Landing in Anchorage was not dissimilar to landing in a multitude of other American cities. I don't know why but Albuquerque came to mind probably because it sits in a bowl of majestic mountains. Otherwise flat with no obvious downtown and a little bit of a cowboy feel to it. We only hung out long enough to visit the REI to buy Ryan a pair of much needed long-johns and both of us gloves, visit the local Walgreens to buy me a toothbrush and both of us road snacks and grab a curry lunch at the Yak and Yeti. And we headed out into the beauty that is Alaska.
We'd decided to do roughly a week of a seaside town in the hopes of doing some whale watching and roughly another week at Denali. For the whales, we picked Seward.
We meandered along 120 or so miles of one lane highway flanked to one side by steep snow-capped mountains and the other waters of Turnagain Arm. It was a beautiful crisp day with blue skies and big puffy clouds – photography heaven. Turnagain Arm is a narrow stretch of water that is the continuation of Cook Inlet and everyday millions of gallons of water go rushing into this arm. It is home to one of the largest and apparently most impressive bore tides in the world – we missed it coming and going. (In reading about this bore tide, I realized that Ryan and I had seen one last year in Brittany.) We made a stop at Beluga Point which is supposed to be a good spot to view the tide and the belugas that follow it. But all we saw was magnificent landscape.
You could blink and miss Seward and only realize it once the road comes to a dead end. It's that small and the only reason we didn't walk everywhere was because it rained just about non-stop. The little town can be divided into 2 areas: the harbor and downtown. We stayed smack between the two – at the foot of Mount Marathon, in a little B&B, Ballaine House named after Frank Ballaine, a businessman and brother of the man said to the be founder of Seward. It's an old turn of the century residence converted into a bed and breakfast. Many original features of the house appeared to remain, including a claw-foot tub in the bathroom and the windows in the bedroom. I had asked for a king bed and we were given a nice big room with a king AND twin bed. It was quiet and the bed was comfortable. Only the incessant daylight took some getting used to. Otherwise we slept like we were hibernating for winter.
Mount Marathon is one of a multitude of peaks that dots the Resurrection Bay landscape and its claim to fame is that it hosts a yearly race – people come from all over the world to try to break the record scaling this excruciatingly vertical peak. It was supposed to be one of our hikes until we both looked up and said, “no thanks.” We did do a nice hike at its base along a creek on a flat but rocky trail.
Our host Marilee was out of town when we first arrived and we were greeted by Gregory who was not as reliable a host as Marilee, but when he was there cooked a mean omelet and delicious pancakes. On a few occasions Ryan and I had to fend for ourselves for breakfast. But since breakfast was included in our package, we simply rummaged through the fridge and cooked our own. Gregory is a fisherman by trade and enjoyed talking to us about sustainable fishing practices, diving and sharks. Ryan shared with him some of his shark videos. Marilee is a native Californian who moved to Alaska after high school. She attended the hospitality program at the culinary arts school across the street from the B&B and in 1993 bought the house. She said she had once stayed at a B&B, knew nothing, but decided this was what she was going to do with the house. Now she splits her time between Seward where she has her business and Valdez where her husband lives.
We chose Seward for whale-watching and I had booked us on three excursions: two with a company Northern Latitudes and one with a kayak tour. Our first day in Seward took us on our first outing with Northern Latitudes and we repeated the charter on Friday. We scoped out the harbor on the night we arrived so we knew where to meet. The harbor is a string of small souvenir shops in cute little houses where one can see that Major Marine and Kenai Fjord Tours prevail as the heavy players in the industry of touring people around Resurrection Bay and the Kenai Fjord National Park . And the massive catamaran and ferry style boats lining the slips with those names further confirmed this. I had heard that one could easily go to harbor and find a small boat to take you whale-watching, but saw no such evidence of this and was glad that I'd found online what appeared to be the only small boat operator.
