Road update #5…
We headed for Denali National Park this past Thursday. Our destination was the Teklanika Campground (some 30 miles into the park). We arrived to cloudy skies which blocked all views of Mt. McKinley. Overnight it started to rain - and for the first time on this trip we experienced real and sustained rainfall. We awoke at 5:00am to find more of the same (plus, the addition of low lying fog). As the forecast only looked to get worse, we nabbed the first Denali Park Bus and headed out to Wonder Lake (an eleven hour round trip excursion). The bus was packed already with hikers and sightseers and with such a temperature difference between outside and inside of the bus and with so much condensation in the air the bus windows were dripping wet both inside and out. No amount of wiping the windows down seemed to make any difference to visibility. Attempting to spot anything through these windows was a real challenge (let alone trying to keep the camera gear clear). With the addition of the fog, we were denied a look at most of the surrounding geology north of 300 ft in elevation. However, we did come across eight bear (really five bear with three of these encounters being the same bear on the return route), one bull moose, a few cow moose, and one caribou. One of the bear sightings was up close and personal as the bear walked right along the side of the bus, just a few feet from the bus windows. It was also snowing at some of the higher elevations along our route - which made things even more interesting. We stuck with the same bus the entire time arrived back to base camp cold, wet, and tired. The rain became even more prevalent the next day, so we decided to stick close to camp and avoid the touring masses. I grabbed my camera, found a spot on glacial moraine, and just waited patiently to see what - if anything - would walk in front of my lens (kind of like fishing). Even though nothing earth shattering happened while I was out there, the few hours of absolute peace and solitude I had was a great departure from being jostled around in the SMB day after day. Fast forward to today where we awoke to very cloudy skies, but... no fog and no rain. Surrounding mountains were still not visible. Per our plan, we drove 120 miles up to Fairbanks from Denali, re-stocked our dwindling supplies, washed the van, and visited the Large Animal Research Station at University of Alaska (Fairbanks) to get an up close look at muskox and caribou. Tonight we are cleaning up at a Fairbanks B&B, then we are off bright and early to start the week long (out and back) Prudhoe Bay portion of our trip.
Our SMB has picked up a few new scratches, squeaks, and leaks along they way... but there have been no real surprises/failures so far and nothing has happened that cant be fixed. The flip side is that this vehicle has provided us with the ability to go places and see things that neither of us will soon forget.
Next road update will be either from Deadhorse or back here at Fairbanks later this week.
Cheers,
---TWOLOST--- :b6: :b7:
