Fairbanks, Denali National Park, Talkeetna, Eklutna, Eagle River, and on to Anchorage.
(posted from Anchorage Library)
(This post covers 30 July- 4 August, 2008)
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Monday, 4 August-
We had a great night last night, sleeping so deeply I wasn’t sure where we were for a minute after waking.
We headed south on the Parks Highway toward Anchorage. About 35 miles north of the city we stopped in Wasilla at the Wal-mart. This one was the unfriendliest Wal-mart we’ve seen— lots of no-overnight-parking signs and threats of towing. The signs were posted in the outer areas of the lot and we missed them at first because the entry took you right up front. I went inside and asked about staying the night and was sent to Customer Service. There I had two clerks, one of whom was friendly enough, the other, uh, not-so-much. When I asked my question, she (the latter) said overnight parking was not allowed because the local campgrounds complained. When I objected to that, she said “You have to understand; Alaska is a new state and we need to generate business.” The other lady interrupted and suggested we simply go across the street to the Sears where overnight parking is allowed. But the silly one wouldn’t give it up. “Wal-mart isn’t in the business of providing overnight parking spots”, she said. The other lady then said this Wal-mart had an incident where an RVer “dropped his load” (meaning emptied his holding tank) in the parking lot. Now this must be the 50th time I’ve heard that story and I believe it’s a made-up story. I’ve even read where one town passed an ordinance declaring overnight RV parking at Wal-marts a health issue (but daytime parking there is of course not a problem). Maybe Wasilla, Alaska is indeed the place where the famous ‘load was dropped’ but I doubt it very much. Wal-mart does of course have a right to declare their parking lot off limits to overnight parking. I’d merely suggest that those stores which have local issues about overnight parking in their lots make up a handout to explain why they cannot offer it and perhaps offer local alternatives.
Continuing south, we soon came to Eklutna. On the Arctic-Ocean-toe-dip tour bus in Deadhorse, Labashi had struck up a conversation with a guy from Anchorage and mentioned she was interested in learning more about the early Russian influence on Alaska. He had suggested a stop at Eklutna. There we saw a small Russian Orthodox church and a old log church building and a cemetery with very colorful buildings over each grave. We noticed several priests in long, black smocks (and a few ‘civilians’) walking through the graveyard. We parked and walked in, wondering whether it was okay to be there while the group was there. But we soon were greeted by one of the priests—Father John Downing- who told us we were welcome and the tour group was from a conference in nearby Eagle River. We had a long conversation with Father John, learning that he had lived in Baltimore while going to school. He said our home area is a well-known ‘hotbed of Orthodoxy’ and invited us to visit his church—St. John’s Orthodox Cathedral- in Eagle River and asked the attendant, Jessica, to give us a tour of the Eklutna site. The old log church is one of the oldest remaining log structures in Alaska and was moved to this site from the Knik area. The graves are unmarked by a stone but are each covered by a ‘spirit house’—a native tradition. The houses are painted very brightly in color combinations representing each family and may contain items of symbolic importance to the individual. If the deceased was a carpenter, for example, there may be a hammer left in the spirit house. But, interestingly, in front of each spirit house is the three-bar cross of the Orthodox religion, showing the mixed-traditions of native and Orthodox beliefs. Jessica gave us very thorough tours of both churches and answered our many questions about the Orthodox religion.
After lunch, we followed Father John’s directions to his church in Eagle River and found a beautiful cathedral situated on a grassy commons, facing and surrounded by homes of followers. We were greeted by a young woman and then by another priest (sorry- I forget the name). We again had a long conversation and learned about the priest’s conversion from Judaism to Orthodoxy, a very interesting and intricate conversation. What a great visit! Labashi’s wish to learn more about the Russian Orthodox influence in Alaska couldn’t have gone better.
As we neared Anchorage we came upon a sign for the Alaska Native Heritage Museum. Though we didn’t know it at the time, this museum is a ‘gem’ in the AAA guidebook and we loved it. Indoors were presentations, high-quality museum displays, films, and a native-arts fair while outside were village-site areas for each of the major native groups—Athabascan, Yup’ik/Cup’ik, Inupiat, Aleut/Alutiiq, and Eyak/T’Lingit/Haida/Tsimshian. These each had a replica family structure with someone inside to explain how the people of that culture lived, to show typical objects from their lives and to answer any questions. Indeed this was a gem. We stayed until closing time.
