Denali National Park and Beyond
Day 28 June 26, 2012Fairbanks to Denali Riley Creek Campground
We got up and got our stuff together with no great hurry. I did my exercise band exercises outside after putting on a layer of DEET and unpacked the next 2 weeks’ worth of food from the container under the bed. It’s always a challenge to find a place for all the stuff the first few days after I unpack the next load. Then I took the laptop over to the little building with the Wi-Fi and checked the email and uploaded the latest additions of the blog. With those tasks done we were ready to hit the road. Walter drove for an hour and just when we were ready to switch drivers the skies opened up and it began to pour. It rained hard for the next 10 miles with no turn outs and by the time we found a turn out the rain had let up. It rained off and on for the rest of the way to Denali but no horribly. The first sign you are near Denali is your arrival in the ghastly area known as Glitter Gulch. We decided that it truly is the ugliest place in Alaska because it is so tacky. There are fancy hotels here and there along with the tacky t-shirt stores all lining the road with tourists walking about looking lost as usual.
We found the turn off into the park and followed the sign to the campground check-in at the Riley Creek Mercantile. Our camping book had said you were to check in at the Wilderness Activity Center but we followed the signs and they checked us in without a hitch. We noted that the showers, laundry and dump station were also all here with great RV parking too.
When we checked in we got our campground sign for not only our one night at Riley Creek but our 4 nights out at Teklanika too. We also bought our Tek bus passes for $34 each. When we bought them we got to make a reservation for a seat on the bus on Thursday morning. We’ll catch the bus to Eielson Visitor’s Center from the Teklanika (known as Tek) campground at 8:10. That same bus leaves the Visitor Center area at 7 am. It will get us to Eielson sometime around 10:30 I think. We can then either take it back when it leaves at 11:35 or we can take a later bus on a space available basis. On Friday and Saturday we can take any bus that comes by to any destination further out into the park as long as there are seats available all for the same price of $34. It’s a real deal since the bus to Eielson and back cost $34 and each day folks have to buy another one. After getting all the paperwork done and signing a form that we understood all the rules for Tek (once we get there we can’t take our vehicle anywhere until we leave) we went looking for a campsite at Riley Creek Campground just down the road. There are 3 loops but we only bothered to look at 2 of them. We had paid for an B site which maxed out at about 30 feet. There were A sites for big rigs that looked like they went to over 40 feet. The heavy rain had flooded a few of the sites and there were patches of the campground loop road that was flooded too. There was a Casita parked in the first loop and another in the second! This is the first time ever that we’ve been in a campground with more than one other Casita. We settled on a site that looked like it would be easy to back into and parked the Casita in it. Then we disconnected the truck so we wouldn’t hang out into the road and parked it next to the Casita. We fit very nicely, thank you very much.
It was past lunch time by the time we got settled in so that was the next order of business. After lunch we went up to the Visitor’s Center and read the displays and watched the very nice movie on Denali. This one has nice music and very little narration which made it even better. We stopped and asked about day hikes for our time out at Tek and were told that you just get off the bus and hike where the spirit moves you to. It’s all wilderness so there are very few trails. They did tell us that there was a Denali Walks book that we could get so we went down to the bookstore to have a look. It was a nice bookstore and Walter found a copy of the book (spiral bound with lovely photos) and I looked at the t-shirts but they had no mediums left at all. The saleslady said we could order them on line so I guess I will get my Denali t-shirt when I get home.
Finished here, we went back to the rig and had a nap. Before dinner Walter was restless so we went out for a drive. He wanted photos of Glitter Gulch so down we went out of the park and the mile or so back down the highway to buy gas and photograph the tackiness. Then we stopped and took pictures of each other (and had someone take a photo of the two of us) next to the Denali Sign at the entrance to the park. Having made our nod towards being tourists we went home and had dinner.
