Denali Time

We've been going up to Denali National Park in the spring before the busses take tourists into the park for over 20 years.  It's a brief time when you can drive out to Teklanika campground (30 miles in.)  Once the busses begin, the road is closed at Savage River (12 miles in.)

It's a time before things turn green, but there are fewer people around, campgrounds (but they were $55 a night, half that for Senior and other National Park Pass holders) are easy to get, and you can take your time, stopping where you want, as long as you want, taking in the magnificent views, and animals.  

This year there was still more snow than normal - lingering from this record breaking winter.  When we complained that we had seen no caribou at all (normally guaranteed) we were told that they are late arriving this year, probably because of the snow.  

We left Anchorage Thursday morning, with some sunshine in Anchorage, but as we drove north it got cloudy and we had short bouts of rain and wet pavement then dry pavement much of the way.  

There was a surprisingly good view at the Denali view point at mile 135.  You couldn't see Denali, but you could see all the smaller mountains. (these are eight and nine thousand foot peaks.)

People at the viewpoint tend to talk to each other and ask where everyone is from.  When they learned we were from Anchorage they wanted to know which mountain was Denali.  I had to say, "None of them.  It's the one towering above behind the clouds."  Then I checked my camera and found my picture from exactly two years earlier and shared it.  (The bottom photo was with a telephoto lens so there's some distortion between the two, but you get the point.)

As I compare the two images, it's interesting that there was more snow two years ago, because that definitely wasn't the case north of the mountain, in the park.  The mountains you see in the top picture almost look like they are part of Denali in the lower picture.  But they are all separate mountain peaks, about half the height of Denali.  

Gas prices were interesting.  The cheapest in Anchorage is around $5.49.  In Wasilla, there are stations advertising $5.19 and a few on the outskirts with $4.99. (Anchorage has a local tax on gas that raises the price.)  The Talkeetna turnoff station has $4.95 for the lowest grade.  

But in Cantwell, where the old Native run station seems to be closed down, the Vitus station is raking it in. (Yeah, regular was $6.45/gallon.)

We were tired when we got to the campground and made dinner and got into bed.  It wasn't sunny, but it also wasn't as cold as we expected.  

One of the many  awesome aspects of Denali is its vastness.  You can see wild landscape that seems to stretch out forever.  Below are two photos meshed together because one wide angle picture is way too small.  And as one tourist we met says, "The pictures don't come close to capturing it."

Below are some more photos from Friday, a gray day with occasional sprinkles.  

Here's J walking  down from the Teklanika parking lot and viewpoint where the road ends.  You can walk the mile down to the bridge over the Teklanika River.  Though beyond the bridge was closed off due to " a scheduled bear capture operation." (This for research, not to remove the bears.)

This is a view from the bridge.  It's not a black and white photo, but looks lie one.

There are a couple of large ponds (not sure how big it has to be to be called a lake) near the Teklanika campground where we can normally see waterfowl.  One still had a lot of ice and I didn't see any birds.  

But the other one had Northern Shovelers.  Pictures in bird books often show the males with green heads.  These had black heads.  I asked the bird guide on Saturday and she said the green shows iridescent when the sun is right.  

We were stopped at an overview, relaxing when a car stopped and asked if we'd seen any caribou.  They hadn't either, but they said there was a bear about 3 miles down the road.  

And not much later, we saw a driver looking out over his car.  Following his gaze we saw a big blonde bear sleeping on the tundra.  After a while, he raised his head, move a little further away, and crashed again.  

This raven was making a racket.

There were lots of ptarmigan on the road.  They're in the process of transitioning from the white winter plumage to the summer brown.  

When we got back Friday afternoon, there was someone parked in our campsite.  I wouldn't even mention this - he simply didn't see the paper clipped on the site marker, and since the site across the road was nice and was empty, we just pulled in there.  But I'm mentioning it because the vehicle was

 from Storyteller

unlike any I'd ever seen.  It was dark gray, almost black and looked like a combination of a truck and a tank.  It was big.  The license plate said Storyteller and I mentioned he could tell us a story.  No, he said, that's the name of the company that makes the vehicle.  He'd driven this thing up from Birmingham, Alabama and I don't know why I didn't take a picture.  

But I looked up Storyteller when we got home.  It's a company that makes very expensive and fancy campers.  

The picture is from Storyteller.  The sticker price for this model is $799,784 or $5385 per month.

