North to Alaska: Day 24

Welcome! Day 24, 25, 26 (Sept 1, 2, 3) of North to Alaska

Quote. “The Mountain is calling.” John Muir

The Mountain of course is Mount McKinley or Denali, meaning “the high one”. It is the tallest peak in North America, just over 20,000 feet. It is only visible about 10% of the time. We were lucky that we saw it on the way from Fairbanks to Anchorage last week. Today the trip was cloudy and overcast but we did see a lot of nice beautiful scenery.

But first we slept in till 9:00, so we had breakfast around 10 after packing and vacating our room before the 10 AM checkout. After breakfast we crossed the street to the Denali boardwalk where Cassie was able to shop before we needed to depart for the train station. Cassie bought some socks, hat and gloves. I purchased some fudge.

Around 12:15 we caught a bus to the train depot where we boarded a bus to the Back Country Lodge 95 miles into Denali National Park. About 1:30 we departed for the lodge. As mentioned it was cloudy and overcast so we did not see Mt. McKinley but we did see many snowcapped mountains and colorful valleys and hills. We also saw two sets of Caribou and two sets of Dall Sheep along with two different grizzly bears. We also saw a fox at one of the rest stops but it was too fast for our cameras. The road was long, the view sometimes hazy, the road sometimes bumpy but the time seemed to past quickly. We reached the lodge around 7:30 and had supper at 8:00 PM. The day was good.

The next morning we had breakfast around 8:30. We did not join one of the organized hikes as it was raining and somewhat chilly. We did walk around the lodge and cabin area but spent most of our time relaxing in our cabin reading and playing games on our electronic devices.

I did find interesting the sign on our cabin door. Most motels/hotels have instructions on what to do in case of fire, this is the first time I have seen instructions on what to do in case of “Bear” in compound. See photo below.

Cassie and I did update our various blogs, Cassie with pen and paper, me on my tablet. We did have a ‘make your own sandwich’ for lunch and something fancy for dinner which Cassie liked, I liked the cheese before dinner. All the meals were family style so at each meal we had good conservations with people for all over some traveling with a group and some traveling individually. Most could not believe we actually drove all the way from Texas. But I assured them we did.

So ended day 25. Tomorrow on to Fairbanks.

We were awaken at 5 AM to finish packing and eat breakfast at 5:30 for a 6 AM departure back to main gate of Denali National Park. We took the same road back as we had traveled on Day 24 but traveling earlier in the day we had a different perspective. Everything was still wonderful. We saw a moose but was too far away for pictures. We arrived back at 11:30 so most of the people could catch the train back to Anchorage. Cassie and I we scheduled to board our train at 3:40 so we caught a shuttle back to the main part of town and shopped a little, ate lunch at a hotdog place and waited for another shuttle to take us to the train station. Out trip on to Fairbanks was about 4 hours. We arrived at our hotel around 8:30. It was a long day but was a good experience.

So ended day 26. Tomorrow on to the Arctic Circle.