Denali

In August, the sun does not stay up 24 hours a day in Alaska. Most evenings it went down between 10:00-10:30 PM & was up again between 5:30-6:00 AM. We began Wednesday at the crack of dawn, literally, in preparation for our 13-hour Denali Backcountry Adventure. This is the most complete trip into Denali National Park, traversing the entire 95-mile restricted Denali Park Road. We boarded our surprising comfy Blue Bird school bus & began our trek.

We were only about 8 miles into the park when the woman behind me hollered, "MOOSE!" Our driver happily stopped and let us snap our pics. This huge bull was VERY far away & my camera wasn't mounted on a tripod, so sorry for the blurriness.

The next twenty miles or so went by fairly uneventful in regards to wildlife. The day was overcast & a little drizzly yet the scenery was still amazing.

 

A few miles later, the woman behind me hollered, "BEAR!" At this point, I started calling the woman behind me "Monkey Spotter," a nickname I gave Buzz in Costa Rica because he was so good at spotting Capuchin Monkeys. We were rewarded for our patience with a mama bear & her two cubs. Mama was voraciously eating every berry she could find, putting on much needed fat for her upcoming winter hibernation. The cubs must have eaten earlier as they were more interested in a mid-morning nap than anything else.

 

 

A little farther along Monkey Spotter saw a small herd of caribou...

...another bear....

...another small herd of caribou...

 

 

...and the motherload - a bear that didn't require using the full zoom on the camera!

 

We made several stops along the way but my favorite was the Eielson Visitors Center.

 The mountains in this pic are about 5,000' tall. Denali Mountain could be seen from this spot on a clear day. It's four times taller than these at 20,000'!

My new life motto

A beautiful quilt inside the visitors center

Two moose racks preserved after the two moose were found dead, their racks locked together from fighting.

Six hours after we began, we literally reached the end of the road & the Denali Backcountry Lodge. I did the math, we averaged about 16 MPH.

 

Thank God for porta-potties at the end of the road (there were real bathrooms; I just thought this was funny)!

 And an airstrip in case you've had enough & don't feel like riding back out on the bus.

We had a nice two-hour break at the end of the road that included lunch & some hiking. One thing to know about Denali National Park, like Africa, it has its "Big Five" that you will be fortunate if you get to see them all. The five are bear, moose, caribou, Dall sheep & wolf. We saw lots of Dall sheep, but they are always on the mountain-tops, so photos of them look like white specks, so I didn't bother to take any. Our guide told us that the wolf population was down to 47 in the entire park, which is 6.2 million acres. He had only seen 4 over the course of the entire summer, so we weren't holding out breath.

We made a little bit better time on the way out, taking only 5 hours instead of 6. Our guide was talking with us about something when he abruptly stopped the bus & cried "wolf," only he wasn't kidding! A wolf had trotted down the hill behind our bus & he saw it in his rearview mirror. It then hung out between our bus & the one behind for a few seconds. I missed the shot, so thanks so much to Judie, (Monkey Spotter), for the photo she got!

Not one of the Big Five, this is a ground squirrel, commonly known as a "bear-ito."

A couple of ptarmigan, Alaska's state bird.

We did it! We saw all of the Big Five. Even with the weather not being great & not getting to see Denali Mountain, we were elated! The 13-hour round-trip was the fastest 13 hours of my life. My eyes were glued to the scenery the entire time, and there was never a dull moment. Check one destination off the Bucket List!

Travel Day: Fairbanks to Denali

We left Fairbanks on Tuesday & traveled 4 hours south to Denali on the Alaska Railroad.

 Our conductor (the Snickers bar is a whole other blog I plan to write someday).

 Old telegraph poles dotted the landscape. They are now on the National Register of Historic Things (didn't know that was a thing) and cannot be removed.

 Alaskan sense of humor...

 Our first snow-capped mountains!!!

 We were told we could see Denali on a clear day.

 Sadly, it was not a clear day.

 It was beautiful nonetheless.

