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As we head north on the George Parks Highway, we are treated to beautiful views of the Alaska Range.  This is the mountain range that contains Denali, the tall one.

The national park is only 122 miles on down the road.

The highway is again lined with fireweed and lupine. The highways of Alaska are beautiful showcases of wildflowers. I would love to have these flowers in my yard, but I have learned that it is difficult to keep them under control. They take over everything else one may want to grow.

Mount McKinley. Wow! It is an unusual day that it is not shrouded in clouds. Today is that unusual day! We get to see it all!

Denali is the name the Athabascan people call this mountain that is the highest mountain in North America. Mount McKinley is 20,320 feet in elevation. Permanent snowfields cover more than 75 percent of the mountain, feeding the many glaciers that surround its base.

It is not possible to get close to Mount McKinley without going deep into the backcountry. There are no roads to the base or up the mountain. Seeing the mountain from afar is the best most people get to experience.

Of course, there are those who have climbed to the top. The first confirmed, uncontroversial ascent was made on June 7, 1913, by a group led by Hudson Stuck. An Alaska Native, Walter Harper, was the first to the summit. Harry Karstens and Robert Tatum also made the summit.

In 1912 a Parker-Browne expedition nearly reached the summit, but turned back about 200 feet short of the summit due to bad weather. Their decision to turn back quite probably saved their lives. Just hours after coming back down across a glacier they had ascended, an earthquake shattered that glacier.

Today about 58 percent of the climbers reach the top.

Getting on down the highway is easier some days than others. When there are so many pullouts with great views, it is hard to make time.

We have arrived. This is a milestone that can be checked off the bucket list.

We have settled in at our campsite at Riley Campground, located at the beginning of Denali Park Road. From here we will have access to the shops and visitor’s center as well as transportation into the park. Unfortunately, the first thing on our agenda has become our refrigerator, which has stopped working. It would have been better if it had stopped working in Anchorage where we would have had all the facilities needed to repair it, but that isn’t the way of the world.

We have a refrigerator and freezer crammed full of food. There is no dry ice to be found closer than Fairbanks, where, by the way, would be any parts needed in the repair. We can get regular ice if we need to.

Ed is the man of the hour! He had experienced a similar problem with his previous RV. He was able to diagnose our problem and fix it! This fix is huge! Something had plugged up the chimney. Quite probably that something was cottonwood fluff. We have been seeing the snowstorm of cottonwoods for several weeks. You are looking at the star of my world!

The visitor’s center is our first stop. The informative displays are a must see! This is a very impressive message!

Of course, the Raven would have a Denali story.

I have never seen the word “taiga.” Taiga is another term for boreal forest, an ecosystem characterized by coniferous trees.

The tour to Kantishna is 12 hours. We have opted to do an 8-hour tour. Our journey has already given us a good dose of stampeder history; so we are going to have to miss whatever nuggets of knowledge we might have picked up in Kantishna.

Fannie Quigley was one of the colorful pioneers that settled in Kantishna.

“Shoot a good fat bear”? I don’t think I’ll be making this particular pie.

We have gotten all of our information on how to go about seeing the park. We have our reservations for the bus trip tomorrow. Today we are driving the 15 miles into the park that private vehicles may travel.

Savage Rock is the turnaround point. It is a prominent feature of the landscape that certainly has a savage quality about it.

The water off the glaciers create rivers through the gravel bars with many channels. Those channels are always moving and forming new riverbeds, creating “braided rivers.”

Spruce trees have tiny little cones that are clustered in the top of some of the trees. Looking at one that was on the ground, they are like miniature pine cones.

We have opted for the popular Eielson Visitor Center Green Shuttle Bus Tour. It is an 8-hour trip, and we are underway at 9:00 a.m. It is going to be a full day’s adventure. We are not disappointed with the view from the first moment on.

This is a great example of a braided river.

We have now seen a grizzly bear in the wild! The trip is a success. We saw a moose in the spruce earlier. His picture turned out very blurry. According to Tina, our bus driver, viewing the “moose in the spruce” is the quintessential Alaskan wilderness wildlife experience.

Each turn of the road brings us sweeping views of this vast land.

Sometimes the clouds are right down on the mountains, sometimes we have a sweeping view across the valley. This is very dramatic country.

