Denali National Park: Experiencing wild beauty
Arrival
The moment I heard about the grizzlies I was not comfortable going in, but my husband felt that there was no point being afraid of them and not venturing out, especially in Alaska where the whole purpose of your vacation is to be outdoors. I summoned courage and went.
As we set off, close to the trailhead we saw this bird. I'm quite sure it's a ptarmigan-
As we started hiking, we discovered that bears were the lesser of the menace there. The place was full of mosquitoes! I kid you not, but you couldn't even see clearly because there was a cloud of mosquitoes all around you. It of course only got worse if you stopped, so we kept going.
Here's a view of Byer's Lake.
The views were nice, but not phenomenal. This is one part of the trip we could've easily cut out and done something better instead, perhaps spent more time at our awesome cabin at Denali, where we didn't get enough time at the river that ran right behind the cabin.
Our poor baby had big bumps on his forehead from the mosquito bites, in spite of the mosquito repellant we'd put on him!
After the slightly unpleasant hike, we continued our journey. We reached Cantwell, a small town close to Denali National Park late in the evening. The weather was still chilly and cloudy. We decided to pack some dinner from a little diner we happened to spot. I was a little apprehensive about getting food from here since to me it seemed like a hole in the wall. But we were pleasantly surprised when we took our first bite into the delicious sandwiches with pretty fresh ingredients! The place was run by a woman with her two sons. She was friendly too. These little things add up to a nice experience when you're traveling.
As we got close to Denali National Park, it got more and more beautiful. Here's a picture taken on the way-
Late in the evening we reached our lodge at McKinley Village Resort. Our spirits were high as soon as we checked in. It was a beautiful lodge, with the Nenana river flowing right behind.
Since it was pretty late (although deceptively bright), we went to bed, looking forward to the next day at Denali National Park.
The Denali Experience : Day 1
Driving up to Denali National Park, we had our first moose sighting! Exciting! Since it was a female, it took a while for us to be sure that it was a moose, since the unmistakable horns were not there. And that was another thing we noticed. Throughout the trip, we got to see only female moose. I was kinda sad. It would've been cool to spot a male with all the sprawling, pompous antlers and all. I wonder whether females just outnumber males or are less shy or less territorial. Don't know the reason, but all moose we spotted throughout the trip on the sides of the road were female. Here's a picture of the first moose we saw clearly-
Once we reached the park, we drove up inside till we reached the Savage River, and then got off and had an amazing time, hiking for about 4 hours. It was beautiful all around. Mountains, clear skies, the sound of the river... what more could you ask for?
Savage River
And while we stopped to rest half way through the hike, on the other side of the river on a mountain was a Dall Sheep. My husband spotted it first, and then we looked through the binoculars. I remember seeing a ton of mountain goats at Glacier National Park, and they were very unafraid, hanging out very close to the trails. But here it was a lot harder to spot wildlife. So we were thrilled at the sight of it. Here's a picture of the Dall Sheep taken with a lot of zoom from one mountain, focussing on another one, across from the Savage River-
We had lunch that we'd packed (fruit, chocolate, peanut butter sandwiches, water), relaxed for sometime and then started our trek downwards.
As we headed down, we saw Arctic Squirrels on the way. They were curious and were good posers for photographs. My son had fun watching them!
Once we reached level ground, we let our son out of the carrier and let him exhaust all that energy he'd been waiting patiently to expend all day! He ran around, looked for squirrels in their "houses", played with stones and chattered endlessly.
The Denali Experience : Day 2
The next day our plan was to take a bus to tour the park. Cars are not allowed beyond a point in the park. Only the park buses can go up. So we drove up to the farthest point we could, and then hopped on the bus.
The bus was pretty full, and went very slowly. It was a long ride. If I remember right it was two hours each way. It got very boring somewhere along the way, until the sky got clearer and then we got to see Mt Denali (Mt McKinley). I think we were pretty lucky to have got to see it. We heard from someone that many people visit Alaska several times and don't get to see the mountain due to cloud cover. The view of the mountain was just divine, needless to say. The peak is much sharper than Mt Rainier's, and that was one difference we were quick to notice.
Once we reached the farthest point up to which park buses can go, the bus was to turn back. At this point, there is a nice lookout and a little gift shop (yeah, in the middle of nowhere!). It's just a shelter made of fabric, not a solid building. It was cold and extremely windy. We got off the bus to go hike by ourselves, while the rest of the people on the bus just turned back and left, on the same bus. We planned to take a different bus back, after spending a few hours in wilderness.
The next few hours were amazing. It was always a little scary, given that we couldn't spot any other people and that this place was known to be bear country, but we kept going. We took our bear spray with us. Since the kid slept in the carrier, we had a most quiet and peaceful few hours, just listening to the wind and the sound of water every time we got close to a river or a creak. As we started hiking, especially in the sunny areas, it really warmed up. In fact it got warm enough for us to shed a layer or two.
After a very satisfying 4 hours of wandering, we luckily made it back in time to take the last bus back. Our son was up and very chatty all the way back on the bus. And the ride back was amazing, given our nice experience the past few hours, and to add sugar on top of it, we finally spotted bears (luckily from inside the bus)! It was a mommy grizzly and her cubs. How incredibly cute they were!
It had been a great day! And healthily exhausting. We couldn't wait to get back and have some hot food.
Once we got off the bus, we drove to the single restaurant/shops/gas station block that exists in the town of Denali. You'll find just one really popular buzzling restaurant there. It is the most popular place in that area, and we saw a sign there saying that at the time they were celebrating all birthdays between October and April! The short summer time is the only time when Alaskan locals get to go out and celebrate their birthdays!
This restaurant is big, warm and is decorated with pachyderms all over the walls. Has a character. And they have great pizzas and beer! And guess what I had? It was called the 'Tundra Vegan' pizza. Haha! Although I was very wary of it, I ordered it anyway. And it was one of the best pizzas I have had! There are all these so-called Neopolitan pizza places in the U.S and people rave about them, but I find that when I bite into them, they taste like rubber or chalk. But I tell ya, this pizza came close to some I'd had in Italy. The veggies were incredibly fresh and the sauce fresh and delicious as well! It had some kinda soy cheese, apparently, but god had it been crafted with some ingenuity! Makes me want to go back there just for that. And that gave me this thought- real pizza is more about the quality and freshness of the ingredients, the flavor of the sauce and the texture of the crust. It's very little about the cheese. A pizza recipe that relies heavily on the cheese that goes on top, to me, seems a little fake. :-)
I wish I had a picture of the pizza to share here, but unfortunately due to an Apple cloud backup mishap I lost all pictures I'd taken with my husband's iPhone .
In the restaurant an elderly British couple struck up a conversation with us and we had an interesting few minutes talking about our trip, about the world, the U.S economy, cultures and our backgrounds.
We got back to our lodge and ended the "day" slowly and late. This is what our son was up to before going to bed. This picture was taken at ~1:00 AM-
This was our last day at Denali, and we were sad to leave, but also excited about driving further up north to Fairbanks the next day!
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