We had had a very full day but still needed to establish our home for the night. We finally found a Sam’s Club near the small-planes airport (Merrill Field) which would not only allow us to stay but had a Safeway next door with a Starbucks and free wi-fi and was in a fairly quiet area.
After supper we blogged and read about Anchorage for our further adventures tomorrow.
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Sunday, 3 August-
It rained most of the night last night and we woke to heavily clouded skies and on-again-off-again rain. We stopped at the Denali View pull-offs as the Parks Highway took us through Denali State Park, but we couldn’t see any hint of the mountain,
At milepost 99 we turned off toward Talkeetna and rolled into the historic area of town about 1030. The rain had just stopped so we walked the main street, ducking into the shops. At one we had a little presentation about flightseeing Denali. This shop was an art gallery but had a small counter in the back for Talkeetna Air Taxi. When I asked about flights, the guy pulled out a 3x4-foot relief map of the area and dangled an inch-long airplane on a two-foot twig over the map at Talkeetna. He picked up a kazoo and made the sound of an airplane taking off, then narrated a tour over the various peaks and glaciers, offering different options. The cheapest trip was $190 for an hour and did not include a glacier landing. The middle-of-the-road trip was $305 and included a glacier landing as did the longer ‘grand tour’ (two hours, $350). We considered taking the middle trip but in the end decided that was just too much money.
After our walk-round we bought a shower at the general-store/coffee shop/Laundromat ($3) and that felt great.
That afternoon we went to a presentation at the Art Hangar called ‘The Don Sheldon Story’. Don had been a legendary bush pilot who perfected the art of landing on glaciers on Denali. I had read his autobiography (called ‘Wager With the Wind’) about a year ago and that was the main reason we were in Talkeetna today. I was thrilled to see the old footage of Don and his silver Cessna 180. Though Don had many close calls as a bush pilot, he died of a cancer in the mid-Seventies. Later, his wife Roberta donated Don’s hangar to the local community-arts group and that’s where we were today. And out back on the old gravel strip was a perfect-condition Piper Cub—Don’s first plane, now flown by his oldest daughter.
We then walked to the mountaineering ranger station. Talkeetna is the hub of Alaska mountaineering and it’s here that mountaineering teams must register and be briefed about their attempt to climb North America’s highest peak. The climbing season is May to July and only about half of those who attempt the climb are successful. The most common climb (the West Buttress) starts with a glacier landing at 7500 feet. Then, over the next 16-20 days, the climbers work their way up a camp at a time and stay at each level several days to acclimatize and therefore avoid altitude sickness.
After watching a film about the West Buttress climb, we spoke at length with ranger Missie, who was very knowledgeable and funny. Her husband is a former hunting guide and she talked to us about everything from the subsistence-hunting habits of the locals to the area’s reputation as a hippie-haven in the Seventies. We asked her, for example, whether Alaska has contracts to pick up road-kill after we had seen a pickup stop and the driver throw a road-killed raven in the back. She said there’s no state-wide contract for that but local boroughs may have such contracts. But she was surprised someone would do that since many natives believe the ravens carry the spirits of their ancestors and there are stiff fines for doing anything with or to ravens. But perhaps those factors had already been taken care of in the situation we witnessed.
After our talk with Missie we walked to a restaurant (‘Latitude 62’) and shared a very-good basket of deep-fried halibut-chunks and chips. We then went for a walk along the Susitna River, now bathed in sunshine.
We checked out the famous airport but things were slow there so we decided to head back out to the Parks Highway and find a spot for the night. The Milepost showed a sport-fishing area with a free campground just a few miles down the highway (Sheep Creek Slough). After finding a nice, flat spot, we walked down to the fishing area just in time to see a guy pull in a nice silver salmon. As we walked up, we noticed a woman standing in the water at a small table, filleting a silver. The fisherman just pulled his fish up next to the table, killed the fish, and, as she finished the other won, handed it to her to fillet. You can’t get any fresher than that!
We stayed there for about a half-hour talking with another of the fisher-folk, a very friendly guy who was still-fishing nearby. The fillet-knife-wielding lady was his wife, it turned out. In the short time we were there they caught four silvers and a ‘chum’, all six or seven pounds and about two feet in length each. The friendly guy said the season for silvers is just beginning and soon it will be possible to just come down here and hook your limit within 20 minutes--- which is exactly what many locals will do. Most of the fish they will either have fresh or frozen but as the season goes on, they will begin smoking the fish. Toward the end of the season the flesh of the fish is softer and it’s better to smoke them when that happens.
