Day 23 – Saturday 7/30/2011

Denali National Park to Talkeetna, AK – 161 Miles

The day started out like most recent days: cloudy, overcast, and drizzly. After dumping our waste tanks, refilling our fresh water tank, checking e-mail and uploading last night’s blog, we pulled out of the National Park at about 9:30 or 9:45. We were disappointed that the cloudy weather all four nights and three days in the park never allowed us to see Mt McKinley, but it was time to move on.

The Parks Highway south from Denali is in overall excellent shape, with just a few short areas of frost heaving. I could easily have driven the speed limit of 65 mph, but like to stay between 55 and 60 for the sake of fuel economy. We made a fuel stop at Cantwell, still in the light rain. The sky started clearing the farther south we traveled, but mighty McKinley, off to our right, was still shrouded in clouds. There are several overlooks and view points along the way where the mountain is visible on a clear day, and believe me, we stopped at every one of them. But still no luck. We were getting desperate. You see, when we first stopped at Denali I optimistically bought a tee-shirt that proclaimed me to be a member of the 30% Club; i.e., one of the 30% of visitors who actually get to see Mt McKinley. That is because McKinley is so massive it creates its own weather, which is usually bad. On average, the mountain is hidden from view two out of every three days in the summer; thus the 30% success rate for seeing it. Anyway, I was beginning to realize that I could never wear my tee-shirt in honesty.

At one of our viewpoint stops we overheard a lady say she had been in Talkeetna for the past few days and had seen the mountain from there. We hadn’t planned to go to Talkeetna – it’s off on a dead-end spur which branches off the Parks Highway a hundred miles north of Anchorage – but as we approached the highway junction, we were out of options. According to the Milepost, there were no more spots along the highway where McKinley would be visible. On a whim, we turned off on the spur road and drove the 14 miles up to Talkeetna, telling ourselves we could spend the night here and continue on to Anchorage in the morning. By now the clouds overhead were breaking and it was actually getting warm, but as we pulled off the road into the Talkeetna overlook, the view of the Alaska Range to the north was still solid clouds. Dang!

So we drove into the little village of Talkeetna to check out the two RV parks and to find the local church for Mass in the morning. We found the church, but decided we’d rather boondock at a spot we’d seen coming into town, so we headed back up the low hill south of town. The McKinley overlook sits at the top of this hill, just a half-mile before our boondock spot, so we stopped once more to take a look. Sure enough the clouds were actually thinning and we could begin to see what looked like a huge mountain peeking in and out of the mist and clouds. Soon we could see not one, but two large snow-covered peaks towering above the 10,000-ft foothills between us and them. We knew McKinley was visible from here, but weren’t sure of the orientation of it and the surrounding 14- to 17-thousand foot peaks immediately around it. Surely the large peak on the left was McKinley. It was still hazy in the distance, and the background sky was flat white – terrible conditions for photographing the mountain from our location, at least 50 miles away. But I set up my tripod and began shooting away, taking probably 60 photos bracketed at different exposures and zoom settings, and hoping I could enhance the contrast with Photoshop when I get home. Meanwhile, the clouds were moving in and out, and slowly an even more massive shape began to emerge to the right, or east, of the peak I had been shooting. Oh crap! Had I wasted 50 shots on the wrong mountain? About this time a local came riding by on a bicycle, so I confirmed with him that the new mountain was truly Mt McKinley. Oh well, at least I wasn’t still shooting film. Mt McKinley slowly drifted in and out of the haze, never showing its entire summit, but still dwarfing what turned out to be its 17,400-ft neighbor, Mt Foraker, and their “little” brother, 14,573-ft Mt Hunter. The clouds soon closed in, hiding all three peaks. We closed up shop and drove back down into the village to have a dish of ice cream to celebrate our good fortune. Maybe tomorrow will dawn a clear day and we’ll get a chance to see the full mountain in all its glory. But even if not, I can wear my tee-shirt without feeling like I’m lying to myself.