Seward is first and foremost a fishing village that happens to sit on the edge of one of the most beautiful natural phenomenons: the fjords. We learned that Alaska supplies the United States with 50% of its fish – I fear Asia may provide the other 50%. Every day we saw dozens of halibut and salmon and rock fish and cod being weighed and hauled and detailed for the various fish mongers – once we even saw a lingcod bigger than anything we'd ever seen in California. And the fishing community was made all the more evident by the Silver Salmon Fishing Tournament that was taking place at the same time we were there.
I learned more about the life cycle of a salmon than I ever thought possible. Twice we went to a river where they were trying to get upstream to spawn and it was fascinating watching them try to get up a small waterfall. The river bed was littered with the remains of those who had failed or already completed their mission and returned only to never make it back to sea and ultimately to somebody's dinner plate, but instead end up with their eyes pecked out by the hoards of seagulls waiting for an easy meal. Salmon must be the national fish of Alaska. Since they will swim upwards of 900 miles upstream to their place of birth to spawn, you can fish for salmon in just about any river in Alaska if you're not ocean-adjacent. Nature is miraculous and cruel to make a creature who's born a wee fry, develops in the protected waters of his birth in creeks and rivers. Then one day he must hear the call of the wild and starts swimming downstream where he'll grow into a big sexually mature salmon maybe not realizing as he's going on this easy ride to the sea that one day he'll feel the greatest of all compulsions to swim back to fulfill his final role in life – spawn and ensure the next generation after which maybe he'll make one last time back to the sea. At this point in life, he's fulfilled his destiny and if he doesn't die on the way back (or on the way up), he won't care anymore – he's already got one foot in the grave, he'll bite something he shouldn't and next stop: grilled with a little lemon juice on a plate in New Mexico.
Anyway, I digress. Back to our whale-watching. Our charters were penned “Glacier and Wildlife Tour.” I cared not a whit for the “glacier” component when I signed us up for this. My goal was to see a puffin, orcas and whales lunge feeding. Note that I said I hoped to see “a” puffin. I stress this because since I was a kid and we did a 5th grade school trip to Brittany and failed to see a puffin, I've wanted to see a puffin. And when I told our guide I was hoping to see “a” puffin, he didn't laugh or tell me that the waters we were headed for are quite literally littered with not only seagulls, but puffins as well. In fact, not only did we see more than “a” puffin, we saw two different species of puffins: tufted puffins and horned puffins. I was in puffin nirvana. They're smaller than I expected, but as beautiful. They're not fliers – they have very dense bones which allows them to dive, but makes it very difficult for them to fly – in fact, our guide, Nick, said that when they've had a big meal, it's virtually impossible for them to fly. Once again we were in an area, much like California, with an abundance of sea birds – not only in quantity but variety.
Over the course of the two days that we were out with Nick, we would see humpbacks – one of which was kind of lunge feeding (we gathered that the area he was feeding was very shallow, so he was doing sideways lunge feeding), lots of spouts and tails, loads of birds - puffins, seagulls, common murres, cormorants - otters, sea lions and seals. Nick says that he sees orcas about once a week and he had not seen them all week. We had not seen them on the first day and went out the second day with hope beyond hope that we would spot them or get the call that they'd been spotted. All day there was little communication on their glacier tour network. We were on our way back to Seward, already late for our return and still no orcas, that Nick got the call that some were spotted in Resurrection Bay. Three orcas were swimming to Seward. It was amazing to see those tall dorsals coming out of the water and the unmistakeable black and white. What a treat!
The glaciers for which I cared not a whit turned out to be a highlight of those charters. Nick takes the charter to either Holgate or Aialik Glacier depending vastly on conditions and time. Aialik is a further drive. And the destination is the icing on top of an already amazing cake. The topography of these fjords – mountains, cliffs, small islands that jut out of the water – is all just magnificent. The first day, we wasted so much time with wildlife that he took us to Holgate. As you approached, small chunks of ice floated on the surface and the vastness of a crystal blue glacier greeted you. Periodically you'd hear the cracking of the calving and even see chunks fall into the water. The cold that swept down the glacier and onto the boat was easily 20 degrees colder than the already cold days we were facing. The second day, he spent maybe a little bit less time dawdling over wild life and decided to take us to Aialik since Ryan and I had already been to Holgate. This time, the appraoch to the glacier was covered in chunks of ice ranging over some miles – some so big that seals were hauled out on top. Every once in a while the boat would make a huge thud as it hit one even though Nick weaved around them as best he could. This glacier was miles more impressive than Holgate and we sat and watched it calve and observed the happy seals hauled out and napping. Nick fished out some ice for his cooler because why buy ice when nature supplies? As we motored away from Aialik, we came upon a fat, furry otter hauled out on ice. He allowed us to take a few photos before rolling off his ice like a drunk sailor.
Nick is the only person we met in our travels who does not winter in Alaska. He follows the whales – summers in Seward and winters in Maui.
Our third excursion was supposed to be a kayaking trip to Aialik. After our boat trip out there I had mixed feelings about it. The waters were so beautiful and calm and serene that it would be amazing to kayak amongst the ice and hopefully get closer to the seals, but it was super cold and Ryan and I both had concerns over the potential for capsizing into this glacial water. I still don't understand why the company does not provide drysuits and since our charter was cancelled due to 10 foot seas courtesy of a passing storm, we'll never know. It turned out for the best since Ryan was fighting a cold and probably at his worse on the day we were supposed to go, but it made the end of our stay in Seward a bit boring for me as I toured the harbor and shops for the eighteenth time while Ryan rested and was busy being sick.
It rained a lot. Our second day, it was raining and we had no planned excursion so we took ourselves down to the Alaska Sealife Center. Curious as to whether this would occupy an hour of our day or the entire day, I asked Gregory how it compared to Monterey Bay Aquarium. He laughed at me and I quickly understood why – it is indeed about the equivalent of a wing. Highlights: otters are jerks, the baby walrus they had just received as a rescue, watching the king crabs get fed, watching the sea lions get fed and getting amazing pictures of puffins.
When we first saw the baby walrus, he had a rather large human in there with him and it was fun to watch their interaction. The baby walrus seemed very attached to this human. When we went back later for another look, the human was gone, his area seemed bare and he was cuddled up against a wall and looked sad, I don't know if this is attributing human emotion to an animal, but we were told that when they're pups, walrus spend a lot of time cuddled up with their mothers.
As we were making our way back towards the entrance, ready to leave, it was king crab feeding time. A guy was using a long pole to feed anchovy to the king crab who are way at the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to brains and watching one crab miss getting the anchovy, but instead get all tangled with the small piece of plastic covered wire the feeder uses to stake the anchovy was laborious. The crab, no anchovy as a reward, refused to return the wire to the feeder and it becomes a battle of smarts versus not-so-smarts. The crab: I have the wire, but no anchovy and I must hold on to the wire until it produces an anchovy. The feeder: there's no anchovy on there you dumb crab, let go of my pole.
Of course, it has long been my contention that otters are jerks. An article from “I F&#% Love Science” backed me up on this, but I don't know really how scientific that site is. So imagine my delight when right there in front of my own eyes, a plaque at the aquarium states just that! I don't recall if the Monterey Bay Aquarium ever made such claims.
Our last adventure in Seward was a trip out to Exit Glacier where one can hike out to a glacier and stand almost at its foot. It's a national park with rangers and in my research I had found that on Saturdays, rangers lead a hike along the glacier and an Alpine trail to the Harding Ice Field (which is the ice field that feeds all these glaciers) and back. While it sounded like a strenous hike – 8 hours roundtrip, the views and potential for wildlife it promised sounded amazing. I went back to the park's website the night before only to learn that some glacial activity had closed off the hike so no 8 hour death march over ice for us. Instead we spent a leisurely two hours at the park enjoying the only sunny day we would see in Seward.
