Denali

Thu August 30- It was great to recover from our Gates of the Arctic trip in a warm and dry hotel room! After we slept in we had an excellent brunch at the Cookie Jar! Exactly what we felt like! After that we did some laundry, got groceries for our Denali trip and relaxed in the hotel room. Movie, wine, cheese, crackers, great!

The usual Mt McKinley view

Fri August 31- Goodbye Fairbanks! After a simple cereal breakfast (great as well!) we drove to Denali National Park (took about 2.5 hours). Our plan was to go on a 4 to 6 day backpacking trip in the backcountry of Denali. Like many other National Parks in Alaska, Denali does not have any established trails. The whole park is deemed "wilderness." We did not really understand the backcountry-permit system (and we still find it a little weird and silly), so we checked in with the Backcountry Information Center first. The park is split into different units- only a certain number of people are allowed in a unit each night, and you can only "reserve" the units you want the day before. After talking to the very helpful ranger we picked a 5 night trip consisting of units 35, 13, 13, 18 & 13 (close to the Eielson visitor center). We wanted to go just to 13 and 18, but since you can only get a permit 24 hours before you are leaving, you are more or less forced to be flexible and stay in another area first. After yet another bear-safety video, we got our camper-bus-tickets to get us into the park (you cannot drive into the park, you have to take a bus). We had forgotten it was Labor Day Weekend and the campsite at the park-entrance was full. Luckily we found a great motel (Rainbow Village) right outside the park that still had one vacancy. Perfect for our needs to get all organized for our trip (it was big, had a kitchen, etc.), since it was raining again...

Breakfast with a view

Sat September 1- We were on the 10am camper-bus into Denali. It was cloudy, rained once in a while, but the fall colors were terrific! New England is known for beautiful foliage, but Alaska is maybe even better.. The bus took forever (stopped too often at random rest-stops and wildlife-viewing-traffic-jams), but we finally got to unit 35 at around 3pm (70 miles in 5 hours). Unit 35 is has a lot of 'scrub'; no easy hiking- just a lot of bush-whacking. It took us some time, and it started to rain hard, but LB found a nice camp-spot right on the tundra (maybe too close to the road, but we had to get back to the road the next morning anyway). We had dinner in the rain, it was windy, it was cold, there was zero visibility, and maybe we were a little bit miserable... Luckily our tent-palace was dry and warm!

On the road waiting for the bus

Sun September 2- We woke to a cold morning and to our very pleasant surprise last night's rain had turned to ice on our tent! The weather had cleared almost completely. Very high level clouds, little bleak sun, and great views of Mount McKinley and the whole mountain range. WOW! What a change! We packed up the tent, had a scenic breakfast and walked back to the road. We took some more pictures, enjoyed the view and flagged down a camper-bus (a bus like we took yesterday) that drove us to unit 13 (about 7 miles back towards the park-entrance). The Denali National Park Service would most likely deny it, but there was a clear "trail-head" at sector 13 (by the way, we did not see Katniss or Peeta). We descended from the road into the wilderness of the Thorofare River where we crossed a knee-deep river and once more ended up with wet boots and wet feet (our boots had actually not even dried yet from the Gates of the Arctic). The views were amazing! Mt McKinley was disappearing in the clouds, but the other mountains were spectacular. And on top of all this we had beautiful fall colors! We followed the valley of Glacier Creek and almost bumped into a Grizzly Bear with cub. The bears were grazing on the other side of the creek and we saw them way too late (probably came within 25 yards of them). We slowly backed-up, "hey bear-ed" and found an alternative route (over the hill-top). A little further up the creek we found a nice camp-site and we setup the tent (it was a little breezy, but fine.. for now..) We explored the area, had dinner, enjoyed the great views. What a great day! And with that feeling we went back into the tent...