A quick word about Talkeetna is in order. It’s a tiny burg of old log cabins from bygone days, but spruced up as shops, bars, and restaurants. It’s located on the bank of the Sulsitna River, and began life as a trading post and riverboat stop in the mid-1890’s. The Milepost calls it “a unique blend of old-time Alaska small town and modern tourist destination.” A bumper sticker on a car proclaimed, “Talkeetna – Where the road ends and life begins.” If that’s not the town motto it should be. I saw very few out-of-state license plates, and judging by the appearance of most of the people in the shops and outdoor restaurants around the square, I’d guess it’s the weekend playground for Anchoragites (or whatever you call people from Anchorage). It’s also a hub of bush-pilot activity, with several air charter services offering sight-seeing flights to and around Mt McKinley. In the late spring it’s the hub of activity for McKinley climbing expeditions, flying the climbers and their gear up to the Kahiltna Glacier at 7200 ft for the start of their climbs. It’s a charming town, and I’m glad that serendipity brought us here.

Day 22 – Friday 7/29/2011

Denali National Park

We slept in late this morning, the after-effects of yesterday’s hike. After a nice hot breakfast of sausage and egg tacos, the first order of business was to go to the lost and found and the Visitor Center to see if my camera case had been turned in, but unfortunately it was not there. We had sorta talked about driving up to the Savage River turn-around, the farthest place you can drive in a private vehicle at Mile 15 on the Park Road. There is a short, level, two-mile hike along the river there that we had talked about doing, but it started raining. Besides, Jeanette wasn’t quite ready for another hike. One of the things we wanted to do was to see the sled dog demo at the kennels a couple of miles up the road at the Park Headquarters, but we missed the 10:00 show. The next demo would be at 2:00 pm, so we just came back over to the Riley Creek Mercantile to use the wi-fi there to check e-mail and upload yesterday’s blog post. I checked the Tiger Yahoo forum (the special interest group for our motorhome) to get an update on the location of another Tiger I knew was someplace in Alaska. There was a post from them saying they were here in Denali and staying at our same campground. We hadn’t seen them yet (it’s a big campground – three loops with 140-150 sites), so I posted our campsite number and said we hoped we could meet with them later this afternoon or evening.

As I walked back out to our Tiger, there sat another one in the Mercantile parking lot. It wasn’t the same one I had just seen on the Yahoo group, but another Tiger owned by a couple from Laramie, Wyoming, who were just on their way outbound from the Park. We chatted with them for a few moments, and they said the other Tiger had pulled in right next to them in the next campground loop over from ours. Since it was time for us to get over to the dog sled demo, we made a note to check on them when we returned to the campground later in the day.

The dog sled demo was moderately interesting. The main thing I learned was that the best sled dogs are not the fluffy Siberian huskies you always see in the movies, but rather a mixed breed containing Alaskan husky blood; in other words, a somewhat slender, long-legged mutt, with fairly long hair and a full tail. But whatever they are, they are high-spirited dogs who love to work. There are twenty or so dogs in the kennel, and when the handlers started to hitch up the five dogs to the sled for the demo, the rest of the dogs got all exited and started barking, begging to be chosen. It was like a bunch of grade school kids who knew the answer to the teacher’s question, raising their arms and calling, “Ooh, ooh, me, Miss Jones, call on me!”

After the sled dog show we decided to drive up to the Savage River anyway. It was too late to hike, but we thought we might see some wildlife along the way. We did see a nice bull caribou down on the bank of the river about four or five hundred yards away, and a very large cow moose on the hillside above the road a half mile or more away, but nothing closer. By the way, for anyone who read the book or saw the movie Into the Wild, or ranger yesterday said the actual occurrence on which the story is based took place on the Savage River just outside the Park boundaries. That’s how remote this country is once you get off the road.

Still hoping to find my camera case, we stopped at the Wilderness Activity Center, which is the dispatch point for all the shuttle buses. I hoped to see if the dispatcher could tell me when the particular bus we were on yesterday was scheduled to return. I was thinking that maybe they missed seeing the camera case when they cleaned the bus last night and that it may still be on the bus floor, under a seat. The bus hadn’t returned yet, and she didn’t know when it would get in. The Discovery Hike bus goes to the end of the road after it drops off the hikers, and then becomes the “sweeper,” the last bus of the day to pick up straggling hikers late in the day. That means it doesn’t get back until pretty late. But the dispatcher said, “Wait a minute, let me check something.” She went inside to the Information desk and pulled out a couple of boxes of odds and ends, and there was the camera case, complete with my spare battery and memory card. Hallelujah!

