Blogs from Denali, Alaska, United States, North America

In some ways Anchorage feels like any other US city, with wide streets set out in a grid pattern, but look up and there are snow-covered mountains in every direction. Sea-planes fly overhead, snow-mobiles sit in backyards and houses have moose fences. Alaska is huge, over twice the size of any other US state or, in European terms, larger than France, Germany, Spain and Italy combined. And it is remote, it took us over three hours to fly here from Seattle, the nearest city in continental USA. There are few tourists so many locals want to chat. A police officer checks that we are not lost and then recommends a good coffee shop and places for dinner; the mail man assures us that the 'dead end' does lead to the shore; a couple who are gardening ... read more

Day 2 Mileage 265 miles Oh man, the weather forecast was for rain. That wasn’t encouraging because typically there is only a 30% chance of seeing Denali on a good day (the highest peak in the Northern hemisphere at 20310ft ). We came out to a chilly morning, but no rain. Yea!!! We named our silver SUV Buck and took off for supplies then we headed south on Alaska 3. Buck bounced along the beautiful but wavey highway for a while, before we spotted an overlook and of course immediately pulled off. We got out to admire the scenery, and to our surprise in the distance, we could see Denali in all it’s glory. It was covered in snow with sunshine bearing down on it. This was a great sign. We were lucky enough to get ... read more

We had ordered boxed lunch to be picked up at grande denali. They were a bit expensive but came with a cooler pack as a souvenir. Packed rain gear. It was drizzling as the day started. Shuttle took us to the Denali bus depot. We were there by 5:50 am. Tour started at 6:40 am. Allen was our driver. Lot of instructions about dos and don't initially. This is the tundra wilderness tour. It is an 8 hour tour with a return point near Eilsen visitor center. It is 62 mile one way. We got a snack box used that for breakfast. It is a converted school bus, not that comfortable to sit. Driver hired us to watch for animals while he would keep us safe driving. He was surely driving a bit fast for spotting ... read more

Well here goes! This will be our first blog So bear with us. OK you have already noticed the poor spelling but there is a reason for that...OK it's obvious! I will take you back a few days first and get to the bear facts later. We started our trip last Friday night and headed to Vancouver where we had a lay over and onto to anchorage vis Seattle arriving into Seattle at midnight Friday. We pretty much operated on autopilot once we hit Vancouver as we were both really pooped from the flight but we managed to navigate two airporats and arrived OK. The next morning we picke up our hire car and headed north to Denali national park via a small town called Palmer where the Alaska state fair was on. So when in ... read more

I am taking the train back to Anchorage on Sunday. Alaska Railroad (the Aurora Winter Train) has year around service throughout the state. It was originally named Alaska Central Railway in 1903, starting in Seward and extending north about 50 miles. Then in 1910, they reorganized into Alaska Northern Railway and added another 21 miles to Kern Creek. Our government lent a hand in 1914 (wasn't that in the middle of WW1?), with $35 million to extend the railway to Anchorage. Merely a tent town as of 1915, Anchorage gets going and the railway moves its headquarters here. In 1923, President Warren Harding drives in a gold spike at Nenana, completing the railroad between Seward and Anchorage. But Harding suffers food poisoning on his way home in San Francisco, and dies. With only 5400 people living ... read more