Update #3: Anchorage, AK redux (September 26, 2004)

As we all know, winters in our 49th state come early and last long ... but surely there wouldn't be tooooo much change from last week's sunny, short-sleeve, chilly-but-autumnal hiking weather in just these few days ... would there?

Hint:

Denali Park, September 14. Same spot as the moose pic from update 2, could even be the same damn moose. Can you spot the difference?

Answer: Yup.

Here's another illustration:

Left: Sept 7; Right: Sept 14.

Mark makes the best use of our down time at the visitor center, studying the map, or something.

As you can see, winter came down on Denali with a vengance while I was away, and it was into this environment we swept after I picked Mark up at the Anchorage airport; we'd made a bee line for Denali on the theory that we could make the most of the nice weather while it lasted (ha!) and the park bus service before it shut down (ha! ha!) We hit the hostel around 9:00 p.m (9/12) and got settled, and met up with Daniel the British Popsicle fresh from his six days in the Denali backcountry (he'd gone out on the same night I took the moon-aurora picture - a night when *I* was freezing, and I had my car!) Apparently the first heavy snow had fallen in the park the night before, shutting down the busses (hint: foreshadowing) and forcing the park rangers to comb the backcountry to find & extract stranded campers; Daniel got a ride out in a dump truck.

So Mark & I reviewed our plans & discussed strategies, and the next morning we drove into the park to chat with the backcountry rangers and, as private cars are only allowed in for 15 miles of the 85-mile park road, take a bus tour into the park - the one little fly in the ointment being that the busses were shut down thanks to the snow & ice on the road!! Crap! We loitered around the visitors' center (R) with a gazillion other folks waiting for the road to clear until 'round about noon, when we bagged it & set off on a hike up nearby Mt. Healy (below), tho' we could've picked a nicer day.

Mount Healy is up there ... somewhere ...

We made it up - and, more importantly, found our way back down.

Mark practices his stream-fording technique along the Savage River. Sadly, he didn't slip in camera view.

Second verse, same as the first. The next day the roads were still icy, tho' at least it had stopped snowing. The park road was now open to the 15-mile point - still no busses but we could drive in, so we set out on a couple more short hikes. The first was an easy (but snowy) two-mile loop along the Savage River north of the park road, lunch included. Then later we made an exploratory expedition along the first few miles of a route we were contemplating for our backpack (the Savage River campground is one place we could leave the car, thus providing us with a way out since the bus service would be shut down by the time we finished). We practiced fording streams, slogging thru snow and brush - and avoiding bears. It was Mark who first noticed the little black blob about 1/4 mile directly ahead on our path. Then another. Then a bigger, brown one (naturally, I had decided to leave my telephoto lens behind just this once ...) Then we practiced our back-away-slowly technique (we got really good!) Our little foray cut short, we nevertheless figured we'd earned our pizza for the evening (Lynx Pizza claims to be the best pizza for 100 miles; we didn't verify it, tho' ...)

Getting ready for National Geographic.

Day three (9/15), still no busses. Now this is *really* beginning to suck, as the following day was to be the end of scheduled bus service for the season!! With hope fading to frustration, we didn't stick around this time but went straight out for more day hikes. It was still cold, but at least the sun was out. We hiked into a valley near the visitors' center - lovely, but the knee-deep snow made the 0.6 mile seem ... well, a lot longer. When we got back, we found wolf tracks intersecting our own (hmm, were we being stalked?) Last night for Lynx Pizza, as it (and everything else around there) was closing down for the season.

Thursday 9/16. Finally!!! On the last possible day, the road was opened & we booked passage on the tour to the Eileson Center, 66 miles in. Tho' still cloudy & snowy, with few mountain views, we got to scout plenty of the park (for next year, apparently) and got lucky with animal viewing as well. Here are the highlights:

Polychrome overlook (tho' in the snow, more like Monochrome). Can you find the road we were driving on?

Grizzly cub. This little guy, and two siblings and his mom, were digging up roots right along the road! And didn't notice us at all.

Momma bear. Our bus driver really loved her snowy face, so here she is in all her glory.