Back at the van we spent the rest of the evening blogging and reading.
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Saturday, 2 August-
We woke early this morning—around 0530—and immediately looked out. We were supposed to have mostly cloudy weather today with showers and morning fog. But we had blue sky!
At the Wilderness Access Center (bus station) we bought our tickets for Eileson Visitor’s Center—milepost 66—but had decided we’d get off the bus at Igloo Creek for a walk on our own. The campground check-in guy had told us there were recent sightings of wolf and bear at Igloo Creek.
We left at 0730 and by 0830 were at Igloo Creek. We didn’t really have good directions so first tried a moose trail that just split into a confusing bunch of game trails. We then walked the other direction and believe we found the ‘right’ area but it is currently blocked off by signs declaring it critical habitat area. We walked up the park road another mile and climbed up to an overlook but abandoned that when we saw some researchers or government staff above us and we didn’t want to interfere with whatever they were doing. We knew they were researchers or government staff because they had come in by truck and we knew that only those types of people can get the permits to drive this far into the park. It would have been nice to talk to them about their project but it would have been a tough go to get up there and they may not have appreciated the interruption.
We then continued walking up the road toward Sable Pass, very much enjoying our view of the mountains on both sides of us. We saw Dall sheep and a bald eagle by the time another shuttle bus came along. We happened to be picked up just below five Dall sheep and pointed them out to the driver and passengers—and that turned out to be their best view of Dalls for the day.
We re-boarded at 1030 and the bus slowly wound through the incredible country for another three hours. We saw a few caribou and the smaller animals but nothing new until just before the new Eielson Visitor’s Center at Mile 66. And there we saw grizzlies. We first saw a smaller adult about a hundred yards downslope but it soon went out of view. But as we neared the visitor’s center we saw some of the professional photogaphers (identified by their massive lenses) pointing back toward but below us. And a minute later an incredible blonde grizzly emerged just below us; I could have thrown a baseball to her—followed by two year-old cubs. We sat transfixed as the bears worked their way up the slope and crossed the road in front of us. Mama Bear even reared up and playfully swatted a directional sign along the road before all three of them dropped back down onto the roadway and began walking toward the Visitor’s Center!
It appeared the bears might walk right into the parking lot of the Visitor’s Center and we could see the rangers herding people back aboard the buses. But the bears nonchalantly walked past the entrance and kept going, the cubs stopping briefly to wrestle a bit. This was almost too good to be true--- like it had been staged for us. But it hadn’t, of course. These were wild bears.
Our delay watching the bears caused us to have a very short visit at the Eielson Center—only 15 minutes. We could have tried to catch another shuttle but it had started to rain and the shuttles were crowded—we might not get on another so easily. So we elected to go back down with our driver.
The trip out was mostly uneventful until we came to a fox den. There we saw at least three red foxes playing among the willows. They were running back and forth, completely disappearing in the thick willows only to magically re-emerge a few yards later—in any direction. Occasionally one would ‘spy-hop’, i.e., leap up into the air and peer ahead, then rush whichever direction it had spotted movement. And sometimes one or two would merely sit at attention, only its head above the surrounding brush, and stare at us for 30 seconds or so.
As we neared the bus station, our driver declared today a ‘Grand Slam’—one of her best days this year.
We had supper in the parking lot and then headed south to a wayside camping area at milepost 186. This wayside had recently been refurbished but the campsites were still free. We spent the rest of the evening blogging and reading.
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Friday, 1 August-
Today we woke to rain, fog, and low-hanging clouds. But we really didn’t want to hang around Fairbanks for another day, so, after a few chores (gassing up, visiting the sani-dump, etc), off we went down the George Parks Highway toward Denali. And near milepost 331 we saw an unfamiliar-looking roadkill— a beautiful lynx.
The first several hours of our trip were rainy and foggy and we were beginning to think it a mistake to have left Fairbanks—we couldn’t see anything at the viewpoints. But by noon time it was clearing and by the time we made Denali National Park, we had some blue sky and it was rapidly clearing.
We signed up for a campground (our most expensive of the trip so far at $20) and saw there were no seats available anymore today for the buses going into the park. After checking out the visitor’s center we drove into the park. Anyone can drive the first 13 miles of the 89-mile park road but to go further you must ride a bus. We thought the sampler might be enough to tell us whether we wanted to pay $30 each to ride the bus in tomorrow.
We slowly drove the park road and very soon had a pleasant and amazing surprise. We had been warned repeatedly (by brochures and the visitor’s center people) that the chances of seeing the mountain (Mt. McKinley) weren’t good. But there it was off to our left. And we were seeing a completely unobstructed view of the massive sun-lit mountain, 75 miles away. Incredible!
We didn’t realize at the time that the sighting wouldn’t last. We drove on to the turnaround at Savage River. A large-racked moose was feeding about a half-mile before the entrance and a similarly-endowed caribou right at the entrance. We took a two-mile walk along the river (down one side and up the other), where we saw dozens of arctic ground squirrels, willow ptarmigan, and snowshoe hares.
We then drove slowly back toward the entrance and stopped to see the mountain again. We couldn’t find it! We couldn’t find the largest mountain in North America on the same horizon where we had just seen it a couple of hours ago and from this very spot. After a short while, the clouds parted a bit and we could see some of it and it was very subtle. Several other cars stopped and couldn’t pick it out until we showed them just where to look. But then the clouds closed in and that was it—no more mountain.
When you think about it, it doesn’t take much to obscure a mountain that’s 75 miles away. All you need are a few clouds anywhere along that line between you and the mountain.
We drove back to the visitor’s center to finish it. We had been so anxious to get into the park that we had seen the introductory movie then left. As we returned to the van we decided we’d have supper back at the mountain viewpoint—we’d wait for those clouds to open up again. But it was not to be—the clouds were now even thicker back that direction even though we had a beautiful open sky above us.
We once again drove to the Savage River turnaround, trying to assess whether we were likely to have any luck even later in the evening. But after one last pass, we headed for the campground.
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Thursday, 31 July-
We had thought we’d leave for Denali National Park this morning but it rained all night and looked like it would rain all day too. We decided we’d just hang out in Fairbanks another day, hoping the weather would clear a bit. We heard Fairbanks is having an unusually cool and rainy summer.
This morning we headed back to the library. Labashi wanted to compose another letter (email, actually) and I wanted to see those Super Cub tapes. The first tape was a bit disappointing in that it had relatively little footage of Super Cubs flying though it did have interviews with some of the great names of Alaska bush flying. This movie started with the premise that you were very familiar with Super Cubs and just wanted to hear what the masters have to say about them. But the second movie was great. It was called ‘Super Cubs II—Hardcore!” and has lots of amazing footage of Super Cubs taking off and landing in the craziest places. Like the “one-way airport” where the pilot has to make a hard-right turn at the last minute to land on a very short uphill strip on a mountainside. It’s called ‘one-way’ because just beyond the end of the strip is mountainside and the pilot can’t go around. Once committed, he MUST land and stop (avoiding a large boulder taking up part of the landing area, by the way) before the end of the strip. To take off, he must go the other direction, regardless of wind direction.
The movie also has footage of landings and takeoffs on glaciers, snow, mud-flats, and riverbeds covered with softball-sized rocks. Good stuff!
After the library we visited Gulliver’s Books, a very extensive local bookstore. And nearby there’s a canoe shop where we checked out the latest in folding canoes that fit in a backpack-sized bag— Pakboats.
Late in the day we stopped at the Creamer bird sanctuary where we watched sandhill cranes--- the beautiful birds I had seen in Florida last winter. (And I think I recognized a couple of them from Florida)
That evening we watched the first disk of ‘The Closer- Season Three’, one of Labashi’s favorites.
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Wednesday, 30 July-
This morning we replenished our supplies at Safeway then drove to a Laundromat near the University for pay-showers on this rainy, rainy day.
Afterwards we went to the very nice Noel Wien Library once more so Labashi could send out one of her update letters and I could post my blog update. While Labashi had the laptop, I browsed through the periodicals section, reading the newspapers for Fairbanks, Anchorage, Haines, and Juneau plus five or six magazines. With all the flying going on in Alaska I thought I’d also check out the General Aviation section and came upon two video tapes about flying Super Cubs. But unfortunately, the vcr/dvd player was booked the rest of the day so I was out of luck.
Labashi finished up around 1400 so I took another two hours to catch up the blog before we called it a day at the library.
That evening we watched ‘Dead Man’, the mid-Nineties Jim Jarmusch movie about a young man (Johnny Dep) who goes West and has many strange adventures. We loved this movie when we first saw it years ago but found parts of it hard to understand. I can now report that the passing years have not made it any easier to understand. I REALLY would like to read the screenplay for this one to learn more about it. And, yes, we still liked it.
