Blogs from Denali, Alaska, United States, North America - page 9

Tuesday August 21, 2007 This morning we started down the Denali Highway about 8:00 am. We drove to Savage River which is 15 miles into the park. Our plan was to walk a loop trail recommended in a book I have on Denali Hikes. This was a marked trail into the Savage River Canyon. Before we started charting our own path we wanted to get a feel for the area. It was cloudy and rained alittle as we drove the paved road. Didn’t see any wildlife on the way. The temperature was in the high 50’s. Only one car was parked at the trailhead (parking is always better early morning). It was not a problem finding the trail. As soon as we left the parking lot we saw Willow Ptarmigan. These birds look similar to a ... read more

On our way to Denali we stopped at a Museum that was in a cabin from The 59ers. They were a group of homesteaders from Michigan that George remembers reading about when he was a teenager. Of course it caught the imagination of a teenage boy, so it was interesting for him to learn more about it many years later. We arrived in the Denali area and camped north of the park entrance at Denali RV Park. It is 20 minutes north of the busy touristy area known as Glitter Gulch. That’s where the cruise ships have hotels and there’s lots of pedestrians and traffic. Stop lights are unusual except is larger cities, but in Glitter Gulch there are 2 of them! The stop lights are on The Parks Highway. They and allow the pedestrians to ... read more

Final Night in Fairbanks North America » United States » Alaska » Denali By Lisa Ted and ChongJuly 5th 2007 Just when we thought we were done with all the adventures with our wonderful guests in Fairbanks, we scheduled one more day trip of a life time. Leaving the Fairbanks train depot at 8:00 a.m. we headed for Denali NP. The train ride was beautiful, complete with an open air observation deck and dining car. Once we arrived at the park we walked around the visitors center for about an hour. After this we were met by a helicopter outfitter how took us on a spectacular, 75 minute trip ... read more

Hello all... recieved an email from Brian a few days ago and a very brief satellite phone call this morning. They ended up doing the hiking trip in Denali National Park rather than the Troublesome Creek state park hike they were originally planning. Apparently there were very few people and they were able to camp where they wanted. They had a couple of days amongst forested areas and then hiked above the tree line where they camped for a couple of nights on the side of a mountain. Spectacular views of the ranges and across to Alaska's highest peak Mt. McKinlay (not sure if that is spelt correctly). They saw grizzly bears, some with cubs - but all from a safe distance. Matty and himself were chased by an angry male cariboo who obviously saw such ... read more

I had a phone call and an email from Brian a few days ago. They were well and in Anchorage after four days hiking in the Valdez area. Brian had found a 1904 gold coin from the gold rush days in Alaska! Quite a special find. Apparently it is worth about US$900! A lovely momento of their adventure... and not something he was thinking of selling! They were packing off and heading up to Denali State Park, north of Anchorage. There they were planning to do the Troubsome creek walk which my Lonely Planet Alaska book tells me is named that because of the bears that are along the way! It follows the creek past the "numerous black bears feeding on salmon" up to the treeline and then along a ridge with spectacular views of the ... read more