyond my friends captured my attention in its entirety. My persistence finally paid off - on my fourth visit to this trail over the previous decade, Denali, “The High One” in Koyukan Athabascan, has finally decided to show herself to us. Never not glamorous, on this day, she is positively radiant. Flexing.
The timing of our early August mission was providing us with upwards of 19 hours of light (civil or otherwise), slightly less tourist traffic, and truly bountiful vegetation. Our climb up to gain the ridge took us through alder, birch and spruce - the holy trinity of the Alaskan bush. Both above and below the tree line, the greenery was bursting forth, having made the most of a barely setting sun for the past few months. The trail berries were abundant and ubiquitous - salmon berries, watermelon berries, crow berries, high bush blue berries below tree line and low bush blue berries across the miles of tundra. Though we are in no risk of running out of Nerd Clusters and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, it’s refreshing to know that trailside snacks would carry us for miles if it came to that.
Rickey's Kit for Alaska
The ridge and trail dip below the treeline as it continues south for the second half of Kesugui Ridge. A layer of clouds closed the curtains on the show that the Alaska Range had been providing, encouraging us to appreciate the foreground - one strangely reminiscent of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
Back above the trees, we climbed steadily to the drab mound labeled Golog Benchmark (not even granted the title of summit, peak or even hill) before reaching the second chance to descend back down to the highway at Byers Lake. Letting gravity carry us, we zipped back down to the southern trailhead to test our luck at hitchhiking back to our car just up the road. The sauna was calling.
Run with Rickey
Feeling inspired? Sign up to join Rickey on his next big trail-running trip.
About Rickey
For the past thirty years, running has been a central part of Rickey Gates’s life. Whether it be in the competitive realm of racing or the obsessive realm of curiosity, or a mindful space of meditation, running has long been the primary medium through which Rickey has interacted with the broader environment around him.
In an effort to understand his country, community, and self, Rickey completed two unbelievably ambitious, back-to-back running projects: TransAmericana (2017) in which he ran across the entire United States, and Every Single Street (2018) in which he ran, street by street, the entirety of San Francisco. His current obsession (which you are currently reading) is to paint a picture of North America through trails. He lives in Santa Fe with his wife and two children.