I haven't talked about bald eagles or food and before we leave Seward and head to Talkeetna, our next stop, I should talk about both.
Sometimes not giving any thought to something leaves me feeling stupid. I don't know why I had imagined that we wouldn't see bald eagles until we got to Denali. I figured these majestic birds soared over the peaks of Denali. But bald eagles are coastal birds who feed on salmon and scavenge what they can. In fact, we learned that the best bald eagle viewing is nowhere other than the Homer dump. And where I feel stupid is that I should have known this – I've seen video of bald eagles catching salmon – where the heck did I think they were getting this salmon? Our first encounter was awesome – it was our first night in Seward as we were crossing the street, heading to the harbor to find our meeting spot for the next day that suddenly Ryan exclaims, “that's a bald eagle just flew over our heads.”
My last topic for Seward is food. We drowned our tastebuds in seafood. Every night we tried a different chowder and none disappointed – seafood chowders with all the local seafood: halibut, salmon, rock fish, cod – all slightly different, very clearly homemade (thank god) and all delicious. We had halibut in all its possible preparations: grilled with some garlic butter and lemon, fried in fish and chips, as tacos, topping a Caesar salad (the Caesar disappointed me with its out-of-a-bottle dressing, but the halibut was perfectly cooked). Ryan enjoyed a salmon bake dinner at my favorite restaurant appropriately named “The Salmon Bake” while I enjoyed delicious steamed clams. It was so good we went there twice. Besides seafood, Alaska is known for berries and we enjoyed many a pie and cobbler topped with a scoop of icecream.
Our original plan once we'd settled on Seward and Denali as our destinations was to rent a car for our week in Seward, then give it back and take the train to Denali. We were both really excited about the train. But the train posed some challenges in logistics. First of all, if we were going to take the train up, we'd have to take it back and it turns a 3 hour drive into an 8 hour train ride, therefore “wasting” not one, but two whole days. It would also waste a third days since we couldn't drive back from Seward and take the train all on the same day. We'd have to drive from Seward back to Anchorage, return the car, spend the night in Anchorage and take the train the next day. Also, once in Denali we were faced with the problem of how to get around. One of the lodges we were booked at offered a shuttle, the other did not. And the one that offered a shuttle, the shuttle was once a day to the park and once a day back from the park. And the park was 15 miles away. As we stumbled upon this logistics conundrum, we also stumbled upon a slamming rental car deal on orbitz for our two week stay. While we were disappointed to miss out on the train, having the car for the two weeks gave us so much more flexibility with our days.
The day we left Seward, we were destined for Talkeetna a dot on the map halfway (and a fifteen mile detour off the main road) between Anchorage and Denali. We left Seward on a sunny, puffy cloud day. As we drove north, we passed the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center and Ryan asked why we weren't stopping in there. I had no good reason, so after a few miles to find a u-turn, we u-turned and went in and ended up spending 3 hours there. Let's call a duck, a duck, it's a zoo, and while most of the animals are free to roam in good sized areas with their same-species brethren, attention is also called to the eagle who was rescued and is their oldest resident. His name is Adonis and Adonis was the victim of a gunshot wound and is missing a wing. This presents many challenges for an eagle, including body temperature control. And obviously, his ability to fly is completely compromised so he can't be released to the wild. One has to wonder if keeping a bird of prey alive in a cage eating dead rats and the occasional fish pond goldfish really provides adequate quality of life. This is evidenced further by the fact that current practice for rescued eagles who require full wing amputation is to euthanize the animal. We toured the facility, listened to talks on the various animals and I snapped away taking shots of somewhat cooperative wildlife. It is much easier taking pictures of a moose in a pasture than from a ½ mile away in the wilderness when the moose won't turn around to show you his front end.
Our stop at the AWCC and traffic driving through Anchorage delayed our arrival in Talkeetna and we arrived at the Meandering Moose B&B well after 7. Exhausted, we checked in, grabbed a burger for dinner and fell into a bed that was too small and creaked every time one of us turned around. The floor and the bedroom door also creaked so not a lot of sleep was had. The place was super cute despite its creaky foibles, but we really didn't get to enjoy any of it.
