Denali Trip, Day 3, Part 1

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Slept in and missed the breakfast buffet much to Greg's heatbreak. We went across the street to a few tourist stores and got some souvenirs. Enjoyed a lunch of yummy halibut tacos. Then we set off for the park, about a mile down the road. After stopping to check and see if there was a ranger-led hike, we were told that those hikes hadn't started yet. We then decided to drive the allowable first 15 miles into the park and find our own place to hike. Since it is a wilderness area, there are very few actual hiking trails in Denali. You have 6 million acres to make your own trail. It was a bit cloudy and overcast and we actually passed through a short rainshower. The skies were a beautiful color and we even saw a rainbow that made its appearance across the valley. We pulled in to one of the overlooks and tried to get some pics of one of the millions of lakes in Alaska. As the brush was shoulder high, it didn't seem the smartest thing to walk down to the lake. We drove on down toward the Savage River. We spotted many snowshoes hares with their spring colors beginning to show, but their feet still in the winter white colors. They seemed to quite plentiful here. So many animals, such as the fox we saw yesterday, can count on plenty of food for themselves and their young this summer. We also saw several ptarmigan, also known as the snow chicken, near the creeks. This bird is also a staple food for many animals including humans. As you can tell from the pictures, the ptarmigan is also getting her summer coat of darker colors. During the winter, this bird is completely white. We made it to the Savage River parking area which is as far as you can drive in a private vehicle in Denali. It is also the trailhead for the Savage River Loop Trail which we decided we enjoy this afternoon.

Denali Trip, Day 2, Part 3

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Once we got to the Toklat River stop, the bus driver said we would get a 20 minute break. Greg and I took this opportunity to walk back on the park road and the bus would pick us up when it left. We walked a bit and spotted some tracks from the road. Greg walked down a small incline and discovered some large bear tracks. They didn't appear to be very fresh so we didn't feel unsafe. We continued to walk and hopped the bus about 1/2 mile up the road. The bus began the journey back to the Wilderness Access Center. It was a beautiful ride back, in fact it is breath-taking in any direction here. Returning to the Center about 9:15, we were tired and hungry from the long day. Drove back to the Denali Lodge and enjoyed fresh crab dip and halibut sandwiches on the deck at a bistro. Got a few more pictures of some beautiful statues around the lodge before calling it a night.

Denali Trip, Day 2, Part 2

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Waited at the Wilderness Access Center and boarded the Toklat Tour Bus at 3:00 to begin our 53 mile bus ride into Denali National Park. Cars are not allowed after the first 15 miles of the park. You have to ride a bus to go beyond the Savage River. This helps keep the park as a wilderness area, free of traffic congestion and other problems parks sometimes face. Plus, the road is only paved the first 15 miles. There are some very narrow and curvy parts of the road with no guard rails and drop-offs over 1,00 feet down. We hadn't traveled far when the bus stopped for a close-up view of a grazing moose. We both remained seated however, as moose in Anchorage are more common than deer sightings in Tennessee. As we traveled further and began to leave the trees behind, the views became more dramatic with huge mountains, some covered with snow, some with dirt and rocks. The valleys and meadows opened in front of the mountains to create that postcard of Alaska that so many of us have come to know. Further up the road we spotted a mother grizzly with 2 cubs from last year. She was huge! You can barely see them at the left edge of the photo. When the sun shines directly on our camera screen, you can't tell what is in the picture frame. Since these were at a good distance, we just had to point in that direction and hope for the best. We did watch them several minutes through the binoculars. It was a wild and awesome sight. We stopped again in a few minutes when we spotted some caribou down in a valley. Hard to make out the caribou in the grainy picture, but we were able to see it pretty well with the binoculars. After riding just a little further, we made up for the poor quality of the last 2 sightings with these awesome photos of Dall sheep. They were resting on a cliff not 30 feet from our bus window. You can actually see stray hairs standing up on the sheep's back. What a sight! We drove on to another pull-over where we were able to get out of the bus. It was a beautiful overlook and everyone was trying to spot the caribou down in front of us in the valley. We happened to turn around and see a red fox walking right across the road from us. He paid us no attention and stopped to rest. The fox then casually walked around the bus and strolled up a hill. As we boarded the bus to leave, he reappeared and walked across the road in front of the bus. He lay down on the shoulder of the road and then briefly went down the side of the mountain. He returned seconds later carrying a ground squirrel in its mouth. Dinner is served. It was about at this point when the unthinkable happened- our camera began to malfunction. We missed several other great shots but it is hard to capture the intense beauty of this area except in your heart and mind anyway. Our bus continued on finally reaching its turnaround point, the Toklat River.

