Denali

Just wrapping up our first week in Denali National Park - one of the places we were most looking forward to seeing on this trip - and so far it's been everything we expected with one beautiful panorama after another. We've spent most of the first week exploring the area near the entrance, hiking the trails and just getting oriented. It's a nature preserve as well as a park, and you can only drive your car the first 15 miles on the park road, after that you have to grab a ride on one of their shuttle buses. The road is unpaved beyond the 15 mile point, although it looks to be well graded and in good shape. Takes the shuttle bus about 6 hours to make it all the way to the end of the road at Kantishna at the 90 mile mark, an old gold rush hamlet that was incorporated into the park many years ago.

Denali is an Athabascan word that means "The Great One"...referring to the mountain, otherwise known as Mt. McKinley. Haven't seen it yet.


Here's a good Denali scene - a big bull caribou against a backdrop of snowy mountains. That snow, by the way, is mostly new since we arrived earlier this week. Saw this guy earlier today on one of our hikes.


We're staying in a self-catering apartment about 8 miles south of the park entrance. Very nice - almost as big as our apartment in Vancouver - and makes for a relaxing little nest to come home to after an active day in the park. Haven't been too lucky with the weather so far although we've been able to get out and about every day except one. When I booked our two week stay here it was with the idea that even if we had a few rainy days we were bound to get plenty of sun if we stayed long enough - I mean it's early August, right? Well, it seems our arrival has coincided with the arrival of Autumn in the park. Daily high temps have only been in the 50's (up from the low 40's at night) and many of the trees are already starting to change color. Hoping for better luck during week 2, especially since we'd really like to do a flight seeing trip around the mountain while we're here.

Our hostess is an interesting woman. Came to Alaska from the lower 48 about 25 years ago to work as a commercial fisherman (fisherperson?) in Kodiak. At some point she got hooked on sled dog racing ( the Alaska State sport) and eventually ran a team in the Iditarod in 2002 - the 1,000 mile, 10 to 15 day race that winds thru central Alaska in March. Finished it too, which is no mean feat for anyone. Now she splits time between Denali & Kodiak, and trains sled dogs for some of the competitive mushers who still participate in the Great Race. The puppy kennel is right next to our apartment so we have two small huskies as our neighbors. They hardly ever bark which I'm told is pretty typical with the breed.



The entrance into the little development where we're staying. Seems as though everyone in the neighborhood is into sled dog racing.






Used to be that the only way to get to the park was by train from Fairbanks or Anchorage. Some people still do it that way - especially the cruise ship people, or "the boat people" as the locals call them. It is a scenic trip, but a little too "canned" for our taste. Still, the sight of the old engine moving through the countryside does evoke memories of a gentler age...and makes for a nice photo op too.

The original road was the Denali Highway - a 135 mile stretch of gravel connecting the town of Cantwell about 20 miles south of the entrance to Paxson in the east. Drove part of it one day earlier this week. Really pretty in that typical "outback Alaska" sort of way, but after surviving the gravel roads of Cordova and McCarthy I found that my enthusiasm for more off-road driving had waned...turned around after about 15 miles and called it a day.

We've done several very pretty hikes...most of the ones near the park entrance at any rate. Here are a few photos of the surrounding country:




A beaver lodge on the Triple Lakes trail. Just above this point we saw where the little guy had been gnawing and felling the young Aspen trees for his den, and the pathway (or slide) that he was using to get them from the slope above down to the water.




Lots of scenes like this one. Note that the leaves on the tree to the right are already starting to change.




One of the three lakes.




Rita coming thru a grove of Aspen.




Taking a break to enjoy the view across the lake, where there were two more beaver lodges



Earlier today we drove to the Savage River parking area - the farthest you can drive your car at the 15 mile point - and then walked part of the unpaved road into the heart of the park. About an hour and a half in we rounded a corner and saw this young Caribou on the hillside above us. He seemed pretty skittish, watching us closely for several minutes before bounding down to cross the roadway just ahead and continuing down the slope of the ridge away from us.




About 10 minutes later we came upon these two, apparently a mated pair (the females have antlers too) who didn't bat an eye at our presence...just kept on feeding, even after a couple of shuttle buses pulled up and stopped so the tourists could gawk and take their photos. They tend to favor open areas on the tundra this time of year to avoid the grizzlies, who are out and about trying to fatten up before the long winter's sleep. Lots of berries around, so it's been good forage for the bears. Have seen a lot of wild blueberries on our hikes but they're still pretty tart to the taste...won't be ripe for a little while yet.

Interesting factoid of the day: Caribou and Reindeer are the same animal - a Reindeer is just a domesticated Caribou. Both the male and the female have antlers. The males drop theirs after the end of the rutting season in October or thereabouts. So...Dasher, Dancer, Prancer & Vixen (and Rudolph) are actually females, since they're the only ones who would still have a full rack of antlers in December.