Alaskan Memories
A travel report

From Anchorage North

Day 8 - "On the road to Fairbanks, nothing special, except for a viewpoint for Mount McKinley, but the clouds didn't allow us to see it"

It was a long way going to Fairbanks. The day started cloudy, but the sun soon arrived. Mt. McKinley, the highest point in the Americas - 6194m (20320 ft), though, remained hidden behind clouds. It is only visible 1/3 of the time.

We stopped at Denali National Park to get the bus tickets we had booked prior to our trip. Cars are only allowed in a restrict area of the park and so buses must be used to travel along the park's main road. This is a way to reduce the impact of vehicles in such a delicate environment. We read that other parks, like Yosemite, may introcude this system in the future. Only part of the seats are sold in advance and we wanted to buy tickets for another bus trip, but the remaining seats weren't being sold yet. We rode the few miles that we could inside the park, but we saw no wildlife, nor anything really interesting, so we went back to the road and checked some hotels in the area.

Arriving in Fairbanks, we spent a long time looking for lodging. Hotels and motels were very expensive and the cheaper ones didn't look good at all. When were had almost lost our hope, we found what we considere the best place in town: 7 Gables Inn, a lovely bed & breakfast. They offer a variety of accomodations and we took one of the outside cabins.

Our main reason to go to Fairbanks was to take a trip to the Arctic Circle. We called the company that do these tours and they still had seats for the bus tour the next day. We were all set. It was a long day: sunset after midnight, sunrise at about 3:30 - it never got completely dark.

Day 9 - "I crossed the Arctic Circle!! I walked on the tundra, digged the permafrost, saw the Alaskan pipeline and the Yukon River!"

The day started very early: we had to meet the tour staff before 7 am, so we had arranged to have a simple breakfast, serving ourselves with muffins and cereals. Our first adventure was to fight the mosquitos. Alaskan mosquitos seem to be very hungry - I guess the short summer is the culprit. We were 22 passengers in a small bus, with Brett as our driver and guide. He gave us lots of information during the tour but there were also videos about the things we saw on the way.

Our first stop was the Carlsons' Trading Post. The Carlsons are a family that moved in about twenty years ago. They wanted to experience living on their own means. I bought a "I crossed the Arctic Circle" t-shirt there and almost had to return it: the bus was not working at the time we were leaving. But Brett fixed it and we went on, finally driving on Dalton Highway, an unpaved road built for the construction of the trans-Alaska pipeline. We can see the pipeline and the pump stations along the road and even stopped for a closer look at the pipeline. Even today, Dalton Highway serves mainly the pipeline and the oil companies.

Connecting the production areas in Prudhoe Bay to the port of Valdez at Prince William Sound, the 800-mile long, 48-inch (1.3 km, 1.2 m) pipeline required special engineering solutions. One of the most impressive is its flexibility to withstand earthquakes: since it crosses a geological fault, its design allows a lateral displacement of 6.7 m (22 feet) and a vertical displacement of 1.5 m (5 feet) at the fault region. Care also had to be taken to allow wildlife migration. The company that operates the pipeline is called Alyeska and is formed by many oil companies, among them Exxon, Arco and British Petroleum.

We had a picnic by Yukon river, with sandwiches and cookies. It was over 30°C there - and they had told us to bring warm clothes! Still going north, trees became rare and we saw the tundra: short vegetation, starting to bloom in the short springtime - two weeks before, by the end of May, there was snow all around and by early October snow will be back.

At about 4 pm we finally arrived at the Arctic Circle! I was the first on the bus to step on the red carpet Brett spred in front of the mark. Everyone took photos and then we had cake to celebrate the occasion. Soon it was time to retrace our way back to Fairbanks. We stopped for a "tundra walk". The soil is completely covered by plants and it was a strange sensation to step on it. It gives way with our weight. Digging a little bit, we soon find the permafrost - an ice layer that exists at the Arctic region, right under the soil. Permafrost can be hundreds of meters deep and the tundra works as an insulation, preventing it from thawing.

We stopped for dinner at a restaurant by Yukon river - food was not good though. A last stop at the Trading Post again and by midnight - yes, midnight! - we were back in Fairbanks, dead tired, but happy for the great day we had had.

Day 10 - "The weather got cloudy and colder as we approached Denali area"

After such a tiring day, we woke up later than usual. Breakfasts at the 7 Gables Inn have a different theme each day - this time it was Chinese breakfast, with fruits, a sort of omellete, a sweet made of rice and other things. Before going back to Denali, we went to North Pole, a city near Fairbanks where there is Santa Claus' House - a gift-shop where I took a picture by Santa Claus himself!

When we arrived at Denali early in the afternoon. We had decided to stay at Sourdough Cabins, in the village near the park, so we stopped there to leave the luggage before going to the park. As we arrived at Denali N.P., a traffic jam indicated that some animal was by the road. It was a moose, quietly grazing on willow. At the Visitor Center, we bought bus tickets for the next day - the longest bus tour available, to Wonder Lake, 11 hours round trip. There are no places to buy food along the road and we have to take our own food, so we bought some bread and fillings at a general store near the hotel.

