The Great One (not me)

So at this point on our Alaskan cruise and land tour, I have been saturated with Yukon and Alaskan facts, to the point I refuse to try to educate you anymore, at least for a few paragraphs.  We reached Denali National Park and Preserve, our last “real” stop, for a two-night stay, just a mile from the park entrance.  We are staying on a property owned by Holland America, the Mt. McKinley Chalets, just like all the properties we have overnighted in since we first stepped onto the cruise ship, the Volendam.

We awoke early the next day, like most of our days on this journey; to take a school bus that had been retro-fitted with some high back seats, in the attempt of giving park goers a comfortable seat into the park, on the “Tundra Tour.”  Except for a few exceptions, this is the only way of experiencing the park.  On the bus, you are educated, entertained, and exhausted by your bus driver, who doubles as your tour guide.  If you can endure this for 6 to 8 hours, you will (most likely) get off the bus at the end of your tour with a camera full of photos including wild wildlife, incredible landscapes, and of course…selfies.  The ultimate reward, after logging about 120 miles, while traveling at sometimes a snails pace, is the view of Denali, The Great One, as it is translated from the Koyukon people, into English.  The tallest mountain in North America, at just over 20,300 feet, it is iffy at best to be able to view it on any given day.   This is due to the fact that since it is so high into the atmosphere, it creates it’s own weather, which ends up covering itself in clouds to various degrees many days.  On our day, we saw it from a great distance, partially covered, but when we reached our turn around vista point, we were socked in with low hanging clouds and mist.  What makes it spectacular to me is that it is more than a mile higher than most of surrounding peaks.  For those of you that appreciate the 14er’s in Colorado…add a little over a mile more in elevation to each of them and you would be in the neighborhood of The Great One.

Look behind the dark ridge line and what looks like white is Denali.

A "small" mountain!

Upon exiting our bus, after a bit over 8 hours, our wildlife checklist included a golden eagle, a few caribou, dall sheep (the ones with the spiral horns, that ram each other and come away concussion-less…as far as we know), a harrier hawk, not to be confused with the hawk owl we saw, 8 brown bears (three of which were feeding on a caribou carcass, the carcass not included in the caribou count above), some ptarmigan, and an overgrown ground squirrel.  And that does not include the wildlife just off the park road watching us through the bushes as we made our way along the park’s gravel road.  Of course you want what you didn’t see, like a wolf or moose, but I think we had a pretty healthy viewing.  Karen and Stuart saw a moose cow and her baby that night on their chuck wagon excursion and we saw their pictures, so I guess in a way we saw a moose too.  So the wolf was the elusive one, along with the wolverine, and I’m sure a number of other residents of the park.  On the train leaving Denali for Anchorage, we heard another tour group sharing our train car, that they saw a wolf on their tour, so by that association, we saw a wolf as well!  So other than the wolverine, that was probably peering through the bushes at us as we drove by, it was a good day!

Nice rack!

Beth was like a moose magnet, just not in Denali.

Golden Eagle

It was in the grass because it was eating on a rabbit...see it underneath?

Caribou chillin'.

White dots...Dall sheep.  Bus driver got tired of us yelling stop to look at
them.  There were many and farrrrrrr away!

Momma and one of her two babies...two year old babies.

Just another bear...ho hum.

See the Caribou antler sticking up between the two bears?

Not much left on the bone...they soon left the dinner table and moved on.

Ptarmigan.

Bigger than it looks...maybe a foot tall.

Even without the wildlife, the landscape is just jaw dropping.  The vastness, the colors, the idea of trying to survive out in it, wears me out.  After viewing the pictures, while bouncing down the road, it was apparent they just don’t do the real thing justice.  I guess that is true for most subjects being photographed.  I actually gave up on some taking some photos due to that reason.  It’s a sensory experience that a viewfinder cannot replicate, even 4K video.  With all that said, here are a few attempts at sharing our fieldtrip into Denali.

An area called Polychrome...many colors.

Lots of braided streams.

Glaciers off in the distance.

We boarded the train to Anchorage the next morning and spent about 8 hours watching the mountains recede into the distance, as we headed towards sea level.  Anchorage holds most of the population in the state of Alaska, about 330,000, according to multiple tour guide trivia fact dropping moments that I started to ignore, so that might not be exact. 

Karen and Stuart looking out over Talkeetna.

After spending about 30 or so hours in Anchorage, it appears to have been frozen in a 60’s motif, as far as its vibe and architecture…to me anyway.  And again, that is with only about 30 hours under my belt, which a few of those I was sleeping.  The most modern touches seemed to have been added by a number of breweries in town.  One of which, truly has awesome food, probably beer too, but I stayed away from the beer, thanks to a rented Prius, but I topped off my cruise and land tour weight gain with their seafood chowder, which was like desert!  Thank you Glacier Brewhouse, for letting me leave my trip with a good taste in my mouth! Hahaha!