Ryan was still battling his cold and losing, but had agreed that he was well enough to do an ATV tour we'd hoped to do in Talkeetna. It's start time of 10 a.m. gave us an opportunity to be a little bit lazy before checking out. Not sure what to expect of this ATV tour and facing another cloudy potentially rainy day, we drove to the meeting spot at 10. We were shortly greeted by a diminutive woman named Patricia who would become my favorite of all the people we'd meet. Her personality and stories made that tour fantastic. The operation was started by a gentleman by the name of Dennis, now in his 70s who's family had moved from Michigan late in the 50s. Unable to get work in Michigan, this man's father had packed up his wife and three sons and headed to Alaska to take advantage of the homestead act. They sold most of their belongings and packed only their most prized possessions in a blue home-built wood trailer and headed west. Rather than the expected weeks to arrive, it took them months. They arrived in Talkeetna before the spur road was built and the only way to get up there was rail or river. They ditched the truck, loaded the trailer onto a rail car, I believe is what Patricia told us and got dumped in the middle of the woods to stake their claim. To stake a claim, you had to clear the perimeter of your property and build a habitable dwelling. And the family did just that. While in shambles, both the trailer and the original house still stand today and Patricia showed us a picture of how beautiful the original dwelling looked in its heyday. I'm not sure what happened to the other two brothers, but Dennis held onto the homestead and today has his own beautiful cabin on the creekside.
The tour of Dennis' family property was interesting and fun. To get there we crossed two railroad bridges, the part for pedestrians, bikes and ATVs no wider than the ATVs themselves. No roads are built to get to these properties and it's on purpose – the people who live there want the seclusion. We meandered down makeshift roads that have to be tended and groomed by the inhabitants of the land – it's their roads in and out of town only reachable via ATV or snowmobile in the winter.
As fascinating as the stories of Dennis' family were, I really appreciated Patricia's own story the most. I asked her if she was from Alaska (knowing full well that with the southern drawl that still plagued her speech she couldn't possibly be a native – born and raised Alabama – couldn't get more southern), and loved her response when I further inquired what had brought her to Alaska: I fell in love with my husband and told him I'd follow him anywhere and anywhere ended up in Talkeetna, AK. How many pioneering women had preceded her? Her husband bought their land, but they live almost completely off the grid. I say almost because in raising their son and homeschooling they have satelite internet (which her husband laments but agrees is instrumental in helping school their kid). They also have cell/satelite phones (instrumental to their summer work), but that is pretty much where it stops. They generate their own power, they do not have plumbing, they have a wood powered cookstove, they can food to get them through winter, they kill a moose yearly that they share with another family, they get around on ATVs. Once it's snowed enough they have to wait until the ground gets frozen enough to use their snowmobiles. And in the spring there is also a thawing period before they can use their ATVs again. She works all summer running tours for Dennis and once winter comes she claims to work even harder schooling her kid and taking care of her home. Her husband laments that she's not home enough during summer to cook his dinners – he says she's the best breadmaker – and that he's on a forced diet. It all sounds old-fashioned, but they all have their roles in this life they've built in the last frontier. Their son is 17 and during his summers off, he's been working on his pilot's license and getting his air time to be a bush pilot.
Once the tour was over we parted ways with Patricia and headed out of town, but not before making a stop at the roadhouse Patricia told us about for some home-baked goodies. Roadhouses were built throughout Alaska, spread out over the landscape each by a day's travel with dogs. The roadhouse in Talkeetna is one of the few that remains intact and operational today. I got some hot chocolate, a reindeer turnover and a brownie and Ryan got himself some nice danish. It was delicious and I wished we'd eaten there the night before.
And we faced the rest of the drive up to Denali – 2 plus hours - in the rain.