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(posted from Anchorage Library)
(This post covers 30 July- 4 August, 2008)
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Monday, 4 August-
We had a great night last night, sleeping so deeply I wasn’t sure where we were for a minute after waking.
We headed south on the Parks Highway toward Anchorage. About 35 miles north of the city we stopped in Wasilla at the Wal-mart. This one was the unfriendliest Wal-mart we’ve seen— lots of no-overnight-parking signs and threats of towing. The signs were posted in the outer areas of the lot and we missed them at first because the entry took you right up front. I went inside and asked about staying the night and was sent to Customer Service. There I had two clerks, one of whom was friendly enough, the other, uh, not-so-much. When I asked my question, she (the latter) said overnight parking was not allowed because the local campgrounds complained. When I objected to that, she said “You have to understand; Alaska is a new state and we need to generate business.” The other lady interrupted and suggested we simply go across the street to the Sears where overnight parking is allowed. But the silly one wouldn’t give it up. “Wal-mart isn’t in the business of providing overnight parking spots”, she said. The other lady then said this Wal-mart had an incident where an RVer “dropped his load” (meaning emptied his holding tank) in the parking lot. Now this must be the 50th time I’ve heard that story and I believe it’s a made-up story. I’ve even read where one town passed an ordinance declaring overnight RV parking at Wal-marts a health issue (but daytime parking there is of course not a problem). Maybe Wasilla, Alaska is indeed the place where the famous ‘load was dropped’ but I doubt it very much. Wal-mart does of course have a right to declare their parking lot off limits to overnight parking. I’d merely suggest that those stores which have local issues about overnight parking in their lots make up a handout to explain why they cannot offer it and perhaps offer local alternatives.
Continuing south, we soon came to Eklutna. On the Arctic-Ocean-toe-dip tour bus in Deadhorse, Labashi had struck up a conversation with a guy from Anchorage and mentioned she was interested in learning more about the early Russian influence on Alaska. He had suggested a stop at Eklutna. There we saw a small Russian Orthodox church and a old log church building and a cemetery with very colorful buildings over each grave. We noticed several priests in long, black smocks (and a few ‘civilians’) walking through the graveyard. We parked and walked in, wondering whether it was okay to be there while the group was there. But we soon were greeted by one of the priests—Father John Downing- who told us we were welcome and the tour group was from a conference in nearby Eagle River. We had a long conversation with Father John, learning that he had lived in Baltimore while going to school. He said our home area is a well-known ‘hotbed of Orthodoxy’ and invited us to visit his church—St. John’s Orthodox Cathedral- in Eagle River and asked the attendant, Jessica, to give us a tour of the Eklutna site. The old log church is one of the oldest remaining log structures in Alaska and was moved to this site from the Knik area. The graves are unmarked by a stone but are each covered by a ‘spirit house’—a native tradition. The houses are painted very brightly in color combinations representing each family and may contain items of symbolic importance to the individual. If the deceased was a carpenter, for example, there may be a hammer left in the spirit house. But, interestingly, in front of each spirit house is the three-bar cross of the Orthodox religion, showing the mixed-traditions of native and Orthodox beliefs. Jessica gave us very thorough tours of both churches and answered our many questions about the Orthodox religion.
After lunch, we followed Father John’s directions to his church in Eagle River and found a beautiful cathedral situated on a grassy commons, facing and surrounded by homes of followers. We were greeted by a young woman and then by another priest (sorry- I forget the name). We again had a long conversation and learned about the priest’s conversion from Judaism to Orthodoxy, a very interesting and intricate conversation. What a great visit! Labashi’s wish to learn more about the Russian Orthodox influence in Alaska couldn’t have gone better.
As we neared Anchorage we came upon a sign for the Alaska Native Heritage Museum. Though we didn’t know it at the time, this museum is a ‘gem’ in the AAA guidebook and we loved it. Indoors were presentations, high-quality museum displays, films, and a native-arts fair while outside were village-site areas for each of the major native groups—Athabascan, Yup’ik/Cup’ik, Inupiat, Aleut/Alutiiq, and Eyak/T’Lingit/Haida/Tsimshian. These each had a replica family structure with someone inside to explain how the people of that culture lived, to show typical objects from their lives and to answer any questions. Indeed this was a gem. We stayed until closing time.