Before returning to our campsite we drove around the other campground loop to look for the other Tiger. It turned out to be just a stone’s throw from our site. We could actually see it through the trees, but not well enough to recognize it as a Tiger. The owners were not there, so we figured they were on one of the hikes or tours that got in late. We left a note on their windshield inviting them to come over after they got in. So after supper they did come over and we had a nice, but short visit. They were new Tiger owners, having just picked theirs up from the factory in December. Other than the drive back from the factory to their home in Tucson and a couple of short shake-down trips, this was their first big trip. And what a trip it is. They have been on the road since early June, and plan to be out until late September. We hope to see them again at next summer’s Tiger rally.

That’s about it for now. We leave Denali in the morning and head for Anchorage, then the Kenai Peninsula.

Day 21 – Thursday 7/28/2011

Denali National Park

Today was a very strenuous day. When we first came into the park, we were looking at the list of things to do and saw something called a “Discovery Hike,” a relatively short, supposedly half-day, small group hike led by a ranger. There were two hikes listed for today. The first was a “strenuous” hike which included 1300 ft of elevation gain; I don’t remember the other details other than it was pretty far back in the park, which meant another 40 or 50 mile bus ride each way. The other was listed as a “moderate,” four-and-a-half mile hike, including a 900-ft elevation gain, a walk through the tundra, and possibly one or two stream crossings. It recommended bringing a pair of sneakers or Tevas for the stream crossings, plus an extra pair of dry socks. Both hikes required us to bring a lunch, as well as raingear, pile jacket, etc – the normal stuff you would expect to carry while hiking in an area like this. We chose the moderate hike since it was closer in – only a 30-mile bus ride each way – and because we didn’t feel up to a strenuous hike given the three weeks of relative non-exercise we’ve had along the way.

After dinner last night down in the village, we stopped at the local Subway and got a footlong sandwich, which we normally split. We took peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on yesterday’s bus trip, but figured we needed something more nourishing for today’s hike. The girls at the Subway shop asked us if we were buying the sandwich for hiking the next day, and were kind enough to pack the veggies and condiments separately so the sandwiches wouldn’t get soggy in the fridge overnight. They do this a lot here.

We set the alarm again for 6:00 am and went to bed by 10:00 pm. This morning dawned cloudy, but with a hint of blue sky here and there. The temperature was again in the high 40’s, and the forecast called for mid-60’s in the afternoon. We had our coffee and a quick breakfast of cereal with blueberries and the last of our giant cinnamon bun, and were over at the Wilderness Activities Center in plenty of time for our 8:00 am bus. This bus was only for the two Discovery Hike hikers so it wasn’t crowded. Our ranger joined us a couple of miles up the road at the stop for park employee housing, and the other group’s ranger would join them at wherever it was their hike was supposed to start. After a one-hour ride up to a point approximately a mile past the Taklanika River rest stop, the bus stopped and our group disembarked. Right away I had a bad omen – I had my camera case on the hip belt of my day pack, but had taken the camera out in case we had any wildlife sightings on the trip up. As I got up from my seat the camera case must have fallen off onto the floor of the bus. I didn’t notice it was missing until I buckled on the day pack as the bus drove away. It wasn’t a big thing since I had the camera in my pocket, but it did have my spare battery and memory card. I guess I can pick it up at the lost and found tomorrow morning; at least I hope it shows up.