I'd not been able to find us one reasonably priced accommodation that could take us the whole week, so I'd booked us two nights in one place and four nights in another. Google maps was a little foggy, but they appeared close to each other – turns out they were right across the street. In my research, I couldn't find lodging in the Denali that was a happy medium. We were either looking at log cabins with shared bathrooms 15 miles away from the park (which I will loosely call glamping) which is where we ended up staying for under $100 a night or fancier, closer lodges for $250 and up. No motel 6, Best Western or Holiday Inn Express to round out the budget scope. At some point in our stay, I asked Ryan exactly how one defines glamping and I'd say, this was pretty close, though glamping may have some things this didn't, but this had beds and heaters which glamping probably does not. Our first place was an adorable little log cabin with trees growing from the roof. It had going for it: electric heater and we didn't have to run that thing very long to keep the room warm all day (I quickly realized there's a reason for log cabins – great heat retention) and a mini fridge. We only got one small queen sized bed which definitely does not work for us, only one power outlet, awful crappy wifi (and there's not cell service anywhere there), one wee little towel each and the door made a horrific noise, so getting up to go pee in the middle of the night instantly woke up the other person. Our second cabin was an A-frame – probably once upon a time made out of logs, but this one made out of plywood, so heat retention not as good (though I can't say I was ever cold). This one had going for it: two beds and more than one power outlet though they were both across the room from the beds, great wifi and a vast assortment of towels. Working against it: it was spendier and the door made horrible noise so I just put my foot down and told Ryan that if he had to pee in the middle of the night he was going to have to either pee in a cup or pee out the window. The second place was also right next to a creek and I found it lovely falling asleep to the sound of running water every night. The creek could also be used as a fridge in a pinch – what one might do when glamping.
In our remote little 3 cabin sites 15 miles away from Denali world, we had 3 dining options: a pizzeria which provided us with take-away one night, the very expensive restaurant at our second dwelling and the restaurant at the one cabin site we did not stay at. It was at this restaurant that we ate breakfast and dinner just about every day. Their menu was nice, the food was good and it was reasonably priced. One of us continued to have some kind of soup/chowder every day. Some highlights: the iceberg wedge with all the fixings you'd expect AND fried pork belly, their Caesar salad (the dressing was homemade), our last evening we indulged in rib-eye dinner, their homemade pies – blueberry and apple. The blueberry was really good, but the apple pie – oh my! The apples were the best apples I've tasted in years. The ideal of what an apple should taste like. And I guess that's how apples taste when they haven't been picked before their prime, sat in a warehouse for a couple weeks and crossed half the Pacific before landing in my local Costco.
Since we were 15 miles away from the park entrance, we were glad to have the car and come and go as we pleased. The park is six million acres with only one road that goes from the park entrance 90 miles in to Kantishna at the center of the park. Past mile 15, you can only go by bus or with a special permit (generally for researchers or professional photographers).
We arrived in Denali late Wednesday night and were there until Tuesday morning.
Thursday morning we got going late, mostly my fault because I didn't sleep well in our postage stamp bed, so I slept late. I think it might be easier to sleep after Ryan wakes up at 5:00 and starts reading on stops moving around. After breakfast, we headed for the park. We were meeting up with one of our colleagues from Jack's who's sister and brother-in-law work as rangers and we eventually met up with him at the dog kennels. We spent some time ooo-ing and aah-ing over the puppies and dogs before going on a hike around a beaver dam area. No beavers, but lots of evidence of their presence: gnawed on trees and a couple dams. We made our way back to the dog kennels in time for one of their presentations. They told us all about the working life of the canine rangers. Their summer months are spent training and entertaining tourists, but come fall and winter, they are patrol dogs – they are the transportations means of the rangers sent out to patrol the park (mostly in search of poachers from what I understood – poaching is still a big problem).
