The Mountain and the Park

 

It's Been A Long Time....

Continuing the saga: Leaving Tok for Fairbanks

We left off at Chicken Alaska, on July 12. The next few entries will be mostly photos and a few captions for clarification.














The drive from Tok to Fairbanks - Mountains galore and a view of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline




















July 14 Downtown Fairbanks




July 16th - the quest for McKinley
Nenana is a quaint town between Fairbanks and Denali National Park. The Nenana Ice Classic is a kind of contest where they sell raffle tickets (for a good cause of course!) to anyone interested in winning the pot. The challenge is guessing exactly what day and time the ice tower will tip from the melting ice. In the beginning of winter they roll this tower onto the ice in the river and it sits there all witner long until spring thaw. The guess is what day that thaw will be enough to tip the tower. And yes, we all bought raffles!
The fish wheel is sort of illegal in most places, but it's used to catch fish by the dozens at a time. It goes in the water and the current turns the wheel. The fish are swimming the opposite direction so they just get scooped up and flung on shore into a waiting bucket or something.

The ride toward Denali National Park had us on the road at the entrance well past the closing time. So we drove up and down the highway looking for a place to stop for the evening.

Hard to find a camper-friendly rest stop so close to the park!











JULY 17th in Denali National Park

Getting ready for the long winding bus ride through the park to a great vantage point for viewing Mt. McKinley. The mountain comes out of the cloud cover only 30 percent of the time, and we were actually lucky enough to get a glimpse....with some beautiful scenery and interesting sights along the way.















It was quite a ride through the rugged terrain, even with an experienced driver the view out the window was harrowing to say the least!!! Until we finally got to see "the mountain" peeking out from behind the clouds...

This mama moose stopped traffic for about 10 minutes while she took her time ogling the tourists and browsing the ground for something to snack on.

When she finally cleared our path, we continued on. Rounded the next bend and got yet another glimpse of the elusive McKinley.

This was truly the highlight of the bus ride. We found out later that day that the next bus trip after ours was not as lucky. They didn't see the mountain at all. We left at 5:30 in the morning and returned at 2 in the afternoon, and we didn't even take the bus the entire route! You can't drive inside the park past the first few miles. Only tour buses and limited campers can drive all the roads in the park. And even at that, the roads only cover a tiny fraction of the park - it's too big to see in a day and you have to be equipped for extremes if you want to hike and tent it on the trails.

After a much needed bathroom break, we continued on and got closer to the mountain...

Some of the wildlife, although abundant, is too far away to get good photos. Oftentimes we just got a look out the bus window.

We saw wolves, bears, sheep, hawks, ptarmigans, bald eagles, and so many others but from a distance mostly.

You probably can't see it but the next two photos actually have a bear and her cub wandering through the meadow. It's so far away it just looks like a white dot in the center of the photo. Hope you can all zoom in to see it!

This was the road that continued on to another spot in the park, but our trip was done and we were ready to turn around.

This is our best shot at seeing Mount McKinley. It is 20,320 feet high and is the highest mountain in North America. Even with this spectacular shot, we are still 10 miles away from the base.

It truly makes you realize how small we really are.

More to come on this trip to the park, but for now please have a very happy Thanksgiving and enjoy Black Friday!