We had had a very full day but still needed to establish our home for the night. We finally found a Sam’s Club near the small-planes airport (Merrill Field) which would not only allow us to stay but had a Safeway next door with a Starbucks and free wi-fi and was in a fairly quiet area.
After supper we blogged and read about Anchorage for our further adventures tomorrow.
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Sunday, 3 August-
It rained most of the night last night and we woke to heavily clouded skies and on-again-off-again rain. We stopped at the Denali View pull-offs as the Parks Highway took us through Denali State Park, but we couldn’t see any hint of the mountain,
At milepost 99 we turned off toward Talkeetna and rolled into the historic area of town about 1030. The rain had just stopped so we walked the main street, ducking into the shops. At one we had a little presentation about flightseeing Denali. This shop was an art gallery but had a small counter in the back for Talkeetna Air Taxi. When I asked about flights, the guy pulled out a 3x4-foot relief map of the area and dangled an inch-long airplane on a two-foot twig over the map at Talkeetna. He picked up a kazoo and made the sound of an airplane taking off, then narrated a tour over the various peaks and glaciers, offering different options. The cheapest trip was $190 for an hour and did not include a glacier landing. The middle-of-the-road trip was $305 and included a glacier landing as did the longer ‘grand tour’ (two hours, $350). We considered taking the middle trip but in the end decided that was just too much money.
After our walk-round we bought a shower at the general-store/coffee shop/Laundromat ($3) and that felt great.
That afternoon we went to a presentation at the Art Hangar called ‘The Don Sheldon Story’. Don had been a legendary bush pilot who perfected the art of landing on glaciers on Denali. I had read his autobiography (called ‘Wager With the Wind’) about a year ago and that was the main reason we were in Talkeetna today. I was thrilled to see the old footage of Don and his silver Cessna 180. Though Don had many close calls as a bush pilot, he died of a cancer in the mid-Seventies. Later, his wife Roberta donated Don’s hangar to the local community-arts group and that’s where we were today. And out back on the old gravel strip was a perfect-condition Piper Cub—Don’s first plane, now flown by his oldest daughter.
We then walked to the mountaineering ranger station. Talkeetna is the hub of Alaska mountaineering and it’s here that mountaineering teams must register and be briefed about their attempt to climb North America’s highest peak. The climbing season is May to July and only about half of those who attempt the climb are successful. The most common climb (the West Buttress) starts with a glacier landing at 7500 feet. Then, over the next 16-20 days, the climbers work their way up a camp at a time and stay at each level several days to acclimatize and therefore avoid altitude sickness.
After watching a film about the West Buttress climb, we spoke at length with ranger Missie, who was very knowledgeable and funny. Her husband is a former hunting guide and she talked to us about everything from the subsistence-hunting habits of the locals to the area’s reputation as a hippie-haven in the Seventies. We asked her, for example, whether Alaska has contracts to pick up road-kill after we had seen a pickup stop and the driver throw a road-killed raven in the back. She said there’s no state-wide contract for that but local boroughs may have such contracts. But she was surprised someone would do that since many natives believe the ravens carry the spirits of their ancestors and there are stiff fines for doing anything with or to ravens. But perhaps those factors had already been taken care of in the situation we witnessed.
After our talk with Missie we walked to a restaurant (‘Latitude 62’) and shared a very-good basket of deep-fried halibut-chunks and chips. We then went for a walk along the Susitna River, now bathed in sunshine.
We checked out the famous airport but things were slow there so we decided to head back out to the Parks Highway and find a spot for the night. The Milepost showed a sport-fishing area with a free campground just a few miles down the highway (Sheep Creek Slough). After finding a nice, flat spot, we walked down to the fishing area just in time to see a guy pull in a nice silver salmon. As we walked up, we noticed a woman standing in the water at a small table, filleting a silver. The fisherman just pulled his fish up next to the table, killed the fish, and, as she finished the other won, handed it to her to fillet. You can’t get any fresher than that!
We stayed there for about a half-hour talking with another of the fisher-folk, a very friendly guy who was still-fishing nearby. The fillet-knife-wielding lady was his wife, it turned out. In the short time we were there they caught four silvers and a ‘chum’, all six or seven pounds and about two feet in length each. The friendly guy said the season for silvers is just beginning and soon it will be possible to just come down here and hook your limit within 20 minutes--- which is exactly what many locals will do. Most of the fish they will either have fresh or frozen but as the season goes on, they will begin smoking the fish. Toward the end of the season the flesh of the fish is softer and it’s better to smoke them when that happens.