And finally, to kill a few hours until our red-eye flight home could begin; we saddled up our Prius and rode up the Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet from Anchorage, and caught by total coincidence, surfing of the bore tide.  Google it and educate yourself.  I got my education on it about 20 years ago from a former student teacher and friend of mine, Matt.  Matt and his wife Cristina have taught and lived on Kodiak Island, AK ever since then.  They had just moved up to Alaska and before selling their RV, they moved up there in, we had one last hurrah traveling around many of the highlights Alaska has to offer.  One of the surprises we were treated to was the bore tide on the Turnagain Arm.  Now, a bunch of years later, Beth and I hit it just right and we spent some time chasing the tide as it came in.  At one point Beth spotted some people “upstream” standing in the water.  I thought maybe they were fishermen, but they turned out to be surfers, waiting for the tide to roll in.  My first experience with it was years ago, did not involve surfers, just watching the water roar back from the ocean, and it was pretty awe-inspiring then as well.  Witnessing these guys (and one woman) with my own eyes, catching what amounted to a wave a couple of feet high, was quite a spectacle.  Being right along the highway (2-laner), the event drew quite a crowd at every turnout.  For the surfers that could stay ahead of the wave, they rode it for maybe a mile or so.  For the ones that fell behind the wave, the incoming current kept them moving forward, they just didn’t look as cool.

Surfing, Alaska style!

So Cool!  Once again, the pictures don’t do it justice, but this Youtube video link should help.  Cut and paste the address below into your internet browser (if you can’t, click on it) and enjoy some surfing...Alaska style…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1ZDZuW7zjs

Epilogue:

I’m afraid a final impression I made, before heading to the airport, may have been interpreted as somewhat questionable.  We had to check out of our hotel earlier in the day, but Beth having the foresight of a seasoned traveler, thought to ask the front desk if there was a way we could come back in the evening, to clean up one last time.  They agreed to let us have access to the Men’s and Women’s Athletic Club.  That’s right…that’s how we roll when we travel near the Arctic Circle.  So basically we are talking locker rooms, workout equipment, access to a pool, hot tub, and saunas…steam and dry.  Actually, the places I usually stay have never had to worry about replacing the towels in their Athletic Club, cause there isn’t one!  Any who, the prospect of experiencing one was slightly exciting.  They gave Beth two room keys (cards) to show we had privileges to the attendant in “the club,” even though we had previously checked out.  So upon our arrival back at our swanky hotel, we grabbed our pre-prepared bags for clean up and headed in.

The his and her clubs were located on opposite sides of the hotel on the bottom floor, so we split up.  The pool evidently joined the two sides from what Beth saw earlier on her reconnaissance mission.  We both were looking forward to a little relaxing warmth in our respective sauna and hot tubs.  Beth, having checked out the facilities the day before upon checking in, was familiar with the club protocol.  Me on the other hand was ignorant.

I pulled open the door, wearing my jeans, t-shirt, a fleece jacket zipped up a few inches, and a few days worth of face fuzz.  A few feet into the door was a small desk area, with an attendant behind it, waiting to check me in.  Beyond that, was a small lounge area, with some leather couches, a TV, and a couple of older gentlemen watching a ball game.  I walked in with my plastic bag, clothing spilling out the top, introduced myself to the attendant, and tried to explained the situation.  He looked back at me, as if I was homeless, trying to talk him into letting me clean up for the week.  I presented the room keycard, and persisted with the story that the front desk said it was okay and that I could take a shower before flying home.  With his continued look of suspicion written all over his face and half his torso, he told me that the men’s showers haven’t been working for weeks and he seemed curious the front desk sent me anyway.  I persisted with my most convincing, non-homelessness way I could, while my appearance shouted…”Look at me, I’m homeless.”  Between me not smelling too badly at this point in the day and having the room key in my possession, he finally softened and told me that they had reserved a room on the third floor for those needing a shower and handed me the keycard.  Bingo!

Before the attendant changed his mind, I turned and headed up to the third floor.  As the anxiety of getting caught by the Hotel Athletic Club Police drained from my thoughts, they were replaced with what if this was a “special” room where a married man might rendezvous with a woman of questionable ethics…off the radar?  I guess they both would be of questionable ethics.  Now who thinks like that?  What if I walked in on some “business” going on?  Oh well, it was all for not when I walked in and saw a pile of folded towels on the bed and a hamper for the used ones right next to the bed.  Why wouldn’t guests just go back to their rooms to shower after using the facilities?  Oh well.  I took the fastest shower ever recorded in Anchorage, all the time hoping that some homeless guy wouldn’t walk in and interrupt my shower.  I promptly returned the key and promised the attendant my first-born, and hurried to meet Beth in the lobby.  Goodbye Alaska!

My Zen from the Road:  You just never know.  On this trip, we met and learned about some people that found their way “up” here to live, sort of off the radar.  I don’t mean that like, I have a warrant for your arrest, kind of off the radar.  For example, there was a girl…a young woman… who told Beth she read Call of the Wild as a kid and had to come up here to see for herself and ended up staying.  Another was a guy that was dared to live in a cave by his buddies, liked it, and is still living in it.  He drives his boat across the river and makes furniture for people in his woodshop.  And a guy that comes to town, or should I say paddles his canoe from his island, and plays an old upright piano in a bar for tips.  Everybody has a story.  Some secretive, some can’t wait to share it.  Either way, it’s theirs. 

The piano man.

By the way, the piano player…he used to be a concert pianist for the Calgary, Alberta philharmonic (as his story goes, as told by someone else…ha!).  Who knows…and does it really matter?

Our tour group.  We are front and center.

Fall is already showing it's color as the Aspen begin to turn in the Yukon.