Friday we took hike around the Savage River. This is at Mile 15, so as far as you can go into the park before you hop on a bus. It was an easy hike which was the goal since Ryan had expressed the day before that uphill was tough on his respiratory tract still on the fritz from his cold. He suffered less, but still it was pretty windy at times and he decided that if we were going to hike like this he needed a scarf. I was hoping for Dall's sheep, but got pika and ground squirrel. Both super cute, both super photogenic. On the way out of the park we had our second moose encounter when 3 moose crossed the road.
Saturday was our big outing – a bus tour to Kantishna in the center of the park, at the end of the road. The bus was to pick us up at 6:10 a.m. at Denali Village Log about half way between where we were and the park.
There aren’t a million ways to see Denali park past mile 15. If you don’t intend to hike or bike 90 miles, then you’re left with taking a bus. Rather than taking the park bus, which is much less expensive, but doesn’t guarantee wildlife stops or any narration, we opted to spend a little more and go for the full experience. I chose the Kantishna Roadhouse bus based solely on reviews.
Linda was a fantastic tour guide and expertly maneuvered the bus along the often-times windy one lane gravel road. Linda’s ability to recount the rich history of the park, often coming back to stories as she got sidetracked by wildlife sightings was amazing - I don’t think she left a single story unfinished. She was a great critter spotter and her experience in the park shone through. She knew the different areas different critters had been spotted. And she was a wealth of information about those critters. At the front of the bus she kept a critter board, a running list of all the different critters we saw along the way. It reminded me a lot of what I do for a living and and as a fellow critter finder, I admired her aptitude at her craft.
We were not having great luck with the weather, but for some reason on that day, the clouds parted for us and the beauty of Denali in all her 20,320 foot splendor was revealed. Linda gave us many opportunities to photograph her while she was still showing and encouraged us to skip one of the three bathroom breaks so that we could get to the best picture spot before the cloud cover came through. Unfortunately we were too late, but really appreciated the effort made and Linda’s push to have us take pictures while the mountain was still out.
The highlight of the trip for us was the wildlife. From great to small it felt like we saw it all: grizzlies (boar and mama with spring cubs), moose (bull and cow with cubs), caribou, Dall’s sheep, snowshoe hare, pika, ground squirrels, ptarmigan, ducks, golden eagle, ravens and the list goes on. Yes, the wildlife was at times far away, and not super cooperative, but this is nature, not a zoo! They were by far not the best pictures of the trip, but it was fun to try. And since we didn't have binoculars, it was nice to zoom in even to crappy pictures and see what the animal was really doing all the way over there.
And then the vistas! Forget the beauty of Denali for a minute which we were super lucky to see as only 30% of visitors to Denali actually get to see the Mountain, but the multitude of vistas the Alaskan range has to offer - the polychrome mountains, tundra, taiga are a sight onto themselves.
The trip was insanely long 13 to 14 hours – and the bus was bouncy, so the feeling of your spine starting to compress increased mile after mile. The bus was a revamped school bus with a decent amount of leg room (thank goodness) and overhead storage for bags. It was climate controlled and the windows opened for easy access to photos. When we boarded I'd asked Linda if I could sit right behind her to avoid motion sickness. She said she had to keep those seats available for potential disabled passengers, but since we had none, she invited us to sit there. By the time she dropped us off, we'd had a great day, but I think it's fair to say that we were both ready to be off the bus! We'd already planned that this would be a great night to get takeaway pizza and eat it in our room before passing out.
I think come Sunday we were both pretty exhausted. Ryan didn't get out of bed except for meals. I spent the day catching up on picture editing. Waking up to rain did not help motivate us to do much.
Monday was to be our last day at Denali and the sun came out one more time. I had my heart set on doing the final hike around the Savage River area that we'd left to do. This was the alpine hike – 3 hours one way with a 25% grade. It was pretty challenging and the temperature dropped dramatically as we climbed. The hike started amidst beautiful tundra – lots of vegetation, trees, mosses, birds. We'd see the mountain as we headed into the park and climbing up to higher elevation gave us more views of the peak rising above the Alaska range. As we gained elevation, the vegetation diminished dramatically leaving only rubble.