Arctic ground squirrel. Not only didn't this little guy mind the bus, he actually posed for quite a while.

Dall sheep. Again, a bus of clicking tourists didn't faze him at all.

Ahhh, much better ... still, the increasingly-cold weather dimished our enthusiasm for a lengthy backpack (night temps in Denali were dropping into the teens by this time), so the following day (9/17) we bailed out on Denali, with an eye towards less-visited-but-twice-as-large Wrangell-St. Elias park, a day's drive away - but with a diversion first: Weather and aurora forecasts suggested that Fairbanks might be a place to spend the night, so we pointed north. With the Go North hostel closed for the season - and me still a little leery of Boyle's hostel & its attendant odor - we checked into a Fairbanks motel between the airport and ... well, I forget the name of the establishment, but the phrase "Girls! Girls! Girls!" was prominent on a sign out front somewhere ... And we did see some aurora - Mark's first - tho' they weren't very bright or active, and frequent clouds & pickup trucks conspired to make it an early night for us (that is, until we discovered Mechagodzilla on the motel tv ...) The next day we returned south to Denali, then turned east on the Denali Highway (not to be confused with the park road, the Denali Highway was, until 1971, the main route to, not in, the park). A gorgeous dirt road paralleling the Alaska Range, we were treated to sights such as:

A lovely mountain stream ...

... and, towards dusk, an equally lovely mountain lake.

Maclaren River Lodge.

Realizing we weren't going to reach the end of the 135-mile road before dark - and not wanting to rush it for fear of missing the sights! - we started thinking about a place to sleep. We contemplated camping, but a couple of factors stayed us: (1) The fact that averyone else we saw in the area, without exception, were hunters - and we didn't feel real secure wandering around out there without our day-glo vests; and (2) We didn't know if it was bear country, thus didn't think camping with soft-top Jeep full of smelly food would be such a good idea. Before too long our problem was solved, as we chanced upon the Maclaren River Lodge - hunting lodge, that is (R). Despite the fact that we were the only vehicle in the region without an ATV on the back, the friendly owner welcomed us; he set us up in his $20 hostel and fixed us dinner. And since the skies were clear, that night we kept our eyes open for aurora ... At around 2:00 a.m. Mark peeked out the window & spotted a diffuse green band; dormant aurora. We got dressed & stood around outside for a bit, waiting to see if the show would begin - which we got in spades!!! Check these out:

The best display I'd yet seen, they were bright, animated, and covered the sky! We had a hard time choosing a direction in which to look 'cuz every time we turned our heads, there was something new going on! Flowing, undulating ribbons spread across the sky, then faded as lights brighted in another direction! After half an hour the sky was nearly completely covered, horizon to horizon, with a giant oval of diffuse afterglow. Whew! That's a buzz that takes a day or two to get over! And I was glad to know that Mark wouldn't go home thinking the mediocre display in Fairbanks the previous night was what the Northern Lights were all about. A gift from the aurora gods! EPILOGUE: The next time I was in cell-phone range, I found a spaceweather.com alert advising me to watch for a geomagnetic storm that night!

The airport outside Glenellen. Mt. Drum is in the background.

Saturday 9/18. We finished up the Denali Highway & turned south towards Wrangell-St. Elias. Just south of the town of Glenallen ("The Hub of Alaska," according to the sign in front of the tourist office) we fueled up & proceeded to Copper Center where the park visitors' center could be found - the closed visitors' center, as it turned out! Who'd'a thunk that, when making the decision to curtail opening hours for the winter, they'd cut out all weekend hours??? Not us, apparently. Double damn! A couple of guys from Minnesota joined us in front of the locked gate, equally befuddled; they shared their map, which I photographed, and Mark & I headed for a hike he found in my Hiking Alaska book - a little 10-mile trail to a place called Dixie Pass.

Chitina, on the way to Wrangell-St. Elias.

50 miles of further driving found us at the trail head - along with the Minnesotans, who had independantly decided on the same hike.

The Jeep commercial shot. Nugget Creek.