Foliage and Mt McKinley

Mon September 3- As we were trying to fall asleep the wind picked up more and more and more. Huge gusts of (as we later found out) up to 60 miles per hour. We did not sleep and it was scary. We were afraid that the tent would rip or a pole would snap. We were trying to hold on to the tent, but there was not much to hold on to. When huge gusts came by we could feel the tent lifting up a bit.. At the crack of dawn the tent was still in one piece and we were still awake. We got up, took down the tent, had breakfast and walked back to the road. The hike back was very windy and it had gotten cloudier. The high peaks were no longer visible and the rain was more or less chasing us. We got back to the road and walked the last 2 miles to the Eielson visitor center (where we would take the bus back to our car). Right as we turned the corner to get to the visitor center, we had another grizzly-encounter. The tour-buses loved it, but we had to wait for the bear to get out of the way. It finally did. The weather forecast at the visitor center showed even more wind for the coming days; happy we left! We bused back to the park-entrance and setup camp at the Riley Creek Campground. We had a shower, beer and diner. It was not that windy as we were camped in the trees and we slept great!

The Thorofare River makes easy walking

Enjoying the view

Tue September 4- It was cloudy when we woke up and after breakfast we decided to go to Anchorage. We had thought about going for a day-hike in Denali National or State Park, but the weather was not good enough. The drive to Anchorage was very pretty, fall colors, clouded mountains, the usual Alaskan scenery. We looked for a campsite in Anchorage and in the end went to Centennial Campground (which was actually closing for the season on Sept 9). We had not seen a weather forecast for Anchorage, but we talked to the campground host about our wind-adventure in Denali. She even mentioned something like "here in Anchorage we get big winds all the time that would get hurricane-news-coverage in the lower 48." At that time it was already a little windy in Anchorage, but we were camping in the trees and did not think too much of it. It was cold and damp at the campsite, so after dinner we went to McDonald's for desert, warmth and internet (we should have checked the weather). We got back to camp and by 10pm we were comfortable in the tent. The wind gets stronger and stronger.. First our tarp gets unhooked and Maurits gets out of the tent to pack it up.. Then more and more huge gusts.. And then finally a big branch hits our tent! Ahhhhh.... We stuffed everything as quickly as possible in the car and left. But first we had to wait an hour, because a huge tree had fallen over the only access-road to the campsite. Luckily it was the same access-road as the local Anchorage utility company and the tree was cut and cleared quickly. By that time almost the whole city was without power and the tree-branches were flying all over the place. The sky was strangely clear, with a nice moon and we could see lightning in every direction caused by power-transformers short-circuiting. It was almost surreal! We put Motel 6 into our GPS, drove through a very dark Anchorage and to our surprise Motel 6 not only had a room for us, but they still had power! It took a while before we were able to fall asleep..

More foliage

Even more foliage

Wed September 5- The day started as a lazy morning in the motel-room, but after posting our Subaru on Craigslist it turned into a mad rush! Within minutes we had recieved 5 phone calls and within 20 minutes Said and Serghei were at the motel for a test-drive. The car was still a disaster! Our hasty departure the previous night had left camping-equipment, clothes, laundry and other stuff all over the place. We were planning on cleaning the car (in&out) and topping up the oil, but that proved unnecessary. We quickly removed most of the gear from the car and Maurits went for a test-drive with the Russians. In the mean-time two other prospective buyers had showed up, but they were too late. Said liked the car and handed over $7,000 in Benjamin Franklins. They would come back at 1pm to pick up the car- we gave them the title in exchange for the cash. Since this all seemed to be going too fast, we took the cash to a local credit union to make sure it was real. It was! Then we went back to the motel and "Hotwired" a rental car for the remainder of our stay in Alaska. We picked up the rental car, drove back to the hotel, screwed off the Subaru's license plates and handed the key to the new owner. Final mileage: 137,080 which means we drove 7,700 miles! We probably could have gotten more money for the car, but we got what we asked for... After breakfast (now 2pm), we went to the post-office to convert the cash into "money orders." For people unfamiliar with the days when the Pony Express still rode, these are the kind of cheques that you buy, make out to someone you know (e.g. Shelley Chamberlain), send in an envelope and the reciever converts the money order back into money and deposits it in a bank-account. And this was necessary since there was no Bank of America in Alaska (or Hawaii). After all this was done we took the left-over money and LB got a pair of new hiking boots! We spent the evening sorting through our room and we put a package together with stuff to send back to Lexington. Somehow we lost a pocket-knife and sleeping-bag-liner in the turmoil.. What a crazy day!

Glacier Creek

Disclaimer: With the exception of the first picture, all these pictures were taken on September 2

 

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