Back at the van we spent the rest of the evening blogging and reading.
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Saturday, 2 August-
We woke early this morning—around 0530—and immediately looked out. We were supposed to have mostly cloudy weather today with showers and morning fog. But we had blue sky!
At the Wilderness Access Center (bus station) we bought our tickets for Eileson Visitor’s Center—milepost 66—but had decided we’d get off the bus at Igloo Creek for a walk on our own. The campground check-in guy had told us there were recent sightings of wolf and bear at Igloo Creek.
We left at 0730 and by 0830 were at Igloo Creek. We didn’t really have good directions so first tried a moose trail that just split into a confusing bunch of game trails. We then walked the other direction and believe we found the ‘right’ area but it is currently blocked off by signs declaring it critical habitat area. We walked up the park road another mile and climbed up to an overlook but abandoned that when we saw some researchers or government staff above us and we didn’t want to interfere with whatever they were doing. We knew they were researchers or government staff because they had come in by truck and we knew that only those types of people can get the permits to drive this far into the park. It would have been nice to talk to them about their project but it would have been a tough go to get up there and they may not have appreciated the interruption.
We then continued walking up the road toward Sable Pass, very much enjoying our view of the mountains on both sides of us. We saw Dall sheep and a bald eagle by the time another shuttle bus came along. We happened to be picked up just below five Dall sheep and pointed them out to the driver and passengers—and that turned out to be their best view of Dalls for the day.
We re-boarded at 1030 and the bus slowly wound through the incredible country for another three hours. We saw a few caribou and the smaller animals but nothing new until just before the new Eielson Visitor’s Center at Mile 66. And there we saw grizzlies. We first saw a smaller adult about a hundred yards downslope but it soon went out of view. But as we neared the visitor’s center we saw some of the professional photogaphers (identified by their massive lenses) pointing back toward but below us. And a minute later an incredible blonde grizzly emerged just below us; I could have thrown a baseball to her—followed by two year-old cubs. We sat transfixed as the bears worked their way up the slope and crossed the road in front of us. Mama Bear even reared up and playfully swatted a directional sign along the road before all three of them dropped back down onto the roadway and began walking toward the Visitor’s Center!
It appeared the bears might walk right into the parking lot of the Visitor’s Center and we could see the rangers herding people back aboard the buses. But the bears nonchalantly walked past the entrance and kept going, the cubs stopping briefly to wrestle a bit. This was almost too good to be true--- like it had been staged for us. But it hadn’t, of course. These were wild bears.
Our delay watching the bears caused us to have a very short visit at the Eielson Center—only 15 minutes. We could have tried to catch another shuttle but it had started to rain and the shuttles were crowded—we might not get on another so easily. So we elected to go back down with our driver.
The trip out was mostly uneventful until we came to a fox den. There we saw at least three red foxes playing among the willows. They were running back and forth, completely disappearing in the thick willows only to magically re-emerge a few yards later—in any direction. Occasionally one would ‘spy-hop’, i.e., leap up into the air and peer ahead, then rush whichever direction it had spotted movement. And sometimes one or two would merely sit at attention, only its head above the surrounding brush, and stare at us for 30 seconds or so.
As we neared the bus station, our driver declared today a ‘Grand Slam’—one of her best days this year.
We had supper in the parking lot and then headed south to a wayside camping area at milepost 186. This wayside had recently been refurbished but the campsites were still free. We spent the rest of the evening blogging and reading.
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Friday, 1 August-
Today we woke to rain, fog, and low-hanging clouds. But we really didn’t want to hang around Fairbanks for another day, so, after a few chores (gassing up, visiting the sani-dump, etc), off we went down the George Parks Highway toward Denali. And near milepost 331 we saw an unfamiliar-looking roadkill— a beautiful lynx.
The first several hours of our trip were rainy and foggy and we were beginning to think it a mistake to have left Fairbanks—we couldn’t see anything at the viewpoints. But by noon time it was clearing and by the time we made Denali National Park, we had some blue sky and it was rapidly clearing.
We signed up for a campground (our most expensive of the trip so far at $20) and saw there were no seats available anymore today for the buses going into the park. After checking out the visitor’s center we drove into the park. Anyone can drive the first 13 miles of the 89-mile park road but to go further you must ride a bus. We thought the sampler might be enough to tell us whether we wanted to pay $30 each to ride the bus in tomorrow.