Every night there are presentation at the park's auditorium and at camping sites. That night, one of the rangers talked about the importance of fire in the natural cycle of forests. Since the 1988 fire at Yellowstone, many studies show that it is not good to attempt to avoid fires - some trees only leave off their seeds when exposed to very high temperatures. But man-caused fires must be, anyway, avoided.

Denali National Park and Preserve was established in 1917 as Mount McKinley National Park, after a campaign led by Charles Sheldon, a naturalist. Curiously, Mt. McKinley was not included in the park boundary. The name changed in 1980, at the same time the park boundary was extended, more than tripling its area, now including the entire Mount McKinley massif. It also became a International Biosphere Reserve.

Dinner at Lynx Creek, we had pizza. Sharing our table, three students from Michigan, camping nearby. Brave people, it was very cold and humid there!

Day 11 - "After seeing a mere squirrel, there he was: a grizzly bear feeding on fruits and bushes!"

I had a giant muffin for breakfast before the long bus trip at Denali National Park. Our bus left at 8:30 for Wonder Lake, under cloudy skies. We are allowed to get off the bus almost at any point, for a hike into the wilderness area, and catch a later bus, if seats are available. Most people, though, seem to make the trip fully on the bus. The first animals we saw were dall sheep, which are very common on the park, equilibrating themselves on the mountain slopes. We saw a willow ptarmigan, Alaska's state bird. It has a dark plumage in summer, but during winter its color changes to white. A caribou was spotted before our first resting stop, at Teklanika River, where I took some pictures of wildflowers.

Almost everyone in the bus searched the landscape carefully for any sign of wildlife and, if anything was found, a "STOP" yelling was the sign for the bus driver to stop for us to take pictures or see something, like an eagle flying high above the mountains. Many times, though, people mistook simple rocks for bears. We called these bear rocks. We saw some dall sheep resting close to the next stop, Polychrome Rest Area. So cute, with their white fur!

All animals were interesting, but the real excitement was seeing our first grizzly bear, very close by the road. The bus stopped and we had to keep very quiet not to scare it away. It was a Toklat grizzly, the type of grizzly bear found at Denali. It has a light brown fur, almost yellow on the back, and is smaller than grizzlies found elsewhere. A couple of hikers that were nearby got in a bus ahead of us when the bear starting crossing the road. Bears in Denali are not violent, but "close encounters of the bear type", as warning signs and leaflets call them, should be avoided.

Happy after seeing a bear, we arrived at Eielson Visitor Center. It has displays about the mountains surrounding the area, including Mt. McKinley, still hiding from us. Samples of different animal furs are shown, and touching a fox fur mades it clear to me why its fur is so appreciated. There was a bear fur, too, complete with head and limbs. Its fur is thick, but not soft.

We went ahead to Wonder Lake. Beaver dams could be seen, but too far away. We saw another caribou. Wonder Lake itself was not that interesting, not to mention the high ammount of mosquitos waiting for our blood. Two had already caught me when I killed one inside my sweatshirt! In clear days, Wonder Lake is a good place to photogragh Mt. McKinley. But cloudy days like that have an advantage over hot sunny days, a ranger told us: animals are more active in cooler weather, thus we can find them around the whole day.

On our way back, we stopped again at Eielson Visitor Center, this time under rain. For our delight, another bear was around. A ranger said he must be around five years old - a teenager grizzly. She said not only size tells a bear's age, but also its face's shape change with age. We saw another moose, then another bear and, to our neverending enchantment, a grizzly mother with her cub. They usually have two to three cubs which she takes care for two years. Males live alone and even females do not live in groups, only with her cubs. We were back to the Visitor Center after the predicted 11 hours.

The ranger talk that night at the park's auditorium was about mountain climbing, comparing old and new techniques and equipment. After that, we had dinner at Lynx Creek again and this time I had a huge Häagen Dazs icecream for dessert.

Day 12 - "The idea of falling off the boat was a bit scary, considering the water temperature"

It was cold and humid when we arrived at Denali Raft Adventures' office early in the morning. We were going to raft the rapids of Nenana River. Ernani had planned to have breakfast before that, but I told him it was not advisable. I think this and the briefing before the rafting must have scared him - it was his first rafting, but my second. We were the only two for the Canyon Ride, running through rapids with names such as Razorback, Iceworm, Cablecar and Trainwreck. Other people took another kind of rafting trip, without rapids - but that wouldn't be fun!

For about ninety minutes, our oarsman Justin, a student from Utah, guided us through 12 miles down to Healy, followed by a security boat. We saw gulls and a river otter on the way. The rapids were fun, but nothing to be scared of - maybe because the river was high. The worse thing was the cold. Despite of all the raingear they provide us, the melted glaciers that feed the river made my fingers freeze. Back to their office, a cup of hot chocolate seemed the best thing on world!