This ram is down low enough for us to actually get a good picture. These animals are most comfortable high on the mountains on the craggy tors where they are safe from their natural predator, the wolves.

This hill put fear into the hearts of many in the early days. The road was very narrow, more so than today. Actually, it is not overly wide today. More than one person chose to get out of the bus and walk down the hill in days past rather than risk the ride down. I have to say that passing another bus on the outside of the bend looks to be a bit disconcerting.

This land is beyond adjectives.

An erratic is a rock that is out in the middle of no where. There is no reason why it should be there. Except! A glacier carried it to this location and dropped it.

I have never experienced the feeling of grandeur or vastness that we are experiencing today. Not in any other national park, not anywhere in the Lower 48. Not anywhere!

The public may not drive up into Denali National Park beyond the first 15 miles. There is a tour bus company offering a narrated ride and providing lunch and a snack. The park green buses do not offer formal narration, and we have to bring our own food and beverage. On advice from people who had been here before us, we opted for the much more economical park green bus. We have no regrets as all. Tina is our driver. She has provided wonderful narration and is an expert at spotting the animals. We have some tasty sandwiches, orange slices, and mixed nuts in Ed’s backpack along with plenty of water. This was a good decision.

Tina knows her stuff. She has been doing this for a while, is interested in the animals, and cares about the park. She is making this a very memorable experience.

This sign makes all the sense in the world after you have been on a few of the unpaved roads around Alaska. The road into Denali is not paved past mile 15. The animals like it that way!

These white specks have been greatly enhanced with the zoom lens — both the optical and digital zooms have been maxed out.

This is a different ram that was spotted further down the road. He is giving us a wonderful profile.

I can’t seem to stop taking pictures of these mountains.

The caribou like to hang out on the gravel bars. They can see for a great distance in all directions — important if you could end up being someone’s dinner — and the gravel is cool for them to lay on. We have learned that when we are comfortable, the animals are not. Today is a cool day; so we are more comfortable with jackets. That means the animals are more comfortable and therefore more active.

This caribou is closer to the road than most of the caribou we have seen. He has forsaken the gravel bar for this nice open meadow.

Charles Sheldon traveled in the park in 1906 and again in 1907. It was through his efforts that Denali National Park was established in 1917.

Henry Karstens was the packer and guide that accompanied Sheldon into the park in 1906. This is the same Henry Karstens who climbed Mount McKinley. He later served as the first superintendent of the new Mount McKinley National Park. The name changed to Denali National Park in 1980.

We are at Eielson Visitor Center, 66 miles into the park. It is a very windy day today as demonstrated by the flag. The tent building was very noisy inside. The wind blows the soft sides of the building incessantly.

This red arctic fox is on the hunt right by the side of the road.

 

Where did it go?

This looks promising.

Nope. Some creature is going to live another day.

Maybe worth a second look!

We are in the alpine tundra and the flowers are tiny but very vibrant. The colors are spectacular.

We are looking at Mount McKinley. Most of it is obscured by clouds. The clouds go up a little and then float down again. We keep hoping to get that clear glimpse.

The plants are small but plentiful.

We have reached the end of our tour. From here we will be headed back on the same road we drove up. The views keep changing; so I’m think that it will be like a whole other trip.

These little guys were running around all over the place. We heard a strange sound that was very loud and distinctive. It took a moment to identify it as the arctic ground squirrel.

He seems to love the seeds that are left when the purple flower goes to seed.

The white flowers are similar to the blue flower but different. Certainly they are the same small size.

Back to the mountain. The clouds have gone up a bit again. The grandeur is all there if only they would life a bit more.

This view isn’t hard to look at in the meantime.

Such a perfect little flower.

Ed is pointing to the same flower above. His hand lends a perspective to the size.

These are about the same small size as above.

Another view of the tall one. It is about as good as it is going to get today. Ah, well. It isn’t like we haven’t had the chance to see it on the way up.

Some more bright color spots.

Even the wild grasses have grain beards that are colorful.

These are the antlers that were discovered locked together.

Inside the tent visitor’s center are several displays. This quilt is done in four beautiful panels, anyone of which could stand on its own. Together they make a beautiful mural.

