Blogs from Denali, Alaska, United States, North America - page 8

We left Anchorage about 10.30am for Denali National Park about 250 miles inland after obtaining some quick food stocks from our local mall. The drive was uneventful passing thru suburbs and towns. We did see a few businesses advertising building log cabins with examples out front; we saw float planes on a river bank and on a lake. Whilst mentioning this, Alaska has the highest number of float planes than anywhere else in the USA (we saw them at the side of the main Anchorage International Airport where they have a water runway and at the local airport where I assume they also have a water runway). The road traffic up here is much less dense than in the lower 48 states. Slowly the predominant silver birches gave way to medium density spruce (skinny Christmas trees) ... read more

Tuesday September 4, 2007 Today wasn’t as cold as yesterday and the sun was shining. We got on the bus for Wonder Lake around 9:00 am. We hadn’t been to the end of the shuttle bus road which goes to mile 87 so we thought today was our chance to do it. The bus was packed. The autumn colors on the mountains were beautiful. Here and there gold aspens would be scattered on the ridges, looking like gold dust. We saw wildlife; a sow and cubs and a single bear filling up on berries, a flock of dall sheep and a number of caribou walking down a river bed, probably migrating. But, the big bonus today was Mt. McKinley. It was visible almost all the way to Wonder Lake. The bus driver said that is very ... read more

After the exhausting day yesterday, we all slept in a bit. We headed to the visitor center and caught a little bit of a talk about what it is like to climb Mt. Denali. We have yet to see the mountain on this trip. Interesting that we had such beautiful views from Anchorage just the other day and now there is no sign of it with rain and a mix of sun and clouds. We found out during our bus ride yesterday that out of ~120 days in the season, it might be visible 30 times! In planning our day, we decided that we would catch the 4:00 sled dog demo, so we drove to Savage River for a hike. We caught a view of Denali on the way!! We hiked the Savage River Trail and ... read more

Off to Denali! We got an early start today (It was my flex day) and headed north. It was overcast, so there wasn’t a whole lot of scenery. It took us just over 4 hours to get to the park. Our first stop was the visitor center to see the displays and pick up the junior ranger books for Gabbi and Jacqui. To our surprise, not only were the junior ranger books free (unlike Acadia, Rocky Mountain, and Yosemite), but they also had a great backpack full of activities, guidebooks, and equipment that the girls checked out to use while we were there. We then took an afternoon hike up Mt. Healy. It was about a 4.5 mile round trip with some blueberries and raspberries along the way. Danielle, especially, loves to stop and pick berries. ... read more

Friday August 24, 2007 Denali National Park, AK This morning the bus picked us up in front of the campground at about 9:15 am. Ten people had signed up for the Ranger led hike and only those people were on the bus. We stopped on the way to our destination to watch several elk in the distance and a bear that was way out there in the tundra. The day was sunny at the campground, but as we went further west it was gray and many of the mountains were in the clouds. We got off the bus about an hour from the campground at one of the rest stops. We hiked up and around several slopes, took in the view, had lunch and then hiked down a mountain to the road. We were waiting for ... read more