There are different models and this seems to look like the one we saw.    Look for it in Anchorage this week, where the driver was going to meet his wife who flies up to Anchorage regularly for work.  

I guess there is a market for luxury goods for all those in the $50 million and up category.  

The next morning there was sun and we'd found an 8:30am bird walk listed on the Denali Website at Mountain Vista trail, near the Savage River campground.  We turned out to be the only visitors for the walk and our guide, Autumn, was great.  She identified a number of small birds by their calls and some we saw.  And at one point, we saw that Denali was out of the clouds.  

I identified the bird on the right, which is a heftier bird than the picture shows, as a gray jay, but Autumn told me it is now called a Canada Jay.

Below is a white crowned sparrow.  When we mentioned the bear and I showed her a picture, Autumn thought it might have been one of the bears that had been tranquilized.  

The artwork below is what I'm calling 'stained ice' - which was naturally formed on the trail.  

As magnificent as the park was on Friday, the sunshine on Saturday added to its glory. 

Below you can see the landscape with Denali seeming to rise over the horizon.

And a closer look at North America's tallest mountain through the telephoto lens.

And then we turned around and headed to the Alaska Geographic bookstore next to the Visitors Center and then toward home. 

We had lunch at a pullout along the Nenana River, just north of Cantwell.  The 'shoreline' in the middle on the other side of the river is actually large blocks of ice stacked up.  As we ate, ice floated by along the river.  The Denali rivers flow north, into the Nenana, and then the Yukon according to Autumn.

A couple of hours later we got back to the Denali South Viewpoint.  It had clouded up again as we drove south, but we walked back up to the viewpoint, where three young men from Orange County, California told us the mountain had been out.  There had been a cloud obscuring the middle, but the bottom and the top had been visible.  As we chatted, one of them said he thought the mountain was visible again.  I took this picture, but it wasn't until I got home and looked carefully, could I see the white of the mountain showing through the grayer clouds.  

Now we're back home.  It's gray and the weather app says that won't change in the next ten days.  Temps will get up to 50˚F (10˚C) and a little above.  But the plants know summer is coming and the birch leaves are showing green, though they aren't fully open.  

Denali Was Out In Full Glory

Here was the view from the mile 135 Denali Lookout point last Tuesday afternoon.  The mountain was magnificent.  The tallest mountain in North America.  All 20,310 feet (6,190.5 m) were showing, just about.  Aconcagua in Argentina is 22,831 feet (6,959 m).  But Aconcagua is one of many peaks in the Andes range.  The whole of Denali can be seen from 3000 feet and up.  And Tuesday it was all out and clear.  

After about four years in Alaska, I wanted to make a post card of clouds, labeled "Denali as most tourists see it."   There was a couple from Toronto there taking in the sight and I wanted to let them know how lucky they were to see this great view.  And we became friends for the next couple of days, enjoying the park together.  

Below is that same view on Thursday afternoon on our return to Anchorage.  My postcard view.  You'd never know North America's highest mountain was hiding behind those clouds.  You can also see that a lot of snow melted in those two days.  

And below is a picture of Denali from the North (on the right), on the road in the National Park.  Still clear.  

Our Canadian friends got great views of the mountain.  Below it resembles a full moon just rising.  

But as lucky as they were with the Mountain, they were unlucky with animals.  I don't remember a trip to Denali when we saw so few big animals.  The few we saw were not particularly close. There were plenty of ptarmigan, gulls, and ground squirrels.  

First we hiked along the Savage River trail.  We've learned from past experience that this early in the season, the trail on the east side is still full of snow and ice in parts, so we hike to the bridge along the west side (right side in the photo) and returned the same way.  

As you get closer to the bridge (about one mile each way) you start to see these Tolkien rocks.  

And excuse me for putting all these photos up extra large.  Denali National Park is extra large and even this effort doesn't do it justice.  

We stopped at Sanctuary campground for lunch, where we saw this giant head in the rocky mountain across the way.  Anyone else see it?  Two of us did.

Just before Teklanika campground, there is a pair of small lakes, ponds really.  One had buffleheads and pintails and a kingfisher.  The other had northern shovelers.  