Denali Trip, Day 2, Part 1

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After breakfast we hit the road for the final 100 miles to Denali National Park. As we checked out, a covered wagon arrived to take some visitors on an excursion. They would enjoy a covered wagon ride along in the mountains and stop to eat a camp-fire lunch. Mt. McKinley was still too cloudy to see this morning as we left the lodge. Today's part of the drive had beautiful scenery for most all of the way. We stopped often along the road to take pictures of the amazing mountains and to enjoy all the sights around us. At one place we had to pull over and snap a photo of the large igloo, a former gas station, which was now boarded up and for sale. It was actually still quite striking sitting there near the mountains. I'm sure many years ago it was the curious stop on the way to the park. Even now, it is probably striking during the winter when everything is white. We drove on and stopped to look at the Nenana River near Cantwell, Alaska. The water was gray with glacial silt. Glaciers had ground the rocks down to a fine powder that was carried along in the water. These aren't good fishing rivers because the fish aren't able to survive in the water full of the sand and debris. The waters are super cold as I found out when testing it!

We drove on to the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge to check in for our next 2 nights' accommodations. We decided to go check out the National Park. Almost immediately upon entering the park, we saw bear warning signs. The signs alerted you that moose were calving and bear were hunting in this area. We then drove on to the Wilderness Access Center and picked up our tickets for this afternoon's 6 hour Toklat bus ride. Tickets in hand, we headed to the Visitor's Center to check it out. This is a nice center with lots of pictures, animal exhibits, area artifacts, and a theater. After examining the center, it was time to head back to the Wilderness Access and catch our shuttle.

Denali Trip, Day 1

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Greg got to leave work a little early for the holiday weekend. We picked up the rental car and headed north out of town. Hard to get lost when you leave the city because there is one road to the north and one road to the south. Pretty hard to put into perspective, we are so used to multiple roads leading out of our smaller towns. But anyone in this city of 280,000 people will have to travel on the Glenn Highway if they want to head north. There were only a few cars on the highway with us this afternoon- we got the jump on the Friday afternoon holiday traffic. Our first stop was Palin's hometown, Wasilla. Got a few snacks and took off. We headed for Trapper Creek and our hotel for the night. We were now traveling on the Parks Highway. This afternoon's drive was mostly in the midst of deep forest with the occasional glimpse of distant mountains. We arrived at our destination in enough time to hike nearby trails for about an hour. We had a few nice views of the river below and nearby mountains. Denali's view was mostly hidden by the clouds. These trails which mainly run around the property grounds were more strolls than hikes, except for a few steep inclines. We did have a robin that insisted on hopping along about 5 feet in front of us on the trail. This bird continued to do this for about 10 minutes, finally flying off into the trees. I got a close up picture of fiddleheads, the curled up fern fronds. Many people consider these a delicacy to eat. Got another photo of what appeared to be a plant in the hosta family. Everything is really beginning to get green and grow. We did finally build up a good appetite and went to the 20320 restaurant. This eating place gets its name from the fact that Denali, also known as Mt. McKinley, is 20,320 feet at its mountain peak. Greg had a most delightful burger and I enjoyed the halibut fish and chips. The restaurant had the nerve to run out of chocolate cake before I could enjoy any! The lodge was designed in a rustic style. Check out the door handles! Each pair of door handles was a set of real caribou antlers. There were many gorgeous bronze statues of native animals along the grounds. This lodge is located inside the boundary of the Denali State Park and a ranger was in the lodge to give interpretive talks and demonstrations. Decided to turn in early for the journey tomorrow to the National Park.