Alaskan trip 2008

---

AN ALASKAN TRIP - 2008
By Daryl Lamar Root
A 50th Birthday Celebration.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Karen and I wake up at 3:00 a.m. so we can get a quick bite to eat before we head to Philadelphia for the first leg of our flight to Anchorage, Alaska. It was going to be a long day, only made longer by the fact that four hours of sleep isn’t much to go on. Needless to say, we made it to the airport, with plenty of time to spare for our 6:30 flight to Chicago, where we’d catch a connecting flight to our western destination. Till all was said and done, we arrived in Alaska around 2:00 p.m., Alaska time (or 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time). What a relief it was to be back on the ground where we could walk and be away from our fellow passengers in front of us who decided it was necessary to constantly use the reclining feature on their seats, which of course, crimped the amount of space to those behind them, us!

Globus Tours booked us at the Hawthorne Suites on the edge of downtown Anchorage, complete with it’s
own little ‘living room’ in addition to the usual two beds and chair. At this point, the tiredness goes away, replaced by the thrill of being in a new vacation spot. We immediately selected a map of the downtown area and took to our feet. The first place we walked to was a restaurant called The Snow Goose. There were two stories in the building, the first story containing a semi-formal dining area, and a micro-brewery called the Sleeping Lady. The second story, where we ate, was a casual dining area overlooking the Cook Inlet to the west of Anchorage. We browsed the menu and I ordered my first caribou burger and a mug of Alaska Summer Ale. The burger tasted a lot like venison, and the beer had a better than average taste for a micro-brew. Definitely better than the Shipyard Ales I tried last year in Portland, Maine.

After completing our meal, we strolled through town browsing through gift shops with names like Grizzly Gifts, Polar Gifts, the Blue Moose, and Trader Jacks. Later that evening, we visited the Aurora Museum and viewed a photo documentary on the Northern Lights. It was here, after being awake for 22+ hours that I made the comment, "I should set my watch for 40 minutes", the length of the show, so I know when it‘s over. At this comment, a couple three rows in front of us, turned around, smiled and chuckled. It turned out they were from Maryland and had been awake just as long as us, and like us, were ready to fall asleep. Note: for the record, the travel brochures state that the best way to adapt to the time change is to do it immediately by staying awake till your normal bedtime arrives in the new time zone.


Saturday, August 16.

The following day we enjoyed a better-than-normal complimentary breakfast at the hotel. Scrambled eggs, home fries, bacon, waffles made on the spot, numerous cereals, danish, coffee, juices, teas, were among the choices available. After feasting on the abundance, we headed off to go downtown shopping for souvenirs. One of our first stops was at the Saturday’s Market where Alaskan vendors sold their many arts and crafts. Most of the goods were typical craft fair, however, there were furs that ran into the hundreds of dollars as well as antler and bone carvings that were also highly priced. From there, we continued through town. The flowers planted throughout the city were absolutely huge. With all the extra sunlight they receive during the long summer days, combined with the cool evenings which helps preserve them, they grow to tremendous sizes - two or three times the size of the same species in Pennsylvania.


We went to the Visitors Center, where we caught the bus to the American Native Heritage Center. Much of the museum was outdoors, where native Indians - Athabascan, Aleut, Cup’ik, Tlinget, etc. - filled us in on how life in Alaska was in the early years before modern technology came to the state. The picture to the left depicts a subterranean dwelling used for protection from the cold Alaskan winters. The homes were built with driftwood logs and planks, and then covered with earth and grass. Some of them had emergency exits in case a hungry bear would break through the main entrance. The Indians would escape
with their weapons, come around to the front, and trap the bear inside. Killing it would then provide them with meat, bones for tools, and furs to provide for clothing. The picture to the lower right depicts a group of Athabascan Indians performing a ritual song and dance. The female dancers tended to be graceful, with delicate motions telling a story, whereas the male dancing tend to involve a lot of stomping and killing motions telling the tales of their hunts for meat and furs.

At 6:00 p.m. we met our tour guides - Mitzi, the guide, and Stephanie, the tour bus driver, - who filled us in on when our bags had to be ready for the next morning. They’d later fill us in on details of our tour - nothing but bus the next day. After this we decided to eat our dinner at Benihana’s next to the hotel. It normally wouldn’t have been our first choice, but we were too tired from the time zone change and all of our walking, to consider another walk downtown to places that sounded more appealing.

