Denali Adventure

---

Hello everyone from the lower 48! We are starting to talk like the Alaskans.

Friday afternoon we started our 92 mile journey to the Denali Backlodge. We had the bus pretty much to ourselves. There were about 20 people on the bus, so each person had a seat on each side of the bus. Great for viewing wildlife and scenery. We saw a bear running at a pretty good clip. Let's just say, most definitely this grizzly would catch me.we saw Dahl sheep, with the big horns, and a coyote eating a ground squirrel that he caught. He ate the tali and on. The magpie birds were waiting for the clean up, but the coyote ate everything.
We also saw a porcupine toddling along. I saw a golden eagle soaring.

When we arrived it was 7:30 pm. It took 6 hours to get there. The road is mostly dirt and gravel, ant the inner half, there is only room for one vehicle to pass. There is a cliff drop, straight down. There are no cars allowed on this road.

Our cabins were awesome, with a bathroom, no TV, no hairdryer, no phone or computer access. Neil had TV withdrawals. We ate another good meal at the lodge, and poked around. We were right on the river. They have to large screened in gazebos with fire pits inside, and chairs. That was pretty cool. We signed up for a small day hike the next day, and gold mining in the freezing river.

Chilly morning, but the day warmed up nicely. John and Trisha decided to do a small plane flight through and around Denali. I will let Trisha tell you about that when she blogs. Neil and I took a flat hike to fanny Quiggly's cabin with a guide and 8 other people. Fanny was a 4'11" tall women, who ended up in Alaska cooking for miners. She ended up marrying, and staying in the Deanali area. She was a force to be reckon with. Her husband mined, and she hunted, and gutted the animals. She chopped all of the wood, ad made a garden, and set traps for small animals.

Anyway... After that walk the guide Ryan, wanted to know if we would like to take a walk on the tundra. Everyone said yes so off we went, behind the cabin, with no trail. The tundra growth is moss like , about 4-6 inches thick covering the frozen ground(permafrost). It is soft and squishy, like a wet sponge. It is covered with bright red growth about 12" tall. You really have to lift your legs to walk on this. We only went about a half mile, and then we had to go down a little hill.... Well.... I did a tundra tumble, you might say. My foot got caught on a root, and I kind of tripped forward, and couldn't catch myself, so down on both knees I went. Well I bounced right back up, and it didn't even hurt. Neil grabbed me, but I was fine. Of course everyone saw me, how embarrassing. Whatever... As we walked back on the dirt road we hear this moose kind of call, but in the brush there are two crazy people with their hands on their heads doing moose calls and bear impersonations. Guess who they were? Yup Trisha and John.
It was a good thing that nobody had a gun, or they would have been dead!

After lunch, Trisha and John went on a hike down to woderlake, and also got bikes to do some trails with. They have a rurally good story to tell about that too. Neil and I panned for gold in the river, it was freezing, and we lasted about 25 minutes. We walked around the lodge and over the suspension bridge, and did the meditating circle walked, which made me dizzy.

We went back to the cabin, and Neil took a nap and I wrote in my journal. We met John and Trisha for supper and then we went on a little walk in the wilderness. I brought my whistle, and I was nervous because it was getting late, and that is when the moose and bear are out. We saw moose scT on the trail, that was it for woozy me, back we went. John made a fire in the gazebo and we called it a night. We had to get up at 5:00AM, to leave at 6.

On our return trip we saw moose, sheep and bear. We had a full bus, and some kind of rude Belgium people, who stood whenever there was something to see, so it made it hard to see. Anyway, we also saw some caribou on the wY back. FYI, whennthe caribou shed the felt on their antlers, the blood capillaries have to clot up as the felt layer dies and sheds off. We saw a caribou that had just shed all of his felt from his antlers, and his antlers were like fluorescent red neon blood. You could see it from far aWay. It was an awesome and rare site to see. Unbelievable let me tell you. I don't think we have very good pictures, because the Belgium people kept getting in the way. They actually had gotten spoken to by the driver. He was like Jesus... Where are you people from. You have to do what I say! Glad it wasn't me. They kept trying to hang out of the bus, and the driver said 3times not to do it.

Anyway, that is the cliff notes for the Denali portion of our trip. I will tell Trisha to blog about their adventures in Denali

---