We talked about going for a hike after dinner since it stays light so long but I wasn’t so sure since we woke up late from our nap. We had one chore to do. We had to replace the driver’s side amber running light lens, again. It got punched out in the front by a rock somewhere between Fairbanks where we replaced it and Denali where Walter discovered it was broken again. So this time we decided to put two layers of transit shield over it, overlapped enough so that it makes an X and thus is stuck to the trailer surface rather than just itself. We covered the right one while we were at it.
Then we hopped in the truck to take the drive out to Savage Creek, the furthest you can drive as a normal camper. The rain had stopped and the clouds lifted some so we could see some of the mountains. We didn’t see any wildlife but the construction folks were still out at 10 pm working on replacing all the culverts on the first 19 miles of the road. The road had all these little gravel sections where they’d dug up the road to replace the culvert and just filled it in with gravel. Ugh. By the time we got to Savage Creek neither of us was interested in a hike so I just got out and took a few photos and then drove back.
We made ourselves shut the blinds and go to sleep at midnight. It was still light and it felt like 4 in the afternoon. But we needed to at least get up at a decent hour to get ready for our journey out to Tek.
Day 29 June 27, 2012
Denali
We got up and had breakfast and then battened the hatches to move out. I was kind of spacey and so was Walter. I think we have travel fatigue after being on the road for 29 days. In any case I didn’t get the front tongue support cranked up and off it’s block of wood before we took off. Thank goodness Walter noticed it didn’t feel right. We got out and fixed that and walked the perimeter of the rig to make sure it was all okay and then I waited until he got the trailer out of the site and filled our long narrow divot.
We drove up to the Riley Creek Mercantile and used the dump station and then filled our water tank and all our water jugs. There’s water out at Tek but we wanted to start out with as much good water as possible for our 4 days out there. Then we went in to take showers and discovered that one of us apparently left their towel back at the Riverside RV park in Fairbanks when we took showers there on Sunday. It was probably me since I was doing laundry and took my shower in the middle of it all and was distracted. So I went into the rig and pulled out the storage bin under the bed and dug out one of the extra towels. The towel we lost is about 30 years old so it’s no big loss. We went into the showers only to discover you have to pay in the Mercantile. So we went into the store and paid our $4 each and they gave us each a key to a stall and a towel and kept a piece of ID to assure you gave back the keys and the towels. I’ve never gotten a free towel at any place I’ve had to pay for a shower before. What a treat.
The showers were hot and the towel got me dry okay. I used it to sop up the water that escaped the shower curtain and all was good. The stall Walter got already had ¼ inch of water in it from the previous person and that’s too much water to sop up with a towel so he wasn’t as happy with the experience.
We set out for Teklanika Campground at 10:40. I decided to count the gravel patches as we drove out and I managed to count 96 of them plus the construction area where they were currently digging up the road. There are marks on the road for further work so we figure that there will be over 100 gravel patches on the 19 miles of road to Savage Creek before they’re done and repave them. It made for slow going towing the trailer over them because many of them have pretty big pot holes from having the buses and other cars drive over them. We changed drivers at the checkpoint where they turn back the general public. They checked our paperwork and made sure we had empty grey and black water tanks, had water and food and understood how the bus tickets worked. With that we were good to go.
The gravel road is nice and wide—enough for two buses to pass with no problem. And the surface was is great shape since there is so little traffic on it. There were a few washboard areas but mostly it was smooth. I happily drove 25 to 30 miles per hour (though the speed limit is 35). We passed a couple of RV coming out from camping at Tek but no buses in the whole 10 miles of gravel road. We’d passed a couple of the morning tour buses that are half-day tours and a shuttle bus or two on the paved road but nothing once we hit the gravel. It was like having the whole road and the park to ourselves. I loved it. If I saw a view I could just pull over turn on the blinkers and get out and take a photo without any worry.
We got to Tek and toured the two loops looking for the right site. It was nowhere near full. I guess the fact that you have to stay 3 days minimum makes the booking process interesting. Anyway we found a nice spot in the second loop (after a moment of panic as to whether we could even get in because of a construction crew working on a food storage shed. We picked a spot that backs up on the natural area that runs along the river so we have no neighbors behind us. We have a view of the trash area and the bathroom from one window but the other windows all have flowers and bushes and trees and sky.
