Fairbanks to Denali View South
(Updated with photos)
I’m never sure what to do with tenses when I write a diary entry late. I’m typing this a day late, from brief notes, because we had no power when I should have written it. I’m going to write as if I was writing at the correct time.
We woke this morning to the sound of heavy rain on the roof of the van. It was an inauspicious start to a day when we planned to do some walking. Fortunately the rain cleared up in time for our visits to the shower block. After breakfast (sourdough English muffins — we’ve got to make the most out of the toaster since it was an optional extra) we packed up. Debbie popped to the office and asked the way to Walmart. I packed too few pants, and she needed some makeup since some of hers seems to have gone missing in Alaska Airlines’ baggage hold. Plus, we were short on bottled water, something we use up quickly on the road. She was advised not to go to Walmart, but instead to go to Fred Meyer, which is “just the same” but closer.
Debbie made a start on the shopping while I went to buy petrol. I’ve been avoiding choosing not to pay at the pump, because the pump stops at $100, which is not enough to fill the tank. I pressed the “pay inside” button, and a loudspeaker crackled into life: “use ‘pay at pump’”. I went into the booth to explain. The lady understood, and said “so just do it twice”. That seemed suspicious to me. Surely if the credit card company has a limit on unattended transactions, it’s not going to allow such a facile workaround? Still, I gave it a go, and sure enough, it let me buy $100 worth of petrol, then immediately afterwards, another $17 worth. It seems crazy to me.
There’s a similar craziness with attended card payments. In many places, if you proffer a Visa card, the cashier asks “credit or debit”, because they have to press the appropriate button. If you get it wrong, the transaction is denied. But if the system knows, the answer, why ask?
Fred Meyer was huge. It had a bigger clothing department than a typical clothes shop, a big grocery section, including a good fresh food section, deli etc., and all the toys, housewares, hardware etc. you’d expect at Walmart. We had trouble keeping our visit short — it was supposed to be 100% functional, not recreational.
We left Fairbanks on the George Parks Highway south, towards Anchorage and Denali National Park. In the first 50 miles or so south of Fairbanks, the George Parks Highway seems to have been built deliberately along mountain ridges, so the country falls below you to the left and right, and the road rises and falls with the terrain. This was terrible for our fuel economy, but fantastic for views.
I do admit I was hungry for lunch a while before we reached Denali National Park. I was all for stopping at a scenic layby and having lunch. Still, we pressed on, and the already impressive scenery just improved. We knew we were getting close to the park when the roadside hotels and souvenir shops started appearing. The crescendo continues right up until the park boundary, where of course it must subside. Truly, the scenery is on such a scale, that none of this can really detract from it.
We parked at the Wilderness Access Centre, or “WAC”, which is right on the fringe of the park. There is only one road through Denali National Park, and private vehicles are only allowed 15 miles in. Even that is discouraged, and they ask you to take a shuttle bus instead.
We made kimchi flavoured instant noodles (my favourite!) and ate them in the car park, then went to the WAC to decide what to do. We’d just missed a shuttle, which was a nuisance, but we decided to wait an hour for the next one. That hour wasn’t actually so hard to fill. Ten minutes of decision making, twenty minutes queueing to buy a park pass, 20 minutes watching a film about the history of the park (”Through Time and Tundra” - virtuoso alliteration!) in the company of a commercial tour group, and some padding.
By now the weather was overcast, but warm and dry, and the cloud was high enough not to obscure most of the scenery around us. Denali itself, or Mount McKinley, can’t be seen from this part of the park, even on a good day, except for a glimpse 9 miles into the park road. It didn’t show for us.
Although there are shuttles deeper into the park, our free shuttle just took us to Savage River, the limit for private vehicles. That was perfect for our limited time. It was obvious that to get the best of this park, you need more than an afternoon.
The bus driver stopped when he saw that other vehicles had stopped and were looking at something. Some way out into the brush, were some antlers. It was two moose, up to their haunches in vegetation. Another wildlife photography award due for me, I think
Denali is a bit different: there aren’t all that many footpaths. Instead, people are welcome to just tramp out into the wilderness with a topographic map. A French woman on our bus had a half-baked plan to descend the valley’s side then climb the other side, and return along the ridge. Half-baked because she really had no idea where to ask the bus driver to drop her - but they settled on somewhere pretty much at random, and he left her with warnings about the wet ground at the bottom, and the “bushwhacking” she’d have to do on the way back up.
Still, at the Savage River stop, there was a maintained trail, up the river for three-quarters of a mile, over a bridge, and back the other side. It was the perfect length for us to do at an unhurried pace, and get back in time for the next bus back to the WAC. On the walk, we had several encounters with arctic hares, including one very close one. We got a good look at an arctic ground squirrel - these are also apparently very common. We saw some ptarmigan, which guide books suggest are something to get excited about, but they’re just grouse…
On the return shuttle bus, the driver suddenly shouted “BEAR! ON THE ROAD! RIGHT IN FRONT OF US!”. This was obviously not a very common occurrence, at least on this route. He was clearly as excited as we were, if not more so, and took a while to get a full sentence out, as opposed to staccato exclamations. It was a small grizzly, and it lumbered off the road before we could feed it any of our peanut butter granola bars.
Debbie took over driving duties, and we started the drive towards Anchorage. There are few dots on the road map between Denali and Anchorage, and we planned to stop at Willow, not far from Anchorage. By nine, it was evident that we’d bitten off more than we could chew, or at least, more than we wanted to chew. A long wait for a pilot car through some roadworks slowed us down further. In Denali State Park (distinct from Denali National Park), we paused at “Denali View North”, not really expecting a view of Mount McKinley, since it was still overcast. The view was good, nonetheless. We pointed at a few peaks, speculating that one or the other might be the one, but I’m pretty sure that if Denali had been in view, we’d have known. I suspect it would dominate the view. Alaskans like to claim it’s taller than Everest, since Everest “cheats” by having a base that’s high above sea level. Denali is taller from base to peak. I’m hazy about how the “base” is defined, but I think it might be the closest plain.
This stop was fortuitous, though, because we noticed that more than just a viewpoint, Denali View North was a state campsite. If Denali View South was also, we could stop there, cook and eat with a pleasant view, and take a change on the weather being clearer in the morning.
Sure enough, about half an hour’s drive later, Denali View South delivered the goods. It had a great view of the mountains surrounding Denali, toilets, water (from a cast iron hand pump!) and fire pits. What you don’t get at state campsites is water hookups, power, showers (but we have a shower in the van), and sewerage dump facilities. Denali itself still eluded us.
I lit a fire and cooked our buffalo steaks from Delta Meats. It was lovely, like lean beef. As advised, I cooked it long and slow, so it wasn’t rare, but it was still juicy and delicious.
No power means no typing (my laptop battery lasts no more than ten minutes) so I made a bullet list with pen and paper.
We played Chrononauts in the van until bedtime, with the curtains open to facilitate bearwatch and mountainwatch. Neither appeared.
To find out whether Denali appears in the morning, you’ll have to read tomorrow’s entry. This is what we call ’suspense’.