Sunday, August 17th

Our luggage had to be outside our hotel door at 6:30 a.m. and we had to be on the bus half an hour later. (Steph, Mitzi, and the many hotels, took care of all our luggage handling while on tour, often times having it in our rooms before activities actually allowed us to make it our rooms). The bus ride from Anchorage to Valdez along the Glenn Highway would cover over 300 miles and take over nine hours with all the nature stops. That includes real nature stops and the so-called, ‘nature calling‘, stops every 90 minutes or so. It was near the town of Glenallen that we stopped for lunch and saw our first dall sheep located high up on a mountain located behind the restaurant. We also saw our first ’snow poles’ along the roadway, standing about 15 feet high. The poles are located along the edge of the roadways so the snow removal crews no where to plow. Note: Yes, I said the poles were 15 feet high, much higher than the tour bus. Why? Because in that area of Alaska, that much snow is very common. As we traveled along the highway, with the 500 mile Brooks Range to the north, and the Chugach Mountains to the south, we were sitting in the front seats of the bus - the front seats being rotated on a lottery type basis, a couple of hours at a time. The views of Alaska started to come at you one after the other. It was here that we got our first look of a glacier. It was an alpine glacier, one that starts in the mountains and ends in the mountains. A glacier is nothing more than snowfall after snowfall, compacted by it’s own weight, forming a solid sheet of ice that slowly moves downhill by the force of gravity. The slow moving ice drags anything that may be in it’s way along with it. Should the glacier ever melt or retreat, a U-shaped valley would be left behind in it’s place. (As seen in a picture later in this document). Using binoculars, we could see five hikers walking on the glacier. It’s a dangerous hobby since glaciers have many crevices, many over one hundred feet deep, covered by nothing more than a few layers of fresh snow that could give way at any time under a average person’s weight. After turning south at Glenallen onto the Richardson Highway, we got our first glimpse of the Alaskan Pipline, a 799 mile trail of piping running from Prudhoe Bay to the town of Valdez.

It was also at this time we had to make decisions on whether we were going to book any extra activities during the Denali section of our tour. Karen and I decided that we would book a small fixed-wing aircraft trip around Mt. McKinley and a tour of 4-time Iditarod champion, Jeff King, and his Husky Homestead. The flight was mostly my idea, even though I had never been in a small plane, especially 10,000 feet in altitude. However, you only live once.

Monday, August 18th

Today we woke up and walked down the street to the Totem Inn for breakfast which was included in our tour. We were given a choice of four different breakfast combinations to chose from, as all tour members were given exclusive use of the back dining room. From there, we awaited our ride on a large boat for an 11:00 a.m. sendoff on the waters of Prince William Sound. One of the interesting things we would learn on the cruise was that the town of Valdez had been destroyed, and sank into the Sound, during the earthquake of 1964. As a result the town was moved to an area close by. Over the course of the cruise, which lasted for close to six hours, we saw a couple of humpback whales, numerous puffins, a couple of dozen sea lions, who put on an audible show for us as well as swimming right near the boat, sea otters, and at least a dozen bald eagles. With binoculars, you could see more dall sheep in the higher elevations of the surrounding mountains. The highlight for most, was the view of the Columbia Glacier and the multitude of small to mid-size icebergs nearby. As we returned, the captain pointed out the land area containing the Valdez terminal storage units, capable of holding 9 million barrels of crude. The area is closed off to citizens and has been guarded since the events of 9/11. That evening we ate with Gary and Linda, a diary farming couple from Queensland, Australia, and Vernon and Alice, a couple from Tennessee. The former were on a 8-week trip that would take them to California, Arizona, Vegas and Hawaii. The latter were retired state government workers. Note: It wasn’t long until we calculated that most of the other people on the tour were of ‘better’ financial stature than us.

Tuesday, August 19th

Very little happened on this day other than an early 6:00 am departure for the 355 mile trip along the Richardson Highway from Valdez to Fairbanks. There were numerous snow-capped mountain views along the Wrangell-St. Elias Mountain Range, which is also the second largest National Park in America. Halfway to Fairbanks, the bus made a stop at the small town of Delta Junction, which fortunately, was only place on our trip to have mosquitoes wanting to chow down on some human meat, us! The town was just north of the start to the east-west Denali Highway - a road approximately 120 miles long - that was nothing but gravel from one end to the other. Closed during winter, such roads are common in Alaska, and not a good choice to travel on since large trucks use these roads, their tires sending numerous pebbles into the air just waiting for a fresh windshield to slam into. The tour bus didn’t have to worry about that since we were headed north to Fairbanks. Just before we arrived in the city, we traveled past the Eielson Air Force Base and made a short stop in a town called North Pole. That’s right, North Pole, Alaska. There was a giant Santa Claus, a Christmas shop, and a fenced-in area holding three reindeer. For the record, a reindeer is nothing but a domesticated caribou. Just as we arrived in Fairbanks, we saw a moose sow, with her two babies feeding along a fence by the highway. It was to be the only quality view of a moose we’d get during our vacation.