We were settled in and all set up by 12:30. So we made lunch and then hung out. It started to rain and it was wonderful just to have a little down time. Walter took a nap and I finished my book and then he read while I took a nap. When I woke up he was ready to go out exploring. So we put on the DEET (yes, Walter finally broke down and put DEET on his hands and ankles) and put on our head nets (it feels like you’re wearing a widow’s veil) and got out our walking sticks. First we walked the campground loop and had a look at the bus stop. Then we followed trail back to where the research folks have a yurt to stay in while they do research projects. Then we found a trail that led back into the campground and we saw some folks setting up a tent. Walter asked them where the river was and they pointed us in the right direction mentioning you could hear it. Duh! We found a trail out to the sand and gravel bars and explored. I took photos of dwarf fireweed and other wonderful goodies and we stood and talked about how the trees being shorter makes the scale of everything look off.
After about an hour we worked our way back to the campsite. We read the books about the flowers and trees and the taiga and the tundra and decided what we had here is taiga. Then I downloaded my photos and updated this. While I was updating this, the campground host stopped by to see if we had any questions. She’s a Casita lover and likes our model best. She explained how the bus deal works if you want to stay at Eielson longer than your bus stays (about 45 minutes according to the fellow who was with her). When you’re ready to come back you find the dispatcher and he puts you on the waiting list and then when the bus comes and they know how many open seats there are he calls folks names. Very civilized. She said that the bus out takes about 3 hours and that it takes less time coming back (2 ½ hours or so) because they don’t have a rest stop at Polychrome and they don’t stop as often to look at every little white and brown dot on the hillsides. It’s nice to know a little more about how it all works.
We had a momentary sun break during dinner but now it is raining again. We’ll try to get to bed earlier since we have to be up and have lunch made and be at the bus stop by 8 am.
Day 30 June 28, 2012
Denali
We managed to turn the lights off and go to sleep a little before 10 last night. It was still broad daylight but that doesn’t seem to matter to us at this point. Today at the Eielson Visitor’s Center, I saw that sunset tonight is at 12:20 am so it’s no wonder I feel as if it’s always twilight when we go to sleep.
Walter was awake early of course. I’d set the alarm for 6:30 but he was wake at 6. We were up and getting dressed before the alarm went off. It was just as well because we used all the time allotted to get dressed, have breakfast, make lunch and get out stuff together and hike to catch the bus at 8:10. It was about 10 minutes late but we got our seats okay on the driver’s side of the bus (the recommended position for the best wildlife viewing).
In the course of the trip out and back we saw 35 Dahl sheep (some actually visible as sheep with the naked eye) 7 grizzley bears and 3 caribou. One of the brown bears was a sow with two cubs way up on a hillside. One was asleep in the bushes right near the road. One was in a draw and we got fairly close in the second positioning of the bus. The other two I got pretty good shots of too.
We got to Eielson Visitor’s Center at about 10:50. Our bus was going to leave again at 11:30 so we opted to not take it and to relax and enjoy ourselves and then take a later bus. There’s no problem with that for anybody. You just contact the bus dispatcher when you’re ready to leave and he puts you on his list. We put our names in just before a bus was about to leave and we didn’t make that one but we made the next one which was only 10 minutes later.
While we were at Eielson we looked at the displays in the visitor center and took pictures even though it was misty and then actually rainy. When it was just misty we took the tundra trail and I took many photos of wonderful tundra flowers including a green bog orchid that was teeny tiny. It’s going to be a long term project to identify all these wonderful flowers.
After our hike we had lunch sharing our table with a couple with an 11 month-old little boy. We rested a while and decided it was time to get a bus back. I stopped and asked about good places to hike with good flowers and they ranger said Highway Pass where of course there are no trails. He also took me out to see the bog orchid which I had found myself! He keeps a log of flowers he’s seen on the Facebook Page for the park so I’ll have a place to go with the REAL names to check as I go through the ID process.
We caught a bus that had been out to Wonder Lake and wasn’t very full. We shed folks as we went to places they wanted to hike. We picked up one couple who rode for a while and then got off and hiked some more. It rained off and on and we had a few sun breaks. But of course the mountain was entirely invisible as I had expected.
We got back to the trailer at about 3:30 pm. Walter is asleep and I have downloaded all 266 photos I took today and labeled everything but the flowers, since the ID process is going to take some time.
Day 31 June 29, 2012
Denali
It rained off and on all night but when we woke up there were patches of blue and it wasn’t raining. We decided to have breakfast and make a sack lunch and take the bus back up to Eielson rather than get off some place and bushwhack or hike on a river bottom again. If the weather held we’d do the Alpine Trail that yesterday was socked in by the clouds and the mist. We got it together to be out at the bus stop at about 10:15 and didn’t have to wait long at all to catch a bus. There was one couple with tickets for that bus and once they were on and people had moved their stuff around they let us on. There was a second couple but they were waiting for the Wonder Lake bus. We decided that we didn’t need to go to Wonder Lake (several more hours on the bus out the road with lots of mosquitos) and I’m glad now that we didn’t as we had a great day doing what we did.
The bus driver was normally a tour bus driver who’d been moved over for the day to drive a regular shuttle. He had a great line of patter and told us about braided rivers and how they don’t ever fill up with water, they just create more braids when there’s more water. We saw 12 caribou today, a bull moose plus 8 grizzly bears and 6 Dahl sheep.
We had lunch when we got out to Eielson since it was after 1 pm. There was a Masters Program from North Carolina having a seminar over their lunch at the table next to us. I listened in a learned a bunch about permafrost which was fun. Then we watched the video on Climbing Mt. McKinley again since I hadn’t seen I from the beginning yesterday. We watched the whole thing and enjoyed it as much the second time as the first. There are over 200 folks up on the mountain waiting for it to clear so they can complete their climbs. The season will be over soon and they may be out of luck as were 58% of the folks so far who had tried but not made it to the summit so far this year.
By the time we were finished with the movie, the sun had gone away and it was raining. So we stood a waited and talked to the ranger about why there aren’t any deer in the park—there isn’t anything for them to eat that they can digest! The caribou fill their ecological niche and do okay because they can eat lichen. It finally stopped raining and the Alpine trail was clear all the way to the top. Visibility all day was way better today than yesterday. It misted a bit as we climbed the trail. It was very steep but there were a few new flowers that I hadn’t seen yesterday which was nice. About half way up we figure (it climbs 1,000 feet and we think we were about 500 feet up, we were ready to rest and turn around. While Walter sat I stood (I don’t like to sit where it’s wet) and looked at the view. About the time we were about to take off back down the hill, I noticed a grizzly bear (they’re called that in McKinley according to our bus driver this morning) on the far hillside. We watched him as he grazed and covered huge amounts of ground as he came down the hill. We had noticed a sign that they can put across the trail to close it because of bear activity and sure enough out came the rangers to get the silly people who had run in the direction of the bear back to a safe distance and to call to us to come down. We worked our way slowly down (it was steep) and I took a few photos as we got closer to him. He kept coming down the hill and so we got closer to him the further down the trail we got. The ranger met us on the last leg of the trail and escorted us off the trail and past the freshly placed trail closed sign.
It was an amazing experience and way ‘realer’ feeling than seeing bears from the bus. We then got in line for the next bus and guess what? The had crossed the road and was now in the grassy area right near the bus so we got more photos of him, this time much closer up.
On the way back we were on the hikers bus and everyone was pretty tired. But we still saw a bunch of caribou and a number of bears. It helps when you have a couple of tour buses in front of you as they stop when folks see things and then our bus would slow down and we’d look to figure out what they’d spotted.
To anyone visiting Denali, I hardily recommend taking the shuttle bus out to Eielson. Take binoculars and if you have a telephoto lens you’ll be very happy. Ride out sitting on the side of the bus behind the driver. Ride back on the opposite side of the bus. Most of the animal sightings were on that side of the bus, though of course not all of them.
We got back to the trailer at 5:30 and we were both bushed. Six hours on the bus for two days is a lot. We both realized that since the weather was not going to be good enough tomorrow to see McKinley that we were complete with Denali. Neither of us needed to ride out to Eielson again and neither of us had the need to ride part of the way and hike in any of the trail-less areas. We totally enjoyed our time and 3 days at Teklanika was perfect.
We had sun breaks all day and of course as the evening wore on it even got clearer. At 11:30 I noticed that the blinds had turned pink and I looked out and saw that we were getting a little bit of early color in the sky. It didn’t last long but it was pretty.
Day 32 June 30, 2012
Denali to Willow, Alaska
When we got up it was totally clouded in again. The taller mountains (not the BIG ones but at least the ones with a little snow) that we could see most of yesterday were gone behind the clouds. This was a final confirmation that we were making the right decision to move on.
We packed up and drove back to the Riley Creek Mercantile area in about an hour. They were still working on the road even though it’s Saturday. There were a lot more buses on the road today as we drove out than the day we drove in. We dumped the tanks and filled up on water and then started west on the Parks Highway. We’d looked at our camping book the night before and picked out some places to check out that had power, showers and Wi-Fi since it was time for a little civilization.
All the viewpoints where you are supposed to be able to see McKinley had gorgeous views of clouds. There was no hint that there were huge white mountains and long gorgeous glaciers anywhere out there. The few mountains we could see had their tops in the clouds. We stopped for lunch in a turnout by Mile 180 Lake (don’t you love the creativity in the name?). There are lots of lakes along the drive and we saw a moose cow with a calf along a river edge as we were crossing a bridge. By the time we got stopped she had already disappeared into the willows—she was moving pretty fast with her calf trotting right behind.
We drove 180 miles today and ended up at the Mat-Su RV Park just east of Willow, AK. It’s a big gravel lot with a few grassy areas but very few rigs in it. The Wi-Fi works great. The showers were very nice with wood paneling like a sauna and nice tile and LOTS of hot water. It was 66 degrees with broken clouds when we arrived and the trailer was WARM! So we opened up the windows and let things air out. It’s still in the 60’s out there and it is 10 pm. This is the time of night that makes me crazy. It looks like it’s about 4 or 5 pm but it’s really time to think about getting ready to go to sleep.
After checking the email and having showers this afternoon we spent some time researching which way we should go on the Kenai Peninsula starting tomorrow. The forecast is not stellar with only one day in the next 7 that doesn’t involve some chance of rain. So we are going to Seward first so we can take the boat tour to Kenai Fiords National Park on that one day (Monday). We’ve decided to take the Major Marine Tour because they have National Park Rangers on every boat. We’ll let you know how it goes.
Tomorrow we have a 200 plus mile drive to Seward and we have to stop and do grocery shopping on the way. My next task is to make the list!
Day 33 July 1, 2012
Willow to Seward
We had a bit of a restless night because we had several mosquitos loose in the trailer. There’s nothing like waking up in the middle of the night to that distinctive whine and not being able to catch the critter. We squashed a couple but there is still one of them whining around this evening.
I made scrambled eggs with ham for Sunday breakfast and then we began the process of packing up to move on. It was partly sunny and in the mid 50’s so I did my exercise band exercises outside (after putting on DEET). While I did my exercises Walter finished up with the dishes and then got the trailer ready to go. We spent some time last night and figured out where the best Fred Meyer would be for us to stop and doing shopping on the way to Seward. I had a list of them all in my magic notebook and we used Google to locate them all.
We motored on down the Parks Highway southwest towards Anchorage though the usual terrain of ponds and taiga and birch forests. There seems to always be an ATV track on one side of the road or the other. Then when you get close to a town a paved bicycle/walking path will show up sometimes in its place and sometimes on the other side of the road.
We stopped for groceries in Eagle River, a suburb of Anchorage. First I called Major Marine Tours to make a reservation for the boat tour we wanted. They happily took my money saying there was plenty of room on that tour and that the forecast was good for there being calm seas—good news. Then I called Stoney Creek RV Park in Seward to see if they had any openings. All I got was a machine so I left a message and we left the cell phone on all day waiting for them to return our call (which they never did).
