On to Anchorage

Tuesday: We had an early start to get back on the bus from Kantishna, but it's so light at all hours of the day you can't really tell if it's early or late. Very strange. The ride back took less time as we didn't make as many stops but we did stop to take animal photos. 2 bears, what looked like a mama and about a 2 year old decided to come right up on the road to see us. WOW!!! We also got a close up look at a red fox. Our driver explained that the mama bear keeps the cubs close til their 3rd year as the male bears will kill the cubs if given the opportunity. For one, the mama won't mate if she has cubs with her and B, the male's instinct is to reduce any future competition for food or mates. Also, he told us the fox we saw was probably and male as the female stays in her den with their cubs and he hunts and brings food back to them.

We went back to the train station and back to one of the domed cars for the ride to Anchorage. The train is pretty comfortable with a bar in every car, pretty good food (reindeer sausage chili in a sourdough bread bowl) and a "host" who narrates as you go along and answers questions. We got into Anchorage about 8 PM and cruise west picked us right up and brought us to the Sheraton. Very nice room, the big screen TV seemed strange after Kantishna, but at least there is WiFi so I can catch up on our adventures. Pretty shortly here we'll go to the airport for our flight to Juneau. One night is a hotel there then the next morning we board our boat. The folks on the tour with us are a mixed bag as always but for the most part we are getting along with everyone. Jim has been wearing his fishing hat or t-shirts so that always gets a conversation going and Robin is almost as shy as I am. Also it's nice for a change to travel where you can drink the tap water and everybody speaks English.

We are some awfully lucky people

Monday: Our first full day in Kantishna, we woke to bright blue skies, hardly a cloud in sight. There is a small airstrip just down the road from our lodge and Jerod came at breakfast to see who wanted to fly to see the mountain up close and personal. PICK ME!!!!! I said quietly. So all three of us ended up with an Australian couple in a 6 seater plane with Andy (and about 2,000 of the smallest, nastiest mosquitoes you have ever seen). It was so clear and Andy narrated as we went up. The Alaskan range sits on the border of 2 tectonic plates and was created by the plates colliding and forcing the pieces that come together up in the air. The plates are active and Denali gets a little taller all the time. The glaciers are formed by snow fall so high in the altitudes that it never melts, it accumulates over time, the weight of the snow pack creates ice on the bottom and when it gets heavy enough it starts to move down the mountain, grinding off particles of the rock as it goes. When it gets to an altitude where it starts to melt, it creates glacial streams that are full of silt.

Denali is so majestic from a distance, but up close it is amazing. It's hard to get a grasp on size, when it looked like we could reach out and touch it, Andy said we were still about a mile away. He showed us climbing tracks and a base camp that looked like a hairline in the snow and a paw print. There were some climbers visible but they looked smaller than ants crawling. They have developed a "clean can" system for Denali, so the climbers can pack out their waste. Because it's always so cold, nothing decomposes and it has become a problem in other places. Everyone takes such pride in maintaining the beauty here, I haven't seen one piece of litter in days. Even the smokers put their butts in containers.

After our flight we went back to the lodge and took a little nature walk along Moose Creek. The vegetation here is so different, we saw lots of different plants (Hooray for Robin, the queen of plant identification) and ended up off the trail somehow, go figure, so climbed a small creek bed up to the road. Mosquitoes everywhere, our pilot told us that after some time the folks there develop a biological immunity to the stuff the mosquito injects when they bite, so they still get bit but the bites don't itch. The upstairs of the lodge is set up for demos and has a library with a beautiful screened in area to sit and read. They had a gold panning demo in the creek and also brought in some sled dogs. The Rangers still use dog teams to patrol the park in winter. After dinner we went to wonder lake and saw a large beaver den. When the dens are active the roof area is mud and sticks, after it's abandoned vegetation will grow on the top and Trumpeter swans like to use them to build their nests. Being out in the middle of a body of water protects the young from some predators. Emmet drove the van to and from Wonder Lake and told us it's his 9th year at Kantishna. In the winter he tutors kids in his home village of Ruby and was very proud that he had one student graduate from high school this year. It's mostly college students that work at the lodge, they have only one day off each week which is not enough to get to town and back so they stay in the park all summer. The lodge has a strict no alcohol policy for the staff and many of the kids are from Christian schools. There are no keys to the cabins, you can lock yourself in at night if you feel the need but but there is no fear that anyone will take what is not theirs.