Wednesday, August 20th

Today, our first destination, after breakfast of course, was to be a riverboat tour on the Chena River, aboard the Discovery II paddlewheel boat. One of the “stops” on the river tour was the home of Susan Butcher, the famous 4-time Iditarod champion who won her races in consecutive years. Susan passed away a number of years ago, and her husband and children have taken over the duties of running the homestead. Here we saw a number of sled dogs and witnessed their enthusiasm to run, run, run. As the teams were being set up to pull an off-road four-wheeler, all the dogs barked loudly in hopes of being picked to be on the team. Once the actual dogs on the team were chosen and on their way, the rest of the dogs immediately quieted down and went back to their own business, knowing that this time it wasn’t to be them.

Shortly after this, the riverboat made a brief stop to show a small fixed-wing plane land and take off on a small “sand bar”. One of every 60 Alaskans is a licensed pilot. It is a major way of transportation in the state, as many of the state‘s towns can only be reached by plane. This is also important in medical emergencies. This was followed by a disembarking to visit the Chena Indian Village (Athabascan) where we met Dixie, who was skinning and filleting a salmon, and then later showed us a self-made typical Indian winter coat reminiscent from days past. To make such a coat would cost as much as $16000, the furs alone are worth over $4000. It was here that we met more husky dogs, viewed more of the typical dwellings from Alaska's past, and were educated on the uses of caribou and other wild animals in the daily lives of the Athabascans.

We finished the afternoon by stopping along the Alaskan Pipeline and then panning for gold at the El Dorado Gold Mine. Well, sort of. The people who ran the mine put us on a small amusement park type train, took us underground to where we were instructed on the basics of digging out piles of dirt, then tranferring it by railcars to the outside world, where the finding of the yellow metal went from hard to monotonous. The dirt was put in a long chute where it was washed away with strong currents of water and filtered by screens gradually decreasing in the size of the openings. Since gold is heavier than other metals, the gold settles in the screens along with some other dirt remnants. It is then “panned”, a gentle washing away of the remaining dirt so that all that remains in the pan, are the small flakes of gold. Our panning involved being given a small bag of dirt from the mine, a pan, a 35mm size film container, and a seat in front of a water trough. It didn’t take long to know we weren’t experienced at this. However, Karen came away with $9 of gold flakes, and I, $15 worth. They can afford to do this knowing we’ll all spend money in the gift shop.

At the end of the day, we partook in a salmon bake, a common occurrence in Alaska as far as we could tell. It was all-you-could-eat salmon, halibut, cod, and prime beef. It came complete with a salad bar that included pasta. Dessert consisted of pound cake and white cake. Alcohol was an extra charge. We paid extra money for the salmon bake, but we probably didn’t get our money’s worth - after all, getting plenty of food on this trip was not a problem - and we were full in a fairly short time.

Thursday, August 21st

This morning we boarded the blue and gold colored Alaska Railroad which connects Fairbanks to Seward and points in between. We were cutting through the Brooks Range via the Broad Pass and Nenana River to the Denali National Park region. Breakfast was included on board the trip which included a choice a four different meals. Karen and I sat with Vera, an older lady from Wisconsin, who once owned a RV dealership with her husband, who was now deceased. While we were riding the train, our bus driver, Stephanie, was transporting our luggage to our next hotel where it was waiting in our room. The trip was through areas that consisted mostly of tightly packed trees limiting our view of the distant landscape the majority of the time. For this reason, we didn’t feel the need to take advantage of the dome car which was intended to give riders a better view of the surrounding environment. As the picture shows, the train did manage to traverse the Nenana River valley for a number of miles that provided some beautiful scenery.