Having done that we went in and braved yet another floor plan of a Fred Meyer to do a week’s worth of shopping. I found everything on the list and only managed to forget one thing—nothing vital which is good. Then came the process of fitting it all in the pantry and the refrigerator and freezer. By removing a lot of extraneous packaging I found space for it all including NW cherries at only $1.79 a pound-I’m not going to miss summer entirely after all. From there we moved to the Fred Meyer gas station where we filled up on gas at only $3.88 a gallon—less than we were paying at home before we left.
Then on we went to run the gauntlet of driving through Anchorage to make the transition from the Parks Highway to the Seward Highway. We went by a huge general aviation airport with tons of little planes—a signature of Alaska. Then we turned left onto a one-way street that became the Seward Highway. The highway eventually comes out of town and follows the edge of Turnagain Arm, a narrow inlet with huge wide mudflats when the tide is out. It is so narrow that they experience a tidal bore here (a wave when the tide turns and comes back in). It was about the right time to see the bore but we didn’t notice anything more than a somewhat faster than usual inland flow.
We stopped about 25 miles out of town to have lunch with a great view of the mountains that surround Turnagain Arm. The clouds hung over their tops but you could still see the bulk of them. They had a record amount of snowfall this past winter in Anchorage and there was still snow at sea level in piles at the bottoms of the avalanche chutes along the Arm. And the mountains still have lots of snow too. More than once the past week I’ve thought to myself, “I wish I could see all this on a clear sunny day”. While we’d had sunbreaks when we left Willow, by the time we reached Anchorage it was cloudy again. For the past week it’s really all been a case of how high the clouds were. Today they were pretty high.
There was an amazing amount of traffic on the Seward Highway today. Clearly the folks in Anchorage go south to Seward for the weekend. There were tons of cars and RV’s coming north and a good deal of traffic going south too at first. But in the end the bulk of the traffic was going towards Anchorage not away from it. It reminded us both of Highway 2 in the summer on a Sunday afternoon since it’s mostly 2 lane and people drive too fast just like Highway 2.
I stopped to take a panorama shot of the mountains along Turnagain Arm and when I was done I noticed a bald eagle sitting out there in the mud—waiting for the tide to bring him dinner? I got a nice picture of him. We haven’t had any eagles since we left Juneau except for a golden eagle on our last day in Denali and I didn’t get a photo of him.
We could see the Portage Glacier as we hit the bottom of Turnagain Arm but they highway department chose to not give us any turn outs so I didn’t get a photo. Maybe on the way back out we’ll have better luck. Portage is one of the glaciers that is retreating really fast and so it would be nice to get a photo before it disappears entirely.
The drive over the mountains and down towards Seward was lovely. There are mountain lakes and snow topped mountains all along the way. We will be camping up that way on Tuesday night after we are finished with Seward.
We arrived at Stoney Creek RV Park at about 4:15 and checked in. We got the last spot in the park for tonight, a nice spot with full hookup along the creek (which you can’t see because of all the small alders and willows but it’s there, I went out and saw it a little while ago. That spot is taken for tomorrow night so we get to move the trailer tomorrow morning before we catch the shuttle at 9 am for the boat trip. Then when we get back we’ll get to park it in our new spot. They were already full for Tuesday night so we will move on up into the mountains after visiting the aquarium on Tuesday morning.
Seward has a crazy Mt. Marathon race on 4th of July that is a big deal for the folks both here and in Anchorage. They have a big party for it and then have a parade and celebration for 4th of July. So even though 4th of July is a Wednesday this year, this campground will be full. My guess is that we are majorly spared in having to get out of town.
Tomorrow we take the boat trip to Kenai Fiords. It’s expensive but I’ve been looking forward to it since I read about it in February. Whales, sea lions, seals, sea otters, puffins, glaciers, fiords what more could you want?
To continue following our adventures in Alaska go to Part VII of my blog.