I can understand what draws a person to want to spend time in such a remote place, especially on a warm and sunny day like we had. Your internal engine starts to slow down and without technology to distract you, you can sit and really look at and listen to your surroundings. It is very peaceful, very powerful.

So as of today I have figured out that I can only upload 5 pictures at a time and that's why my drafts with more than 5 pictures would not publish. I also figured out how to keep the pictures in a nice straight line so they look better. My next goal is to figure out how to put the pictures in the order I want so they make sense, wish me luck. So far it has been just wonderful, am enjoying traveling with Jim and Robin, we are having a lot of fun. The cruise west people have done a great job of organizing and getting us from here to there. I'm not crazy about being on someone else's schedule but we've had some free time so it's okay.

Denali, the park and the mountain

Sunday started out rainy and gray. We met in the lobby to prepare for our train trip to Denali and while we were waiting, in walked Shelly and Kip Shults. Shelly is my friend and my dentist and she and her husband are on a different tour of Alaska but stayed at Pikes Lodge, same place as us, and were riding the train to Fairbanks. They had plans to stay somewhere near the entrance to the park. Weird coincidence or just the usual for me? Remember when I was in Guatemala City with the kids and ran into John Szabo from BDD training. Yep, welcome to my world.

The train was very nice, double decker with huge windows on top and dining car below. We had a host who kept us informed about where we were and what we might see. While we traveled and had breakfast (reindeer sausage),and the skies began to clear. At the Denali train station we were met by the cruise west people and transferred onto a bus. Most people stay outside the park and visit for the day, using the shuttle bus system. There are a few campgrounds but private vehicles are allowed on only the first 10 miles of the park road. The private lodges that are here, Kantishna included, were begun as mining camps. Our lodge has the building on it that was the old mining registry office. It was built here after miners got tired of having to travel to Fairbanks to stake their claims on mines. They were outside the original park boundaries, when the park was expanded they retained private ownership and the owners are permitted to transport their guests through the park in private buses.

Denali is now 6 million acres big and a testament to the foresight of people determined to keep some of this beautiful country in it’s natural state. Kantishna Roadhouse is 90 miles from the entrance to the park. Only the first 10 miles are paved, otherwise it’s gravel and bumpy. Our driver has worked here for 37 years and is also a former dog musher so knows the park very well. We spent 6 hours on our trip here, stopping for photo ops, at the Eilson Visitor Center (mile 66) and for animal sightings. We were extremely lucky, the weather improved over the course of the day with some sunshine and we saw many Dall sheep, a moose, some caribou, a single bear and a mother with yearlings, and a wolf. Our driver told us all about the park including its history and all about the flora and fauna. By the time we got to the visitor’s center, the clouds had cleared enough for us to see the top of the mountain. Many days it is shrouded with clouds so sightings are a treat. After we arrived and were settled in our lovely cabins on the banks of Moose Creek, we had a nice dinner (duck breast and polenta).

Everyone we have met has been so nice, the people who live here seem to share such a love for this land and its easy to understand why. The beauty is astounding and with no cars, no TV’s, no cell reception….it is quiet. You understand that you get to enjoy this land the way it has been for thousands of years. The people here are stewards of the land, not users or exploiters. As it is so close to the summer solstice there is daylight here at least 20 hours a day. It is a little weird to get used to, the first picture today was taken at 10:30 at night. I wonder how people who live here year round get used to having only a few hours of daylight during the winter months, especially with the extreme cold.

P.S. At the Eilson Visitor center is the most fantastic quilt, made by a local woman, that shows a panorama of Denali with different sections showing how it looks during different seasons.