Upon arrival in Denali National Park, we had about thirty minutes to grab a bite to eat before our pick-up time for our fixed-wing flight to Denali (Mt. McKinley according to the US government). This would turn out to be interesting for two reasons. Number one, I’ve never been in a small plane before - heck, I’ve never been on any plane until this year, and second, the vastness of the area can’t be appreciated until taking in the scenery from the air at 200 miles per hour. After the pilot briefed us on the flight and then took off, we came to realize that cloud cover would limit our views somewhat. Despite that fact, the views were awesome. When arriving at Denali, most of it was covered by clouds, with only part of the north slope visible. We were flying at an altitude of 10,000 feet and the peak of Denali was still more than 10,000 feet above us and our fellow flyers, which included Vern, Alice, and Vera, all mentioned earlier. At one point in the flight the pilot demonstrated the immensity of the landscape by flying straight towards a mountainside at 200 miles per hour (over 3 miles per minute). Although it looked like you could just reach out and touch the landscape, a minute’s worth of flying made little difference in perspective. Many of the mountains nearby were beautiful shades of copper and brown from the mineral content, or greens at lower elevations with the occasional spattering of fall colors (yes, as early as late August). Numerous glaciers were visible, often covered with moraine, ground-down gravel from glacial action. Unlike the mountains of the Appalachia and even some of the Rockies in the Lower 48, the mountains in Alaska are very steep, giving them the appearance of Dots candies, stacked side by side in random design and random elevations. Now, here comes the humble part. Small airplanes are a lot rougher than large jet airliners. You get whipped around by the wind and rocked with turbulence. If you get motion sickness, this flight is probably not the best thing to do. Well, sometimes I can handle motion sickness, and other times I can’t. This was one of those can’t times. With about 2 minutes left in the flight, I puked into the plastic bag everyone had made available to them at the beginning of the flight. No sooner did I let loose, and there was the landing strip in plain view outside the windshield. However, for the views and the experience of it all, getting motion sickness was a small price to pay. And yes, I do it again given the choice.

Tonight was probably my favorite evening of the entire trip. The entire tour group went to the Denali Dinner Theater, along with other groups. It was here we had our best meal. Bowls and plates of delectable food were put on the table and passed around. When an item was all, everyone was told to wave there checkered cloth napkin and call their waiter (in our case, Flapjack was his nickname) so that they could get more. The goodies consisted of salmon, ribs, corn on the cob, baked beans, red potatoes, salad and fresh buns. Every thing was cooked to perfect consistency and tasted delicious. Then came desert. Blueberry cobbler baked in large cast iron skillets, and then topped with a heaping pile of whipped cream. This meal was timed perfectly. After “giving up” what little I had to eat earlier in the day, I was starving. Unlike the salmon bake the previous day, I certainly partook in more than my fair share of this meal. This was followed by a show highlighting the settlement, gold rush, and hard life of remote Alaskans. A couple of patrons were chosen to help in the telling of the story, and comedy was mixed in with the music and oratory. Think of James Michener’s ’Alaska’, but super-condensed and filled with music.

Friday, August 22nd. (My birthday.)

We started the day by getting picked up at our hotel by a small bus that took us the Husky Homestead at the farm of 4-time Iditarod champion, Jeff King. Upon our arrival, numerous husky pups were made available for the tourists to pick up, cuddle, have pictures taken with, and conjure up the desire to take one home with them. Huskies are dogs that love to run. While Jeff King’s oldest daughter, Cali, filled is in on how the pups are raised, which ones are eventually used in racing, and other details of operating a championship racing team, other handlers were putting a team together to pull a four-wheel ATV for a practice run. All the dogs, just like at Susan Butcher’s home, started to yelp in an effort to be chosen for this particular run. Again, once the team was off, and the rest suddenly became as quiet as could be. All dogs are given at least one practice run during the course of every day. As many as 80 dogs are kept at the farm at any one time, so there’s a lot of practice runs to be made during the course of a day. The dogs names are given in an interesting way. Every time there is a new litter of pups, a theme is chosen, usually by one or more of the three daughters. One theme was M*A*S*H. As a result, names consisted of Radar, Trapper, and even Hot Lips. Jeff took a fair share of heckling from other mushers on the last one. Dogs that aren’t good enough to make the racing team are sold to other mushers who are starting out in racing or simply running sled dogs for the recreational pleasures of being in the great Alaskan outdoors and wilderness. This, and money charged to the Homestead tourists, provide the Kings with some of their yearly income. Food for the dogs, mostly a combination of real meat and commercial dog food, can run $70,000 per year. I suggest going to Amazon.com and buying a copy of “Cold Hands, Warm Heart” by Jeff King. It will give you a good insight on the toughness, perils, and rewards of racing sled dogs.

