Saturday, August 27, 2005
08/09/05 Tuesday through 08/10/05 Wednesday - Fairbands to Denali
08/09/05 Tuesday through 08/10/05 Wednesday
Today we go from Fairbanks to Denali. I have
been looking forward to this since we started planning the trip. Denali National Park is supposed to be one of the most beautiful places on earth. We drew Tom and Joyce Knight as travel buddies today. They are retired to Melbourne, FL, but I think that they were originally from Pennsylvania. Tom has a brother named Ed who is also on the caravan.
We had a very uneventful drive from Fairbanks to Denali. We did get our first view of Denali (Mt. McKinley) about 75 miles before we got to the Village of Denali. It is another 75 miles form the village to the mountain. We traveled the entire distance from Fairbanks to Denali along the East s
ide of the Alaska Mountain Range. We saw some of the prettiest views along this road that we have seen. When we left Fairbanks it was cloudy and there was a lot of smoke in the air from fires. By mid-morning the sky had cleared and we had the prettiest day that we have had on the trip. McKinley was showing like a big white cone. Our Wagon Master has been here seven times before this trip and he told us he had only seen the mountain once. It is usually shrouded with fog and clouds.
When we got to our campground we were parked on a bluff overlooking the Nenana River. It is a great view from here. We were told by the people in the office that if we wanted to be assured of seeing Mt. McKinley and getting good pictures we had better go on out to the park and do it. We drove out to the park and
went to the visitors’ center to get as much information as we could about the area. pullouts who told us that we had just missed a Grizzly bear. She said it had played around for an hour in her range of view and had just left. We did see a caribou down by the Savage River. While we watched he movWe found out that we were about 75 miles from the mountain and that the roads were only open to private vehicles about 15 miles. We drove as far as we could and took pictures. We were visiting with a lady sitting in one of theed up stream, came out of the river bottom and crossed the road. After he crossed the road, he turned and came back by us on the other side. We got some pretty good pictures.
We have a tour of the park scheduled for tomorrow. We located where we were to meet the bus and left the park. We stopped at a café on the way back home and had lunch. They advertised box lunches to be taken to the park, so we ordered one to be picked up the next morning and went back there and had breakfast and got our lunch.
We had signed up for white water rafting trip along with eight other people in our group. We left the campground at 6:30 pm, and took a about a 12 mile float down the river from a place where they hauled us on a bus. We floated back to the campground where their company was located. The rapids in the river were class two and class three rapids that probably had waves that ranged from three feet to six feet. Some areas were pretty rough.
I held on to those ropes pretty tight at times since I can’t swim. The life preserver that I wore had enough floatation to keep a large boat on top of the water. We had a great time. Mary had bought an underwater camera for snorkeling when we were on a cruise last year and it still had some film in it. She used it to take pictures instead of her digital camera. The pictures were not as good, but she didn’t damage her good camera.
We had quite a coincidence while we were on the river. There were a total of four rafts in our group. We met some people in the raft behind us who were from Lincoln, Alabama. The guy knew Bonnie Gosdeck's family. He was younger and did not know Bonnie, but he went to school and graduated with Kelly Alred who is Bonnie’s niece. We know her parents, Burt and Marie who is Bonnie’s sister. It’s a small world.
On Wednesday, 08/10/05 we left on our tour of Denali at 6:30 am. We did have breakfast and pick up our lunch. It was a really great tour. Our guide was very committed to the wilderness and it’s plant and animal life. She made sure that our group respected it. We spent about eight hours with her and learned a lot about the area. She was not a native, but I believe that she said she had been doing the tour for five years. She knows a lot of facts. Besides the natural beauty, which is outstanding, we saw a lot of wildlife. We saw Moose, Caribou, Reindeer, Dall Sheep, Black Bear, Grizzly Bear, a lot of small animals like Ground Squirrels, and a large variety of birds.
We picked and ate wild berries, and rode over some scary roads. We went over about forty miles of dirt and gravel roads into the mountains where at some points we were on ridges that dropped off on both sides of the road. Once I asked how far down the drop was beside the road and she said about 800 feet.
