Before retiring last night, we asked the desk for a 6am wakeup call, and we set our own alarm clock as well. We had been told that the best time for viewing was right at sunrise, as the skies are at their clearest then, if at all. About 70% of visitors don’t get a view of the mountain because of clouds. Well, the wakeup call never came and, of course, we somehow fouled up the alarm clock, as it was nearly 8am before we got up. Much cursing, and then a mad dash to the back patio for the viewpoint. And, well, there it was!
I guess you can’t ask for much better than that. Denali on the right at 20,320, Hunter in the middle at 14,573, and Foraker on the left at 17,400. With a little cropping, Denali is huge. Its name comes from the Athabascan for “the high one.” High, indeed.
We ate breakfast (really dense oatmeal, which we topped with a rhubarb yoghurt to thin it out) on the deck with the mountains as our backdrop. Pretty amazing. And then, of course, the obligatory selfie.
I took a photo for a couple from Illinois who wanted a shot of them holding their hometown newspaper. Hah! Our local rag, the Post, does the same thing. It will run a picture of subscribers holding the paper in some far-off location. We took a copy to Portugal and took a shot but didn’t bring one here.
Part of our package is a Jet Boat ride up the Talkeetna and Susitna Rivers that meet up and run through Talkeetna. We had some time to kill, so we left the lodge and caught the bus into the city town village hamlet of Talkeetna, which was sporting spring color.
It’s a nice little place, but there’s really not that much there. There’s the park at the intersection above, and then the one block main street. The Inn is closed and for sale.
It didn’t take long to “explore,” so we wandered down to the river to check out what we’d be riding on. It wasn’t quite the boiling water we had hoped for, dead game sports that we are.
As it got nearer our departure time, we walked to the other end of town where Mahay’s Adventures had their recycled bus waiting to take us to the boat. As we were standing around, the Fairbanks-to-Anchorage train came roaring through. This is the train we will eventually catch up at Denali Park in a couple of days to take us south as well.
I have to say this river ride was the dud of the trip. The “jet” boats aren’t anywhere near as exciting as the one we took up the Rogue River in Oregon. Even the scenery was pretty mediocre, just a lot of trees lining the rivers. They tried to generate a little excitement with distant eagle sightings, but, well, zzzzzzzz. This isn’t a knock on Mahay’s, they do the best they can with what they have to work with.
We did pull in at one point to visit a reconstructed native village and trapper’s cabin. Some of the factoids that our ranger guide told us actually were pretty interesting. One was that the natives utilized the permafrost layer to act as a refrigerator during the warm months. They’d dig a circular pit (see upper right, below) down into the permafrost, deposit their meats or whatever, and then cover it well with branches, bushes, and dirt. Pretty clever. The trapper cabin was not much, but Loni did get to sport one of the many pelts that were hanging there for people to touch. Yuck. Our ranger gal was interesting herself, packing a rifle that would, we hoped, stop a grizzly dead in its tracks.
Another factoid was that the cow’s parsnip, a plant we saw everywhere and which also is common around the Sierra’s near Tahoe, has little “stickers” along its stems that are photo sensitive. When they’re on your skin and exposed to light they can cause 3rd degree burns! The plants use the photo-toxic furanocoumarin to protect themselves from fungus attacks. Who knew? I’ll watch myself when hiking from now on.
After all this, um, excitement, Loni and I retreated to the principal restaurant in town, the Denali (natch) Brew Pub, where we both enjoyed some of our favorite things, an Alaskan Cod sandwich, a fresh salmon salad, and some porters. Rain clouds starting to form.
And, oh yeah, on the way back to the hotel, where we were to catch our bus north, Loni had her second moose sighting.
Our “Park Connection” bus didn’t leave the hotel until 5:45pm, but it was still daylight when we finally arrived at the Denali Bluffs Hotel at almost 10pm. That is a long haul. At that hour, the deserted bar/cafe had little but chili and cheese sandwiches. Oye. We have to be up at 5am to start our all-day trip into Denali Park. Time for the sleep masks to keep out the Midnite Sun.
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