In mid-afternoon, our group left for a road trip through Denali National Park. We were picked up by a bus owned by the park, as they’re the only vehicles allowed in the park. Before we took off, Mitzi, our tour guide, felt it was her duty to make sure everyone sang Happy Birthday to me. That made me the second person to be sung to during the week. There is only one road in the park. It’s 92 miles long, all gravel, and ends in a dead end in the little town of Kantishna. The town is close to Wonder Lake, site of the most famous photo shots of Mt. McKinley. From there, you either have to reverse your tracks or fly out. We only were taken along the first 60+ miles on the road, which often wound around mountain edges, where a sudden drop off of hundreds of feet weren’t more than just a few feet away. From inside the bus, there were times you couldn’t even see the edge of the road. During the ride into the park, we saw a couple of moose from a very long distance, barely visible even with binoculars. We saw four bears under the same circumstances, and some dall sheep. Many were grumbling that we weren’t seeing much, however, we were all rewarded after the bus turned around. Twice we saw grizzlies, one with two cubs, and we also saw a herd of caribou at least 50 strong - depending on whose count you accepted. In addition, we saw two red fox, and a few rabbits and more dall sheep. At one point on the tour, our bus passed within one mountain from the sight of Bus 142, made famous by the movie, “Into The Wild”, about a young man who gave up everything to explore America and find himself. Unfortunately, the Alaskan wilderness was too much for him and he passed away four months after his arrival.

Saturday, August 23rd

Today we leave for Anchorage on the George Park Highway, and our farewell dinner a day early (more on that later), with a stop in Wasilla - which we now all know is the hometown of 2008 vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin. As we leave the park, we are treated to beautiful clear views of Denali from many angles. Since Denali is covered in clouds two-thirds of the time, we considered ourselves blessed to get such a wonderful view. In fact, the weather in general, has been very kind to us the entire trip, allowing us to view much of what others often find hard to see. Denali is the tallest mountain in North America at 20,320 feet. From base to peak, it’s the tallest mountain in the world. (Since I’ve returned home, I heard on television that it costs thousands of dollars just for a permit to climb the mountain.)

As we arrived closer to Anchorage, we entered the town of Wasilla. Wasilla is the official beginning of the annual Iditarod race to Nome, as opposed to Anchorage, the ceremonial beginning. A small Iditarod Museum is also located here. We were given a few minutes to browse around and gift shop before we were dropped off at a nearby shopping center for lunch. Even in Alaska, you can’t totally get away from the trappings of modern day life.

After being given half an hour or so to eat and/or shop for "whatever", it was off to the hotel where we originally started. We were told that the farewell dinner was to be at The Snow Goose, which if you remember from earlier, is where Karen and I ate our first meal in Alaska. Our dinner was a day early due to the fact that Sunday, our official last day of vacation, was also the day that the tourist who opted for the additional 4-day Inside Passage cruise, were to transfer to their ship. By having the dinner a day early, all could partake and say their final farewell to whomever they wished. Here we dined with the Mueller’s, another couple from Australia. The husband, we would learn, was born in Germany and has memories of the country during it’s Nazi days. After dinner, we hooked up with Gary, Linda, Vern, and Alice for a couple of drinks at McGinley’s Pub.

Sunday, August 24th - Our final day

After the complimentary breakfast at the hotel, it was off to Seward to board a boat for another cruise. Driving the northern edge of the Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet, we were told that the tide coming into Anchorage changed by a level of over 30 feet, among the largest in the world. As we left, the tide was out and much of the Arm was nothing but square miles of silt laden soil. Our guide explained to us that if you walk on the silt and hit a soft spot, it will suck you in and act like quicksand - more than one person has been trapped and then drown as the tide came back in.

