Denali

Hey everyone! Well, we had a really good few days in Denali National Park. We learned a lot and had fun and even ran into a few familiar faces...

This is Calypso Farm & Ecology Center. While in Fairbanks, we ran into some people selling really cool t-shirts and told us we should stop by their farm on the way down to Denali. So, we did. It's a nonprofit farm that grows lots of vegatables and people pay them to grow it, then come by once a week to get their share of vegatables. They promote local farms, and have a great relationship with the community. Their set up reminded us a lot of Holland Wildflower Farm and made us a little homesick, but it was fun to tour.

A baby moose calf we saw on our way down.

The landscape there was very curious. Most national parks we've been to so far have been heavily wooded with lots of trees... DNP wasn't like that at all. It was wide open with low brush. It made the mountains standout more which was pretty cool.

For those of you who are confused, one of the reason's we came to Alaska is because last year we both read John Krakauer's book Into the Wild about recent college grad who went to Alaska to live in the wild. He chose the Stampede Trail as his final destination, and eventually died there. The trail starts at the end of this road. If we would have had time and a local guide, we would have loved to go out to where he was. (If you don't know about this, and are interested but not a reader, Sean Penn made a movie about it last year... but the book is better).

Our abode. We wanted to give you a glimpse of where our mornings, afternoons, evenings, and nights are spent.
We ran into some people who looked a LOT like Grandmoi and Stan. Actually, they were passing through after their cruise up. We had a great dinner with them and really enjoyed seeing them.

The interesting thing about DNP is that unlike other parks, you can only drive into the park so far, then after that, you have to pay them to get on a bus and ride for about 11 hours roundtrip to see the rest. It wasn't that bad, but we got to see a baby fox on the way into the park.

We were on our way to the Elisen Center, the first place in the park you can get a great view of Denali (which Alaskans call Mt. McKinley, and rightfully so considering how it came to be called Mt. McKinley - which we now think they should change back to Denali).

I was reaching over Nell trying to get a picture of some bears far off, when came down from the window, this is what I saw.




Waaaay back there, behind all those mountains is Denali - which is the highest mountain in N America and only 1 our of every 4 visitors get to see because of the weather system it creates for itself is always cloudy.

You could get off your bus, play around, then get on the next one the came by. So, we did in this river.


We then decided to climb that huge hill behind us. It's way steeper than it looks.

We saw this little dude up there, an Artic Ground Squirrel.

The river is always changing because the mountains are so shaley, thus a huge river bed.

We hiked around for about an hour, then headed down. The interesting thing about Denali, is all the hikes are on your own. There is no trail system anywhere, so all the hiking you do is open range. Which makes it cool.

Nell got her cheer on.

The wildflowers were just begining to bloom. (I know it's been hot down south for a while, but we followed spring up, so it's just setting in up here.)

Well, that's all we have from Denali. We did like the pictures we took, but it was cloudy and rainy the whole time, so we didn't get any that really captured the park. Although, on the way down to Anchorage, we saw a glimpse of Denali from 150 miles away. I guess the mountain decided to clear up a little and give us a glimpse of how huge it is that you can see it from Anchorage.

Until then... cheers. We love ya and check back soon!