We were met at the train station by a hotel shuttle, handed our room keys & taken right to our room. Nice! We stayed at the Denali Bluffs Hotel. Our room had a nice view from the balcony, but there was a sister property, the Grande Denali Lodge, that was at the top of the mountain, so we took the free shuttle up to the top.

 

 The GM had quite the Alaskan sense of humor.

The amazing panoramic view from the top of the mountain.

We took the shuttle into town & found a cute little village full of souvenir shops & eclectic restaurants. We grabbed "Bear"itos at Black Bear Coffee House, a place famous for serving coffee from beans roasted in Alaska. Funny story - one of our shuttle drivers was bragging about how amazing the Alaskan coffee was. She ranted about how it's grown, roasted & everything right there in Alaska. Being a coffee nut, I knew there was no possible way coffee could get enough of a growing season in Alaska, so I asked about the "grown in Alaska" part. Oh, but she was ever adamant it was definitely grown there. Poor thing. Haha!

With no scheduled activities today, we took it easy after lunch & checked out the shops.

My favorite shirt with more Alaskan humor.

We had dinner that night at the hotel's Mountaineer Grill & Bar. I was still stuffed from my huge "Bear"ito, so only had a salad. Buzz scoffed that I should throw the salad in the yard then kill & eat what comes to eat it. That said, he had buffalo chili & reindeer sausage. Both were tasty!

Fairbanks, AK

We arrived in Fairbanks on Sunday, August 9 around 8:00 PM Alaska time, so even though we'd been traveling all day, we weren't very tired. Our hotel, Best Western Plus Chena River, was close to the airport, but not near town, so our sit-down food options were Brewsters & The 49er Club, the latter of which had a big SHOWGIRLS sign. Not wanting to fight the local U.S. Army for a table, we opted for Brewsters, got some decent grub & a great Alaskan Amber. Walking back to the hotel around 10:00 PM, the sun was setting & it was in the 50s. Nice!

The next morning we set out to walk the scenic Chena Riverwalk. It was overcast & in the high 40s with a little wind, so we dressed in a couple of layers.

We made it to downtown Fairbanks & saw some historic churches & sites.

St. Matthew's Episcopal (log cabin) Church

Never before seen a sled dog stained-glass church window. 

Inside St. Matthew's

Downtown Fairbanks

Immaculate Conception Catholic Church

The night before at Brewsters and again at our hotel, locals kept recommending we visit the Ice Museum. Ice Museum? Why on earth is there a museum about ice? I know it's cold here, but ice just melts. What on earth? To say the least, we were skeptical. This was a jewel of a museum! In March each year, Fairbanks is host to the World Ice Art Championship. The Ice Museum is located in an old movie theater. You watch a video about the competition; the most strenuous of which is a 5-day team challenge. Blocks of ice as high as 30 feet are brought in & teams drill out their creations. Some of the creations are in the museum in a -20 degree freezer. Thank the Lord they had parkas for us to wear!

Moose

Polar bears

The slide!!!

Two non-native Eskimos!

Sled-dog team

Then we got an ice carving demonstration from Andy, a one-time winner & numerous-time 2nd place finisher of the World Ice Art Championship. I should have gotten this on video. It only took about a minute.

This last one is cool, because he heated the flower so that it would "open."

Fully amazed & ready to book our return trip for March of next year to see the World Ice Art Championship in person, we left the Ice Museum. We lucked into a fantastic little lunch spot that did fresh crepes & really good HOT coffee (it never made it out of the 40s today). After lunch, we hit the Riverwalk for a few more sites.

Clock tower in Golden Heart Plaza

Unknown First Family Monument

Lend-Lease Monument

Antler Arch - created by 100+ moose & caribou antlers

After a full day of seeing all the Riverwalk had to offer, we walked back to the hotel, grabbed more grub & Alaskan Amber at Brewsters and called it a day (we'd walked a total of 11 miles today - my dogs were tired). Tomorrow we take the Alaska Railroad to Denali.