After changing clothes, putting on dry warm ones, our late breakfast became a lunch and I had a tuna sandwich and strawberry pie. Despite the rain, we decided to take a ranger-guided walking tour in the park. The ranger said he wouldn't go if he were us, but we and a couple from England did not have time to wait for a sunny day. For a bit over two hours, we walked four kilometers in the woods, learning about vegetation while hiking on a muddy trail. We saw lots of moose droppings and tracks, but unfortunately no moose! It is common to see moose mothers with their calves and it is very dangerous to get close to them. Willow is one of their favourite shrubs, but during wintertime they can even eat bark from the trees if they cannot find something better - we even saw marks of that on some trees.

The hike finishes near the Park Headquarters in time for the sled dog demonstration. There were a few puppies and many adult dogs, excited with the prospective of being chosen to take part of the show - probably because they get some extra food at the end of it. All of them are Alaskan Huskies, raised in the park to drive sleds - this is the way rangers patrol the park in wintertime. By the way, only a few rangers are permanent employees of the park. Most of the rangers that work there are contracted for summer months only.

At the Northern Nights Theatre, back in the village, we saw "Sky Fire", a film made from photographs by LeRoy Zimmerman, showing the northern lights panoramas in different settings. It is beautiful, but I missed a real movie to show how an aurora really is.

That night, a very special occasion at the park's auditorium. Bradford Washburn, a mountain climber and cartographer, and his wife Barbara, who were celebrating her remarkable achievement exactly fifty years before: accompanying her husband's team, she became the first woman to reach the summit of Mt. McKinley. They showed films from the expedition, enriching them with their narrative. Mountaineers from all over the world come to Alaska to attempt this climbing in early spring, when crevasses on the icefields are not yet too dangerous. This year, the 10000th successful climbing took place.

Day 13 - "Finally, after almost having lost any hope, there it was: Mt. McKinley, or Denali - the High One"

Delicious bagels with fruit marmelade and hot chocolate were our breakfast, before taking another bus trip in the park - a shorter one this time, six hours roundtrip to Toklat River, starting at 9:30. It was mostly rainy the whole day.

We saw many caribous this time, usually in groups of five to nine, but never very close to the road. Also a fox with a squirrel on its jaws, a marmot, but no bear this time - although some folks claimed to have spotted one. There were also many dall sheep, often with their lambs, always a cute sight.

This time I could observe, on Savage River, an interesting geological feature. The valley is V-shaped in one side, a sign of river erosion, and U-shaped to the other, indicating glacial erosion. This is due to the fact that the road goes along a geological fault and different natural forces built up each side.

On a last stop at the Visitor Center, I borrowed a ranger hat for a picture. The hat was somewhat large for my head, though, which gave the picture a very strange look.

Back on the road, going south. As we got farther from the park, the weather was getting better, with some sun. This gave us a hope of seeing Mt. McKinley at the viewpoint on the road. When we arrived there, clouds on the horizon still covered it, but we decided to wait, like many other tourists. It was noticeable that a dense block of low clouds was covering the park. After maybe half an hour, there it was, still surrounded by clouds, but an opening in them allowed us to view the summit. No wonder they say it is an island in the sky... It is not easy to notice it on the image beside, it is right on the middle, above the clouds. We also saw North Peak, 1934m high (19470ft) - North America's second highest peak, which for years was considered the highest peak, due to its relative position. Denali is the Athabascan name for Mt. McKinley, and it means "the high one".

We spent the night at Palmer again, having dinner at the hotel's country restaurant.

Day 14 - "Two miles on a rough road and then a walk on a muddy trail. Very muddy."

The day was sunny and we decided to go to Matanuska Glacier, about one hour east of Palmer, through a beautiful winding road. We first stopped at Matanuska State Park, from where we have a view of the glacier, but it was too far to walk from there. Further ahead, a sign indicated a downhill road that ends in a private property, where we had to pay to get closer to the glacier. We can even walk on it, but the trail was not well marked and we had a tough time finding the way back to the parking area. But walking on the glacier was exciting, though we needed to be very careful. Part of the glacier is mixed with gravel, but the ice-only portion was very slippery.

We arrived back to Anchorage about 2:30 and went shopping, buying some souvenirs. I also bought some extra film for the last part of the trip. Raindeer sausage hotdogs were our lunch again. When we got back to the car, the block where it was parked had been closed by the police because someone was threatening another one with a knife in a building. After some waiting, we explained the policemen that we had a flight to take and they let us get our car.

One final touristic stop: Alaska Wildberry's Products, a sweet factory with the world's highest chocolate waterfall (waterfall??). It makes us want to dive into the chocolate pond... I bought some chocolate, of course, I would not resist this temptation.

We flew with Alaska Airlines to Juneau, the starting point for our cruise through the Inside Passage.