We parked at the Teklanika overview - which is as far as you are allowed to drive - and walked down to the bridge below.  You can drive in the first 30 miles only until May 20 when the tour busses start.  (Well, they already had some tour busses for the benefit of cruise line passengers, but not too many.)  Beginning May 20 you can only drive as far as Savage River (12 miles in.)  The road is still closed at mile 40 due a a huge avalanche a few years back.  So 20 miles further to Eilson, and then the next 30 to Wonder Lake aren't accessible. An Anchorage Daily News article say it won't be done until 2026.

It was only as we were headed back after a long day, that we saw the first large animal - a caribou.  There were two moose after that.  Denali - being far north with a short growing season and a long winter, is no Serengeti.  There just isn't enough food for the large herds in Africa.  But three large animal sightings is pitiful.   It was a VERY windy day, and perhaps that kept the animals hunkered down.  

Our new friends headed to their hotel outside the park and we got back to our campground.  I'd brought a bunch of the broken tree limbs from the back yard post winter clean up and some nice dry pieces of firewood and we quickly had a dinner cooked in foil.  First on the grill while the flames were high, and then on the coals a little longer.  

45+ Years And Flying Into Anchorage Is Still Amazing

 Especially on a glorious day like it was Monday.  It was even clear and beautiful in Seattle.

Over the always snowy Chugach Range still in Prince William Sound. 

Flying over the Chugach Range with Denali in the background.

The last edge of the Chugach, Anchorage lies ahead below and Foreaker and Denali in the background.  (Even my polarized filter can't eliminate all the rainbow in the plane window when the light is like it was.)

On a normal day you fly over the mountains, then past Anchorage out over the Inlet and then circle back to land from the west.  The wind mills of Fire Island in the foreground, then a bit of Inlet, then Anchorage and the Chugach Range.  Looking back toward where we came from.  

Looking down Turnagain Arm.

Another view of the Inlet - mudflats are showing 

Two more before we land 

The Anchorage Bowl still hasn't gotten any snow.  A bit late.  Probably as soon as I post this, it will show up.  

Denali Day At Denali

 There was sun and blue sky mostly this morning and when we got to the first point on the park road with a view of Denali, there it was.  There were a few clouds near the top, but on closer look they were behind the mountain.

But even before we got to that point, we saw a porcupine.  I remember seeing one live porcupine in the wild in Alaska a long time ago, so this was a big deal. 

And then that first glimpse of Denali.  It's in the middle and looks like a cloud in the first picture.

But then, that's what the telephoto lens is for.  

I've got about 15 or 20 pictures of Denali today. I'll limit myself to these three.  It just dominates the view and may explain why we didn't see too many animals today.  We also didn't drive in that far because we knew we also had to go home today.  So we didn't go past the point where you could see the mountain.  

At one view point, I just climbed up the tundra above the road and kept looking back down at the expanding landscape and the mountain.  

Denali is still very much in early spring.  There are few (I don't remember seeing any) new green leaves.  And driving home, past the Denali viewpoint at mile 135, the trees seemed to go from just budding to full on new green.  But on my tundra hike I did see a few of these.  Don't know what they are.  

We came upon this ptarmigan while we had some classical Indian music on.  It seemed to pay close attention to the sitar and flute.  

This is a white crowned sparrow we encountered as we did the Savage River trail again, this time with sun shining on us.  

We saw a moose and a caribou outside the park on the way home.  A man was taking a picture next to his car along the highway.  I thought of the mountains to the east.  When suddenly a caribou dashes into the road in front of me and doesn't a 180 when he sees my car rushing toward it.  I guess that kind of quick change of direction is good wolf dodging genes.  Was the man waiting to take a picture of a caribou being hit by a car?  

This sad picture was near the road to Willow.  Remnants of a fire now that many years ago.  

The Riley Creek campgrounds now distinguishes between the under 30 foot and over 30 foot spaces.  Our VW camper doesn't take up much room, but for the most part the bigger spaces have more privacy.  So the space we normally have had we couldn't use.  We'd reserved online as in the past, but this year there was no place to do it live.  The Mercantile - the shop at Riley where you normally got your receipt - was closed.  And they had cards on all the A sites (>30 feet> telling you not to park there.  

Also, with the gas tax Anchorage added last year, gas is cheaper in Wasilla.  And amazingly, the cheapest was at Trapper Creek - $3.04 for unleaded.  

Caribou Day At Denali

 We saw lots of caribou, close by while hiking, and off in the distance today.  

And a couple of moose.

And a bear.

Lots of lichen on the rocks.  And a few ptarmigan.  

The hike along Savage River.

That should do it for today.