Here is another caribou very near the road. Today is proving to be a very good day for large mammal viewing. This one is still very shaggy from last year’s winter coat.

Wow! Another bear. This one is in the gravel bar and close enough to actualy see without the zoom lens.

This bear is moving up the gravel bar towards us.

This is a wonderful bear. We are getting to enjoy a very good view of his browsing.

And yet another bear! This is pretty wonderful. Sometimes there are no bears, sometimes there are a few bears, today there are a lot of bears.

All the bears in Denali are grizzly bears. There are no black bears here. While black bears can actually be black or brown in color, their species is a “black” bear. It would seem that when Alaskans refer to the brown bear, they are talking about the grizzly bear.

The park’s philosophy is to give nothing to the bears. Take nothing from the bears. By so doing, bears and people can live in harmony for the most part. The more we learn about bears, the easier it is to not fear them but to respect them. Many more man-bear encounters end with both parties backing away than end with the bear attacking the man.

I’m not sure I could remain quite so calm about the subject were I the one in an actual encounter. Let’s hope that my feet would allow me to stand my ground and not take off on their own!

This ram is walking down the side of the road. What a great photo op! There is no zoom used here!

Now this is the best! This is mama bear and a cub that is a year old. He would have been a new baby last year. Still with mom, he looks like he is doing a pretty good job of foraging for himself.

The grizzly bears that are on the salmon streams are much bigger and fatter than these grizzlies. Bears are opportunistic eaters. They will eat whatever is available. Certainly if fish is available it is a preferred dish. However, these bears do just fine eating the vegetation, pawing up grubs, enjoying any treat of meat that happens across their path.

This ends our bus tour of Denali National Park and Preserve. It was everything I had hoped and so much more. The wildlife viewing doesn’t get any better than we had today.

Back into the little community just outside the park, we go to the fish and chips restaurant. I am a very big fan of fish and chips and Alaska has some of the best I have ever eaten. The fish is almost always halibut, but sometimes there is a choice of salmon or cod. I personally like the halibut the best. It is a bit pricey, but then this is Alaska. Everything is a bit pricey!

On our last day we decide to check out the train depot. One of the rangers said it was a pretty interesting place. There are several interpretive panels regarding the park and the railroad’s shared history.

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The recollections of Lena Howard.

The Alaskan theater of World War II is a very little known piece of our history. I certainly did not see anything about it in any of the history books I ever studied. There were a large number of men serving in the Aleutian Chain, where conditions were intolerable. The weather included freezing temperatures, fog, constant wet, gale force winds, and snow or rain. More time and effort was spent looking for the enemy than fighting the enemy. The boredom was a mind stealer. These men suffered a high suicide rate, high rate of self-inflicted wounds, and high mental illness rate. Any distraction like R & R in Denali would have been a piece of heaven.

This sounds like it would have been a great adventure! If I had had the money, you could have counted me in!

This is the view that greets the passengers that arrive in Denali by the Alaska Railroad.

We lucked out and are checking out the station when the train is due to arrive. After hanging around reading panels for about 30 minutes, we are able to watch the train pull in.

These folks are in the tourist business. The engineer has his window open and is waving to all the folks on the platform.

The lighter colored cars are owned by two of the cruise lines that service Alaska. As a passenger on their cruise ship, this is the car you would ride on the Denali portion of your package. They look very nice with the large glass upper decks.

The conductor is out waving to the folks as the train pulls to a final stop.

The sled dogs are still a main mode of transportation for the rangers in the park in the winter.

When you see a moose, run a zig-zag course through the trees. Great advice, but the bush is so thick, I’m not sure that it is particularly practical.

When you see a bear, stand your ground. Great advice, but not easy to pull off!

It’s our last night in Denali. We are going to celebrate a very successful park experience with a steak dinner. The fire is almost ready.

We have the camera set up on the tripod at the end of the table so we can get a picture of both of us.

The steak seems to be pretty tasty! It was easy to make short work of this feast.

The fire burns down and the evening draws to a close. Denali Park is truly a very special place on this earth. We have thoroughly enjoyed our stay here and would love to return some day. Whether that will come to pass, time will have to tell. Having been here has enriched both of our lives. Life is very good.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 11th, 2011 at 18:07 and is filed under North by Northwest. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.