Denali National Park, June 13-19, 2011

DENALI NATIONAL PARK

JUNE 13-19

On our way to Denali National Park we took a rest break at Tatlanika Trading Company and found this interesting truck with skis on the front and tracks on the back. Guess they do whatever they can to get around Alaska in the winter.

Denali "the high one" is the name the Athabascan people gave the massive 20,320 ft. peak that crowns the 600 mile long Alaska Range. Denali is also the name of an immense national park and preserve created from the former Mt. McKinley National Park. At 6 million acres the park is larger than Massachusetts. It remains largely wild and unspoiled and is one of the world's last great frontiers for wilderness adventure.

We picked a wonderful time to visit with all the wild flowers in bloom including these Alpine Lupines. Other flowers in bloom were bluebells, dogwood (which is a flower here and not a tree as we know it in the lower 48), wild iris, wild geranium, prickly rose and low bush cranberry. If you can find some cranberries that made it over winter, they are delicious!

One of our first excursions was to visit the park's sled dog kennel. They keep 30+ dogs to be utilized in the winter to patrol the park. They are called Alaskan huskies but are not a recognized AKC breed. They are whatever fits the bill as a sled dog. They must have thick fur, long legs, big feet and most of all, love to run. Here a ranger is combing out the winter coat. You can see he has a bucket to collect all the fur. The dogs were very friendly and we were allowed to pet them.

This moose crossed the road in front of the bus on our way back to the Visitor's Center. There are several moose in the area with their calves.

We went to Cabin Night Dinner Theater and enjoyed a wonderful all-you-can-eat dinner of salmon, ribs, corn, beans, red potatoes, biscuits and berry cobbler. After dinner we were treated to a musical skit commemorating life in the 1930s in an Alaska community.

Everyone who visits should take a day and ride the shuttle bus to Eielson Visitor's Center, 66 miles into the park. (You can only drive a private vehicle in 15 miles.) One of the most picturesque areas was the overlook from Polychrome Pass. It was like being in an airplane looking down at the huge valley below and the mountains of the Alaska Range to the west. The bus ride was another story. Going over the mountain on narrow dirt roads was pretty scary when we met another bus on a curve. Our bus stopped, with its nose out over the valley, while the other bus inched its way around. Not for the faint of heart!!

We made a rest stop and I took this picture of the Tolkat River and mountains to the east. The rivers are so young and so laden with pulverized rock, called rock flour, that they can wander across their broad flat valleys to set new channels in a matter of days. The water is very gray, like wet cement, and are easy to distinguish from fresh water rivers. Fish cannot live in glacial rivers.

After about 4 hours we reached Eielson and could view only the bottom of Mt. McKinley (or Denali) as the clouds were covering the top. At 20,320 feet the mountain makes it own weather and only about 30% of visitors get to see it's top as permanent snowfields cover more than 75% of its surface. Summer temperatures on the mountain range from 10 degrees F to -50 degrees F. Winter lows at just 14,500 feet can plummet to -95 degrees F. Only a little over 50% of mountain climbers ever reach the top. Several have died already this year in their quest to conquer the mountain.

Numerous glaciers still radiate from the high peaks of the Alaska Range and are visible from the park road. This beautiful landscape is known as tundra. The park and preserve owes its beautiful landscape contrasts-wide, low plains and dark, somber, mountains: brightly colored peaks and sheer granite domes-to the restless collision of 2 tectonic plates that continue to push Mt. McKinley upwards at the rate of 3/4" per year.

On a ranger led nature hike I learn the reason for these strange markings on the aspen trees. Moose love aspen and in the winter when food is scarce they will find the younger aspen and, using their bottom teeth much like a potato peeler, scrape of a layer of the tender bark to eat. The result is the scars left on the tree trunks.

Another ranger led hike took me to Horseshoe Lake, formed from an oxbow in the Nenana River. Some rivers wind around so much that sometimes a new channel is formed and the silt and debris close off the "bow" part and make a lake out of it. This area continues to hold water due to a fresh water stream that empties into it and also a beaver dam at one end. The ranger that led this hike, originally from Kentucky, has been here for about 17 years and lives in a 16x16 cabin with no running water. He does have electricity and the "development" he lives in has a community well. He also has sled dogs and leads excursions into Denali in the winter.

I got up a little after 1 am and took this picture to illustrate the meaning of Land of the Midnight Sun. Sunset is after 1 am and sunrise around 3:30 am this time of the year. It never gets any darker than this at night. You could easily sit outside and read a book!

I rarely like to stay in an area very long but I love it here. There is so much about nature to learn here if you have to time to seek it out. Sadly, after a week here, we must move on......