Rob in Alaska - Update 2

Did I say Anchorage by Wednesday?? Ha ha, of course, I meant the following Wednesday! Ah, one of the nice things about having your own vehicle: you can alter your plans as you like to follow weather & whim ...

Five Finger Rapids; Yukon River.

After spending a couple of days poking around Whitehorse - I was going to say a nice little town, tho' at 23,000 people it contains 70% of the Yukon's population! - I hit the road again, this time with a passenger: Daniel, a Brit I met at the hostel who was heading in the same direction as I (Anchorage) and was willing to split gas. Rather than taking the shortest route to Anchorage, we opted to divert further north through Dawson City (destination of the 1897 Klondike gold rush, and current tourist trap). Daniel was familiar with the route, as he & his wife had just finished a 2-week canoe trip down the Yukon, and had driven the same route to the starting point in Dawson. Since the highway parallels the river, we stopped for a short hike that led to a viewpoint of the Five Finger rapids (L). It was here, from Daniel, that I learned a critical bear-avoidance technique: Yelling, "Hey bear!" every few seconds as you hike through the bush, so as not to surprise any. "Hey, Boo Boo" seems to work too - at least, we didn't have any unpleasant encounters. Sighted on the road that day: Lots of burned-out woods from fires going back as far as 1964. Also, I missed the moose calf that sauntered across the highway - but got a shot of its mother (above).

Grizzled - and unsuccessful - prospectors.

Once we hit Dawson City, we had lunch & then decided to stick around for the evening, as there seemed plenty to see. We watched paragliders soar from the surrounding mountains, then we decided to rent a pan & see if we conjure up a little gold (there are still active gold mines up there, including several mom-and-pop operations - and a claim set aside for tourists to try their luck!) We panned until it got dark (R) but found nothing but shiny mica. We slept at the Dawson youth hostel, a rustic little place across the river overlooking the town.

Wednesday, Sept 1. A little shopping for supplies & then we again pointed on the direction of Alaska, along a little piece of road known as the Top of the World highway - a gorgeous stretch from Dawson to the Alaska border along a massive ridgeline with spectacular views on both sides! And the fall colors were starting to appear up there, too! Unfortunately, the view was slightly obscurred by the smoke that was drifting in from the Alaska fires - but it wasn't too bad, considering Daniel had heard tales of folks who did the drive when the smoke limited visiblity to just a few yards! The drive ended at the lonliest U.S. customs outpost (L).

As welcome, we began descending into the thick smoke from the fires that are still burning in eastern Alaska. We started smelling it in earnest almost as soon as we crossed the border, and in several places we could see the actual fires here & there on both sides of the highway, and the visiblity diminished. It took over an hour to get through to clearer air. We spent the night at the hostel in Tok, in a refurbished MASH tent with a wood stove (and chatty lady and son who run it - been a slow summer ...)

Once we moved out of all that smoke (R) it turned out to be a nice day! Near Chicken, AK.

Daniel and me at the Summit Trail trailhead; White Mountain Rec. area, about 50 mi N of Fairbanks.

The next morning, armed with recent weather forecasts, we made a decision (Tok being the intersection of the roads to Alaska's two main cities): Instead of going to rainy Anchorage, we would instead turn north & make for sunny Fairbanks. We checked into the creepy Boyle hostel (never did identify that smell outside our shed), poked around town a bit & saw the sights (best: the Ice Museum, where are preserved entrants in the annual ice-carving contest), then dropped into the BLM office looking for hike suggestions.

"...Then just go a little bit past the six-mile point, then you can turn off the trail and bushwhack your way to the cabin" advised the woman in the ranger outfit and leg brace, pointing to a hilltop along the trail on the map. Sounded simple enough.

Eight-mile shelter on the Summit Trail.

Fast-forward to 6:00 p.m. the next day ... nearly four miles beyond where we had been told to turn off, and the cabin still miles off in the distance - and cursing our little hike advisor - we opted to turn back & make for the convient alternative that had presented itself 1.5 miles earlier: an emergency shelter, used primarily by snowmobilers & dog mushers in the winter. Both wilting under the unexpected distance (11 miles!) and weight of our packs (this was my first hike with my new pack), we got back to the shelter just as the sun was setting (below). Well equipped with stove, lantern & tools, it served us well. We even glimpsed a few faint aurora that night!

It was a chore and a half to get here (8-mile shelter on the Summit trail), but we were well rewarded. North of Fairbanks.

We limped back to the car the next day, returned to Fairbanks & crashed at a different hostel - another one with heated tents, but with actual other travelers! We cleaned up & went out for burgers & beer - and luckily Daniel had a third. Lucky because it necessitated his getting up in the middle of the night, when he saw the aurora, woke me up, and we drove to the edge of the city where I could take this:

A really nice display, we watched for about an hour! And all the while, we were mildly concerned about the curious deep grunting sounds we were hearing from nearby (turns out we had found the parking lot of the Fairbanks Large Animal Research Center - where, apparently, muskoxen are kept; we were near their pen, bottom-right in the photo).