We were able to drive 2 miles further than they, as the Jeep could handle the rough road (R) that their rental could not. Psyched to finally be setting off on a real backpack - in temperatures above freezing, no less - we packed up & set off down the trail around 7:00 p.m., just enough time to find our way to the first campable spot about 2 miles in. The Minnesotans caught us on the trail, and we camped together. My first backcountry campout! We would have felt better about things had we been able to get advice from a ranger, or leave an itinerary, or get a proper forecast (hint: foreshadowing), but we were sure we wouldn't have any problems (did I mention foreshadowing??)

Mark the morning person. Around 10:00 o'clock.

The next morning we started the meaty part of the hike. The first 5 miles from the trail head are fairly easy; then, after you make the first crossing of Strelna Creek

Negotiating the canyon.

... well, then you have to make a dozen or so more! We followed the stream through valleys and up a narrow canyon, and along cliffs and rock screes. The trail became less well defined as we went, and in some places easily mistaken for moose trails! But there was nothing to do but follow the stream, so there was never a question of getting lost. It was cloudy and chilly, but the autumn colors in the forest, and then the tundra as our elevation increased, were quite nice. It took us until late afternoon to reach a point just before the final leg of the hike (steep uphill to the pass), a place that seemed logical to make camp. Then, if there was enough light, we might make the final push to the pass and back before dinner & bed. However ...

Yup, as soon as we were camped it started snowing.

Sigh. Almost as soon as we had driven the last tent stake, the temperature dropped & the snow started falling. At first it was nice 'n' pretty ... but as soon as it became apparent that it was gonna come down hard, and it was gonna stick ... let's just say we made an early night of it!

On the way out of Dixie Pass, Mark spotted this fellow - a Spruce Grouse.

Frankly I was kind of worried, as without a weather forecast we had not the slightest idea whether we were going to get an inch or a foot - and if it was the foot, we'd have been screwed; the path home would have been covered, the rocks we used to cross the stream icy, and the water higher. The wind & snow beat on the tent pretty hard that night - but as it turned out, it was more wind than snow. In the end we only got a couple of inches & had no trouble getting out. Never did make the pass, however.

Along the Glenn Highway north of Palmer.

Once back to the car & dry socks, we decided against the 50-mile, dirt road drive to the village of McCarthy; instead, smelly and tired, we set sail for Valdez, where we could wash, sleep, and (we hoped) get a ferry to more scenic Cordova. Alas, the latter didn't happen thanks to the quirky winter schedule; when Mark called the ferry office & asked when the next boat to Cordova was, laughing could be heard from the other end. The weather was lousy anyway, and with only 2 days left before Mark's plane back to California, we hit the road the next day and made for Seward for a little scenery on the Kenai Penninsula. On the way we spent a night in suburban Palmer, then hit rainy Seward the next day.

 

Gulls loiter on an apartment roof. Seward.

 

Although Valdez was a disappointing dump, Seward turned out to be one of Alaska's most beautiful towns! A pretty harbor, snow-capped mountains on all sides ... Unfortunately, as with the rest of the state, tourist operations were mostly shut down - but the cruise lines were still cruising the area with promises of glaciers and wildlife - and as it turns out the next day was gorgeous, so we booked a six-hour, see-it-all boat. Here are the best sights from town and sea:

Seward harbor.

Even without the rain, we got a rainbow. Go figure. Seward harbor.

This puffin and eagle are two of the critters we spotted on the Seward cruise.

The Holgate Glacier, Aialik Bay. We got to see some minor calving ... and, of course, as soon as the captain gave up & turned the boat, the entire face came crashing down! I have a picture of water splashing somewhere ...

Mark & the Exit Glacier. Near Seward.

Friday 9/24. After a brief visit to the Exit Glacier (L), it was north to Anchorage for Mark. BTW here's a helpful hint for all you airline travelers out there: If you ticket says your departure is at 12:30 a.m. on Friday, you should show up Thursday night, not Friday. Fortunately Mark sweet talked his way onto that night's redeye ... ahhh, I knew all along it was a plot so he could extract one extra day in Alaska. I think he'll be back someday.