After we finished our tour we went to the ranger station and had a demonstration of how sled dogs were used by the rangers in the park. The ranger was very proud of their program. This is the only park in the National Park Service with the sled dog program. They do not use snow machines like snowmobiles. They use the dogs to haul equipment and supplies to the their outlying areas when the snow comes. I asked the ranger how often they worked the dogs. Early in the winter they might only work a few days a month. But by the end of winter they regularly took six-week trips and worked every day. Keep in mind that winter is usually eight or nine months long
Today we go from Fairbanks to Denali. I have
been looking forward to this since we started planning the trip. Denali National Park is supposed to be one of the most beautiful places on earth. We drew Tom and Joyce Knight as travel buddies today. They are retired to Melbourne, FL, but I think that they were originally from Pennsylvania. Tom has a brother named Ed who is also on the caravan.We had a very uneventful drive from Fairbanks to Denali. We did get our first view of Denali (Mt. McKinley) about 75 miles before we got to the Village of Denali. It is another 75 miles form the village to the mountain. We traveled the entire distance from Fairbanks to Denali along the East s
ide of the Alaska Mountain Range. We saw some of the prettiest views along this road that we have seen. When we left Fairbanks it was cloudy and there was a lot of smoke in the air from fires. By mid-morning the sky had cleared and we had the prettiest day that we have had on the trip. McKinley was showing like a big white cone. Our Wagon Master has been here seven times before this trip and he told us he had only seen the mountain once. It is usually shrouded with fog and clouds.When we got to our campground we were parked on a bluff overlooking the Nenana River. It is a great view from here. We were told by the people in the office that if we wanted to be assured of seeing Mt. McKinley and getting good pictures we had better go on out to the park and do it. We drove out to the park and
went to the visitors’ center to get as much information as we could about the area. pullouts who told us that we had just missed a Grizzly bear. She said it had played around for an hour in her range of view and had just left. We did see a caribou down by the Savage River. While we watched he movWe found out that we were about 75 miles from the mountain and that the roads were only open to private vehicles about 15 miles. We drove as far as we could and took pictures. We were visiting with a lady sitting in one of theed up stream, came out of the river bottom and crossed the road. After he crossed the road, he turned and came back by us on the other side. We got some pretty good pictures.
We have a tour of the park scheduled for tomorrow. We located where we were to meet the bus and left the park. We stopped at a café on the way back home and had lunch. They advertised box lunches to be taken to the park, so we ordered one to be picked up the next morning and went back there and had breakfast and got our lunch.
We had signed up for white water rafting trip along with eight other people in our group. We left the campground at 6:30 pm, and took a about a 12 mile float down the river from a place where they hauled us on a bus. We floated back to the campground where their company was located. The rapids in the river were class two and class three rapids that probably had waves that ranged from three feet to six feet. Some areas were pretty rough.
I held on to those ropes pretty tight at times since I can’t swim. The life preserver that I wore had enough floatation to keep a large boat on top of the water. We had a great time. Mary had bought an underwater camera for snorkeling when we were on a cruise last year and it still had some film in it. She used it to take pictures instead of her digital camera. The pictures were not as good, but she didn’t damage her good camera.We had quite a coincidence while we were on the river. There were a total of four rafts in our group. We met some people in the raft behind us who were from Lincoln, Alabama. The guy knew Bonnie Gosdeck's family. He was younger and did not know Bonnie, but he went to school and graduated with Kelly Alred who is Bonnie’s niece. We know her parents, Burt and Marie who is Bonnie’s sister. It’s a small world.
On Wednesday, 08/10/05 we left on our tour of Denali at 6:30 am. We did have breakfast and pick up our lunch. It was a really great tour. Our guide was very committed to the wilderness and it’s plant and animal life. She made sure that our group respected it. We spent about eight hours with her and learned a lot about the area. She was not a native, but I believe that she said she had been doing the tour for five years. She knows a lot of facts. Besides the natural beauty, which is outstanding, we saw a lot of wildlife. We saw Moose, Caribou, Reindeer, Dall Sheep, Black Bear, Grizzly Bear, a lot of small animals like Ground Squirrels, and a large variety of birds.
We picked and ate wild berries, and rode over some scary roads. We went over about forty miles of dirt and gravel roads into the mountains where at some points we were on ridges that dropped off on both sides of the road. Once I asked how far down the drop was beside the road and she said about 800 feet.
After we finished our tour we went to the ranger station and had a demonstration of how sled dogs were used by the rangers in the park. The ranger was very proud of their program. This is the only park in the National Park Service with the sled dog program. They do not use snow machines like snowmobiles. They use the dogs to haul equipment and supplies to the their outlying areas when the snow comes. I asked the ranger how often they worked the dogs. Early in the winter they might only work a few days a month. But by the end of winter they regularly took six-week trips and worked every day. Keep in mind that winter is usually eight or nine months long