We slowly drove the park road and very soon had a pleasant and amazing surprise. We had been warned repeatedly (by brochures and the visitor’s center people) that the chances of seeing the mountain (Mt. McKinley) weren’t good. But there it was off to our left. And we were seeing a completely unobstructed view of the massive sun-lit mountain, 75 miles away. Incredible!
We didn’t realize at the time that the sighting wouldn’t last. We drove on to the turnaround at Savage River. A large-racked moose was feeding about a half-mile before the entrance and a similarly-endowed caribou right at the entrance. We took a two-mile walk along the river (down one side and up the other), where we saw dozens of arctic ground squirrels, willow ptarmigan, and snowshoe hares.
We then drove slowly back toward the entrance and stopped to see the mountain again. We couldn’t find it! We couldn’t find the largest mountain in North America on the same horizon where we had just seen it a couple of hours ago and from this very spot. After a short while, the clouds parted a bit and we could see some of it and it was very subtle. Several other cars stopped and couldn’t pick it out until we showed them just where to look. But then the clouds closed in and that was it—no more mountain.
When you think about it, it doesn’t take much to obscure a mountain that’s 75 miles away. All you need are a few clouds anywhere along that line between you and the mountain.
We drove back to the visitor’s center to finish it. We had been so anxious to get into the park that we had seen the introductory movie then left. As we returned to the van we decided we’d have supper back at the mountain viewpoint—we’d wait for those clouds to open up again. But it was not to be—the clouds were now even thicker back that direction even though we had a beautiful open sky above us.
We once again drove to the Savage River turnaround, trying to assess whether we were likely to have any luck even later in the evening. But after one last pass, we headed for the campground.
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Thursday, 31 July-
We had thought we’d leave for Denali National Park this morning but it rained all night and looked like it would rain all day too. We decided we’d just hang out in Fairbanks another day, hoping the weather would clear a bit. We heard Fairbanks is having an unusually cool and rainy summer.
This morning we headed back to the library. Labashi wanted to compose another letter (email, actually) and I wanted to see those Super Cub tapes. The first tape was a bit disappointing in that it had relatively little footage of Super Cubs flying though it did have interviews with some of the great names of Alaska bush flying. This movie started with the premise that you were very familiar with Super Cubs and just wanted to hear what the masters have to say about them. But the second movie was great. It was called ‘Super Cubs II—Hardcore!” and has lots of amazing footage of Super Cubs taking off and landing in the craziest places. Like the “one-way airport” where the pilot has to make a hard-right turn at the last minute to land on a very short uphill strip on a mountainside. It’s called ‘one-way’ because just beyond the end of the strip is mountainside and the pilot can’t go around. Once committed, he MUST land and stop (avoiding a large boulder taking up part of the landing area, by the way) before the end of the strip. To take off, he must go the other direction, regardless of wind direction.
The movie also has footage of landings and takeoffs on glaciers, snow, mud-flats, and riverbeds covered with softball-sized rocks. Good stuff!
After the library we visited Gulliver’s Books, a very extensive local bookstore. And nearby there’s a canoe shop where we checked out the latest in folding canoes that fit in a backpack-sized bag— Pakboats.
Late in the day we stopped at the Creamer bird sanctuary where we watched sandhill cranes--- the beautiful birds I had seen in Florida last winter. (And I think I recognized a couple of them from Florida)
That evening we watched the first disk of ‘The Closer- Season Three’, one of Labashi’s favorites.
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Wednesday, 30 July-
This morning we replenished our supplies at Safeway then drove to a Laundromat near the University for pay-showers on this rainy, rainy day.
Afterwards we went to the very nice Noel Wien Library once more so Labashi could send out one of her update letters and I could post my blog update. While Labashi had the laptop, I browsed through the periodicals section, reading the newspapers for Fairbanks, Anchorage, Haines, and Juneau plus five or six magazines. With all the flying going on in Alaska I thought I’d also check out the General Aviation section and came upon two video tapes about flying Super Cubs. But unfortunately, the vcr/dvd player was booked the rest of the day so I was out of luck.
Labashi finished up around 1400 so I took another two hours to catch up the blog before we called it a day at the library.
That evening we watched ‘Dead Man’, the mid-Nineties Jim Jarmusch movie about a young man (Johnny Dep) who goes West and has many strange adventures. We loved this movie when we first saw it years ago but found parts of it hard to understand. I can now report that the passing years have not made it any easier to understand. I REALLY would like to read the screenplay for this one to learn more about it. And, yes, we still liked it.
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posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 23:59
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