I'd dragged the heavy 500 millimeter lens up this hill because I hoped that we'd get a little bit closer to Dall's Sheep. We'd seen them as white dots on the tops of mountains on our bus tour and none of my photo attempts had panned out. Ryan told me I was dreaming. Maybe I was, but sometimes dreams come true and we'd have missed them if it wasn't for a fellow hiker pointing them out to us. As we reached the summit of our hike, we had our backs to four sheep. And within close enough range to get good pictures. Suddenly lugging that lens was all worth it!
And what goes up must come down. The down trail led us right to the Savage River hike we'd done on Friday. I guess Ryan hates the uphills because he complained the whole way up that I was trying to kill him. And I know I hate the downhills and I complained the whole way down! But it was totally worth it.
The hike was not a loop, so we had three options for getting back to our car which was now 3 miles away: go back the way we came, walk down the road or hop on the bus. We'd timed it so that we could take a bus back, but thinking that it would take us longer than the three hours estimated in the literature, we were an hour early for the bus. I guess the literature anticipates that hikers will stop for pictures and to rest. We asked the park ranger where to get the bus and she said that she could flag down any green park bus for us and as long as they had room, they'd let us on. Turns out we only had to wait about 10 minutes.
Already thrilled with a great day, we headed out of the park. As we got back into the moose rutting area, mama moose and her two mooselets (probably the same ones we'd seen Friday) were on the side of the road gnoshing away on the vegetation there. Cars stopped, blocking traffic as people got out to take pictures. Buses trying to get through honked their horns. And once again Ryan ditched me in traffic to go find a place to park the car while I happily snapped away. What a great end to our Denali adventure.
We returned famished from our alpine hike and treated ourselves to a steak dinner capped off with another round of delicious apple pie.
Tuesday it was time to head back to Anchorage for our 6:00 a.m. flight on Wednesday. So that I wouldn't have to deal with motion sickness, I drove the whole way. At least it didn't rain until we reached Anchorage. As we neared Anchorage, we called our hotel to find out when we could check in and were told that our room was ready so we could come right over. The hotel was awful. I'd picked it based on price and it was supposed to be close to the airport which it was not. The bed was tiny. And it was so noisy. Never again. I was tired from the drive. We grabbed a very early dinner, went back to the hotel and pretended to sleep until 4:00 when it was time to get up and head to the airport.
I'd almost forgotten about my TSA experience. In the confirmation email we had, it said our flight was at 6:25, but when we got to the airport it was listed at 6:00. Would not have been a problem had it not been for my terrorist treatment going through TSA. I set off their naked scanner. Not a big deal, that's not uncommon. So the girl frisks me. Again not a big deal, but she doesn't find anything in the area of my wrists where it set off the machine. So she swabs my hands and wrists and puts the swab in the testing machine and tells me when the machine turns green I can go. Well the machine did not turn green. So now ALL my bags and have to get meticulously checked. This whole process took like 20 minutes. And in the end they find nothing and let me go. I asked the TSA lady who finally released me if she could tell me what had set off their machine (because not only did I not pass the machine, but something in my bags didn't either). She was annoyed and told me what mattered is that the scan showed nothing, so they were satisfied with what it wasn't. Never mind the fact that I'm going to go through multiple TSA checks with the same bags, same laptop, same phone, same camera equipment and I'd like to not get the terrorist treatment again. All I could think after that was thank goodness that our connection was through Seattle where you never have to leave the secure area.
We were now very tight for our flight and made it as the airline personnel was doing last call – seriously yelling down the gates that if our butts weren't on the plane now, they were closing the doors.
I slept all the way to Seattle and watched TV and read all the way to Kona. We landed back to hazy, hot and humid and the reminder that in its own way our little piece of paradise is also beautiful.
I've posted pictures on my picasa page at: https://photos.app.goo.gl/o3nM4QFpc0O2ZuWZ2