There were eight people in our hike, plus Alison, the ranger who was leading the hike. Besides Jeanette and me, there was a couple from Germany, a man from San Francisco, and three Indians from Mumbai, but who were now living in Las Vegas. Both the Germans and the Indians spoke good English, so we did not have a communications problem. The hike started with a traverse of a wide, shallow drainage. As soon as we stepped off the road we were in the tundra, and it was nothing at all like the tundra we’re used to above timberline in Colorado. The tundra here consists of a continuous bed – actually a series of small humps or hummocks – of thick, soft, green moss. The moss is at least six inches to a foot deep, and each step sinks a few inches into it. It feels like walking on a sponge, or maybe a waterbed. Everywhere, even on sloping ground, there are hidden pockets of dark water – not deep, but certainly uncomfortable when you step into one. Mixed in with the moss are low blueberry, cranberry and other berry bushes – a favorite food of the bears – and low flowers, including fireweed, dwarf fireweed, hare bells, monk’s hook, bog saxifrage, eskimo potoato, jacob’s ladder, cinquefoils, gentian, Arctic dock, and many others. Then there are willows and the dwarf birch. The willows are like the Colorado high-altitude willows – waist-high to head-high, with thick, intertwining branches, growing in wide bands and patches of usually wet or boggy footing. Anyone who has fought his way through the famous Guanella Pass willow field to reach the foot of the Mt Bierstadt trail in Colorado knows what I’m talking about. The dwarf birch is a low, calf-high to knee high shrub which makes the tundra, from a distance, look like a grassy meadow. But as you walk through it, it is a real ankle grabber. And beneath it all is the spongy tundra.

Our goal was a band of low hills across this mile-wide tundra field. Of course with all the zig-zagging and bushwacking through the willows, we probably walked at least a mile-and-a-half or two miles to reach to base of the hills. I should pause a moment and say that, except for a half dozen or so short trails in the Visitor Center area and a couple at some really popular spots right along the road, there are no trails in Denali Park. Everywhere you hike is a bushwack, either through the tundra or the scree of the low slopes of the mountains. And bushwacking through the tundra is not simply walking; each step is like climbing stairs with vines grabbing at your ankles.

There were plenty of blueberries, especially once we reached the lower slopes of the hills. The blueberries, like everything else in this harsh climate, are miniature versions of what you’re accustomed to seeing. Although they are only a quarter inch or so in diameter, there are hundreds of them everywhere. As you hike, you pick blueberries and continuously pop them into your mouth – one of the few pleasant experiences of this hike. Alison, our ranger guide, said that studies estimate that the bears eat an average of 200,000 (yep, that’s two hundred thousand) blueberries each day once the berries ripen. That sounded like a lot of blueberries, so I asked her how they came up with that figure. She said that researchers counted the berries in random piles of bear scat (the berries don’t digest well), and counted 20,000 berries on average in each sample of scat. Since they say the average bear craps at least ten times a day, that’s where they came up with 200,000. I don’t know, that sounds like a lot of berries, particularly 20,000 in one pile of bear scat. Perhaps she was at least a decimal place off – even 2000 berries per scat pile seems like a lot to me.

Anyway, back to the hike. The climb up the low hill wasn’t too steep, but it involved navigating through more willows, so it was twice as hard as we expected. However, we reach the top we were treated to a nice, fairly level area of dry shale rubble to sit on and eat lunch. It had taken us over three hours to reach this spot approximately a mile-and-a-half as the crow flies from our starting point, but probably twice that with all our zig-zagging and weaving. My GPS said we were right at 3400 feet, or just as advertised, 900 feet above the point where we got off the bus. The view from this hilltop was outstanding – 360 degrees of rugged, albeit only 5000 or 6000-ft peaks. However, each succeeding layer of mountains grew higher and higher, until off in the distance we could see 10,000 footers with patches of snow on their flanks. Again, though, Mt McKinley was hidden in clouds and not to be seen.

The fun began when we started downhill and back toward the road. Back again through the willow thickets, and back again through the spongy tundra. This time our route took us a mile or so north of our incoming route, and right into a serious bog about a quarter mile wide. We kept veering farther and farther to the north, trying to find a semi-dry path through the willow bog. The bog kept getting wider and wider, so we finally had to bite the bullet and wade through. This must have been the “stream” the hike description mentioned. It was not a stream at all but rather a series of rivulets too wide to step across. By the time we got through, everyone’s boots were soaked and full of water, and we still had a mile or more to get to the road -- through more tundra, of course. There was a small rise between the bog and the road which afforded a little relief from the wetness, then a short slope through some fairly dense timber, but we finally reached the road at 3:45 pm, six hours after our hike began We probably hiked at least five or six miles total. Then, for some unknown reason, the return buses were running late. The first two buses were full, so it was an hour before we finally boarded a bus and then another hour before we reached the Wilderness Activity Center. It was a long day.