Next day: Denali bound! Two hours out of Fairbanks we were turning onto the park road towards the visitor center. I was intending to continue on to Anchorage (as usual) but decided to follow Daniel inside to get my bearings & figure out what's what. I called Mark G. to get some info, and at his request, researched a hike he had seen described in Backpacker magazine. Turns out the "easy" hike covered 65 or 70 miles, over high passes & across glaciers! Not this trip ... But the weather was beautiful, and by the time I was done poking around it was getting late, so instead of dropping Daniel at the hostel, I booked a bed & stayed there.

The weather was still incredible the next day (Mon. 9/6) so I went back into Denali and did some basic touristy stuff: A short ranger-led hike, and a visit with the dogs! Yup, they breed & train sled dogs right in the park, and they give daily demonstrations where you can watch them run a lap, and even meet them (no autographs, please, tho' the drool is complimentary). The best part: These dogs are totally insane! They live to run; when the keepers went past the pens to choose dogs for the demo, they all went nuts, jumping up & down and barking, "Pick me! Meeeeee!"

It's not all work for these athletes. Reminds me of a certain cat ...

This picture cracks me up every time I look at it! Don't you just wanna tie a big red bandana around this guy's neck & throw him a frisbee?? Suzanne, this pic is for you.

"So like, dude, like, I was all down with this chick on the team, and I'm like, 'Yo, bitch!', and she's all like, 'Don't call me that!' and I'm like, 'Yo, chill, it's okay - we're dogs!'"

Well, you guessed it ... I didn't make it out this day, either. After seeing the dogs I drove in the 15 miles (out of 85) into the park that private cars are allowed to drive, looking for animals but didn't see any (moose are beginning to rut and may be visible from the park road), took some sunset photos - and decided that since the weather was clear, and aurora were possible, to just hang out in the park & wait. And once again, I was rewarded:

More aurora, from inside Denali! The half moon is left (very bright because of the long exposure), and you can see the Pleides and Hyades star clusters as well!

Marmot? Pica? Pudgy chinchilla? You be the judge ...
Update: 4 out of 5 readers agree - it's a pica.

I paid for this one, sleeping in my car in freezing temperatures (good thing I had just upgraded my sleeping bag in Fairbanks - and after this night, added thermal underwear to my shopping list for when I hit Anchorage). Having resolved to stay at Denali yet another day if the weather stayed nice (it did), I was going to take a bus ride into the park - but was too wiped from the previous night to hack it. Instead I drove in the 15 miles again, did a little hike up a hill. Got a few good animal pix, including this little guy (R). Not quite sure what it is ... a marmot, maybe? Another photog I met in the area was hunting around for some kind of rodent called a pica ...

And it got better ... as I started heading out of the park - southbound, really, honestly - I saw lots of parked cars by the sides of the road. Folks looking for moose, and one guy said he had spotted a bull a few miles off the road. But I didn't see anything, so I moved on another mile or so, and ...

Moose crossing.

Yow! This pair were part of a group of three or four, that slowly grazed their way down the hill towards the road - the above pic was taken at a range of only 30 or 40 feet! After 10 minutes or so the park road was a big traffic jam of photographers and busses, elbowing each other for a closer glimpse! It got so bad that when it became apparent that these two wanted to cross the street, the crowd didn't get it and they practically had to push their way through (R). In any event, they didn't seem to mind.

Okay, enough! After the moose display I really did hit the road southbound ... but I was so wiped from sleeping in the car that there wasn't even a question of driving for 4 hours to Anchorage, so I made it to a rest area I had been told about by another Aurora photographer I met, about 2 hours to the south and with a great view of the mountain. This view, in fact:

Denali sunrise, from a highway viewpoint about 60 miles to the south.

Here's another view from the same highway, a little further south. Damn, this hill is photogenic!

I finally made the quaint tourist town of Talkeetna; about halfway between Anchorage and Denali, it's a primary jumping-off point for folks on climbing expeditions. Not having seen enough of the mountain, I made my first big splurge: $200 for a flightseeing tour. I cannot recommend this for any of you who should make it this far!! Check this out:

I figured we'd just circle the mountain at a respectful distance; instead, our pilot ("Jock"*) took us right in, between the peaks and over glaciers! Keep in mind, this is just one of about 50 photos I snapped! Those in Seattle will get to see more after I get back. *No, he didn't have a snake in the plane.

Anchorage.

Oi ... I finally did make Anchorage Wednesday night, checked into the hostel (hmm, I haven't pitched my tent since B.C.!), and crashed hard. Yesterday was a sleep-in day, plus a few shopping errands. In the evening I rented a mountain bike from the hostel (yes! have justified packing my cycling pants!) and did a 15-mile ride on the trail that runs along the perimeter of Anchorage. On the way, a young moose blocked the path.

Now it's Friday; I have 2 days to kill before Mark G. arrives and it's back up to Denali (forecast: just as cold as last week, but rainy). Maybe I'll head south & find a kayak to rent ...

Update #2: Anchorage, AK (Sept 10, 2004)