As we arrived in Seward, we received our boat ticket along with our lunch ticket, and boarded for our cruise through the Kenai Fjords National Park. This would turn out to be a virtual repeat of the cruise through Prince William Sound, except that we were on water that was more open to the Pacific. We saw many eagles, a couple of humpback whales, numerous puffins, sea otters, our first seals, and sea lions. We reached our most distant part of the trip when we arrived at Aialeska Glacier. The glacier is more than a mile wide, and is estimated to be a mile thick in areas of the mountains it travels through. After pulling to within a half mile of the glacier, the captain shut off the engines and we sat there listening to the sheet of ice. Yes, moving ice ‘groans’, sort of like a slow-moving squeaky door but at a lower pitch. Often times, after a groan, a chunk of ice would fall into the ocean, known as "calving". Glaciers, from a distance, appear white because of the newer, less dense snow on top. At deeper levels, the ice is so dense, all colors but the blue part of the spectrum are blocked by the ice. When you see a glacier, the ice at the bottom is likely to be hundreds of years old. Right now, most glaciers are retreating as the snowfall is not able to keep up with the melt rate. Many scientist blame man-made global warming, however, since most of the North American continent was covered by ice at one time, I accept it as nature at work. Another fact, some glaciers still grow in size. One glacier in 1987 grew by an amazing 79 feet per day during the summer. Should the Earth ever go through another ice age, much of what we’ve seen on our trip, would once again be covered by ice.

Monday, August 25th - Going home

Today we leave Anchorage at 2:00 p.m., headed for our connecting flight in San Francisco, and begin our reflections on our trip to the 49th state. Next year Alaska celebrates it’s 50th year in the Union. There is a lot to see and a lot to do, especially if you’re an outdoorsman. It’s a state that makes distant towns in the mid-western United States seem like they’re just next door. Anchorage and Fairbanks are over 300 miles apart, with only a restricted national park, and maybe three ‘legitimate’ small towns in between. There are only four numbered ‘highways’ in the entire state. There are more towns linked by small aircraft, or sled dog, than are linked by automobile. Most homes are small so they can be heated easier.

There are no state or local income taxes, and no state sales tax, though there are some local sales taxes depending on location. Property taxes are also implemented on a local basis, and are quite low in areas that chose to do so. In addition, all permanent residents receive a check from the state government, called the Permanent Fund, based on oil industry income. The economy, and therefore, jobs, are based significantly on the oil and fishing industries, and tourism. The average age of an Alaskan is only twenty-seven. Like Florida, most have moved there, and are not native. The culture is still one of friendliness where residents don’t fear keeping there homes unlocked in most places, and will assist you whenever you’re in a bad situation. A wise choice, since winter weather is often drastic, and they may easily find themselves in a bad situation at any time.

Like the Rockies in the Lower 48 states, once you’re there, and see the beauty of the state, there is a tug that makes you want to return time and time again. As someone who’s getting very tired of watching my home town grow into a virtual suburb of a large city, I’ve always been pulled towards the charm, beauty, and quaint nature of far less populated areas of the country. A place where you can hunt and fish close to your backyard. A place where you don’t have to worry that the ‘life police’ are watching your every move, instead of going out and catching the real criminals. I can now add Alaska to that list of places. There will come a day when I finally make that move. It may be when I retire, but there’s also a chance that one day in the nearer future, I’ll ignore my brain, sell most everything, and finally move my butt to a place where my heart wants to go.

---

Photos

Anchorage
Anchorage with Chugach Mt. in the background.

Colorful fauna
Flowers along a city street

Flowers
Flowers along an Anchorage city street.

Home Sweet Home?
A woman's earthen hut.

Dance
Native Alaskan dancers.

Worthington
Worthington Glacier

Marina
Marina in the town of Valdez

Columbia Glacier
Onboard our boat in the Prince William Sound

Show-off
A sea-lion poses on a buoy.

Mountains
A view on the way to Fairbanks

Grocery store?
A salmon trap on the Chena River.

Money
An Athabascan fur coat. Value: $16,000

More Money
A lesson in panning for gold.

Train Travel
Aboard the Alaska Railroad following the Nenana River

Flying High
A river valley in the Alaska Range.

Beauty
Mountains of the Alaska Range.

Mountains
The beauty of Denali from the air.

A Perfect Trio
Karen and I with our future sled dog. (I wish)

Sly as a....
Red Fox wandering through Denali.

Yogi?
A brown bear scrounging for berries.

A River Runs Through It
A silt-laden river bed.

The High One
Mt. McKinley (Denali)

Proof
Karen and I in front of Denali, over 50 miles away.

Another view
Mt. McKinley from the south.

Majestic View
Traveling to Seward

Earthquake Damage
Trees preserved from the inside out (roots absorbed salt water after the 1964 earthquake-caused flood.)

Sealed with a....
Seals

Getting closer.
Pure beauty and calm waters.