Our first stop, even before returning to our campground, was the showers. Boy, did a hot shower feel good. Almost as good as the cold beer we had back at the campsite.

Jeanette’s Addendum: In defense of the ranger, she was young and had never hiked in this area before. I don’t think she realized how boggy the area actually was. Thanks to Joan Boyle, I had the best mosquito net in the group and I wore it for much of the hike. The mosquitoes were quite unfriendly and although I am usually the target, they just couldn’t get to me. I thought I was doing great at first enjoying the spongy bog and keeping dry. But then I guess I got tired and kept getting tripped up by the bushes. I fell about five times and once in the water. Finally got not only my feet wet but also my butt. Not quite the hike that we usually experience on Tuesdays at home.

Day 20 – Wednesday 7/27/2011

Denali National Park

It was starting to rain as we went to bed last night, and continued to rain lightly throughout most of the night. When I woke up at 2:00 am to do what we older folks do, I listened to the rain on the roof of the motorhome and wondered what the morning would bring. We had signed up for an 8:30 shuttle bus that would take us up to the Eielson Visitor Center, a 66-mile drive up into the park on the park’s only road. It would take four hours each way – a full day’s drive on a bus similar to a school bus. But that’s the only way to get around in the park. Private automobiles are allowed only 15 miles up the road, except for the few that have made arrangements in one of two campgrounds farther into the park. One can, of course, get off the shuttle bus and hike out onto the tundra, then catch another bus either farther up or back down. We elected to stay with the one bus for the entire trip.

I keep mentioning the tundra because that’s what it is. The timberline in the park is at about 3000 feet, and you reach that very quickly after leaving the Wilderness Activity Center. From then on for the rest of your journey, you are literally above timberline, just like driving the upper reaches of Mt Evans or Pikes Peak in Colorado, except that the road goes on and on through a series of wide meadows and drainages, all the while surrounded by jagged 5000 and 6000 peaks and ridges. The road does go over three or four low passes, the highest of which is around 3700 or 3800 feet. The peaks and ridges are the foothills of the mighty Alaska Range, home to Mt McKinley, the highest peak in North America at 20,320 feet. Since McKinley sits back another 40 miles or so from the end of the road, the line-of-sight viewing angle to observe the peak is limited to only a few brief glimpses because of this wall of foothills. Because of the low cloud ceiling, we never saw it today. In fact, they say only about 30 percent of the park visitors ever see Mt McKinley because cloudy conditions are the norm.

The main attraction of the bus trip is the opportunity to view and photograph wildlife. The big five in the park are grizzly bears, wolves, Dall sheep, moose, and caribou. We were fortunate to see all five, plus a lone coyote, although only a couple of bears and three or four moose were really close enough to get halfway decent photos. The sheep, in particular, were merely tiny white dots high on the mountainside. It was only with binoculars that we could really see them.

I was expecting to see more caribou, but I guess we saw less than a dozen altogether, including one really nice bull with a tremendous rack. But even he was at least a half mile away. Speaking of caribou, though, the wolves we saw were hanging around a caribou carcass that they had brought down a few days ago. It was located down along a creek, about 400 yards off the road. Only the antlers and a few bones remained, and the rack looked to be even larger than the live bull that we saw. The coyote I mentioned earlier was up a bluff overlooking the kill site, yapping his distinctive coyote howl, no doubt lamenting that the wolves were keeping him away from a free meal. The ravens and magpies meanwhile were swooping down at will, picking at the bones.

While you can take a more expensive, narrated tour which furnishes box lunches, the simple shuttle does not provide food. We packed our own sandwiches and ate lunch at the Eielson Visitor Center. However, the bus driver does provide some narration using the on-board P.A. system, mainly pointing out landscape features and talking about the wildlife we see or hope to see. There are longer rides and shorter rides; the longer rides go another twenty miles or so and take another three or four hours. But I’m glad we chose this one because eight hours on a school bus, no matter how spectacular the scenery, is about all these old bones can bear. The weather could have been better – it stayed in the high 40’s or maybe the low 50’s most of the day, and was cloudy, which spoiled any chance of see Mt McKinley. At least it didn’t actually rain on us today. But we still have two days, so maybe our luck will change before we head south toward Anchorage and the Kenai Peninsula on Saturday.