World United States Alaska Denali

The Billings' Great Alaska Safari

Fairbanks to Denali Jun 25, 2007

Despite our neighbors partying until after midnight, we got an early start today. Guess that makes me sound like a real grump, but we're just too old to stay up that late any more. Plus, our cats still think they need to get me up very, very early. So none of us have acclimated to Alaska Daylight Time and operate with sleep deprivation most days. That's my gripe for today. It's only 118 miles from Fairbanks to Denali; so we got our first glimpse of Mt. McKinley, the highest mountain in North America at 20,320 feet. The picture did not turn out as well as I'd hoped. There is so much water vapor that everything at a distance looks very blue. The road follows the Nenana River, calm in some places, small rapids in others. I took one picture through the windshield so you can see the frost heaves on the highway. They are deceptive as you approach them. The best way to judge their severity is to look at the lines on the road. If the lines are very squiggly, slow down! We arrived at our campground about 10:30AM. The town of Denali is on the banks of the Nenana river with gorgeous views. It's very touristy, with lots of raft/kayak rental places, gift shops, and restaurants. Once we were set up, we decided on an early lunch. Alaska Fish & Chips had the best halibut we've eaten so far. They used a light tempura batter that was so much better than the heavy beer batter we've had before. After lunch, we decided to drive to the park visitor's center so we could plan our tour of the park. A very interesting short video on the history of the park and the park wildlife was worth the time. You can only drive 15 miles into the park in your car. To go further, you must take the park buses. The bus tours are 6 to 11 hours long on old converted school buses. We decided neither of us could manage that many hours on a bus. Besides, we remembered the bus tour we took at the Grand Canyon; didn't think the tour guy would ever be quiet! And that was only 3 hours! So, we drove the 15 miles to Savage River. At mile 9 we lucked out again. Mt. McKinley peeked through the clouds for several minutes. (According to park rangers, it's only visible about 20% of the time because of changing weather patterns.) The majority of the park is green this time of year; though we did see some snow still on the sides of the road. At Savage River, we saw our first wildlife - an Arctic ground squirrel. Other than the back end of a Caribou, that was it for wildlife today. Tomorrow we are going to try to get one of the tours of the sled dog kennels and a demonstration of their use. I'm still trying to talk Lewis into a flight seeing trip over Denali. He is adamant about not going up in a small plane, but I think this is a once in a lifetime adventure. We'll see.

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