August 24, 2008

Here we are in Delta Junction, Alaska. Since our last post we have spent a day and a half in
Denali National Park - WOW - what a place! We found a great RV park on Thursday evening
about 7 miles from the park entrance and spent a couple of nights there. On Friday a.m. we
boarded a bus for an 11 hour ride to the end of the only park road, at Wonder Lake. Wonder Lake is about 90 miles in from the visitors centre. Now 11 hours sounds like a long time but when you stop very regularly for wild life plus a rest stop every hour and a half, it wasn't that bad. It certainly didn't seem like 11 hours. We saw grizzlies - 17 of them - moose, Dall sheep, cariboo, a red fox and ground squirrels. Besides all the wild life, the scenery was spectacular. The only thing we were disappointed over was not seeing Denali (Mt McKinley -Alaskans do not call it McKinley, after some guy from Ohio who was never in Alaska, and refer to the mountain as Denali which means the Great One in Athabascan). It was an overcast, drizzly day, but the clouds broke occasionally, and the early fall colours on the hills were spectacular.
The next morning we awoke to glorious sunshine - something that has been rare this summer
in Alaska. We hemmed and hawed over whether to head up the road to Fairbanks or go
back to Denali and hope that the mountain was showing itself. We opted to go back and take our chances. Private vehicles are only allowed in for the first 15 miles, after that you need a special permit or to be camping (for a minimum of 3 nights). At about mile 5 we saw a grizzly bear right along the side of the road enjoying a snack of some sort. Unbelievable to be 10 feet from
a very large grizzly that was pretty much oblivious to our presence. We, on the other hand, were very happy to have the car between him and us. We watched him for a while and then moved on and at about mile 9 there was Denali in all her splendour. What a spectacular sight! At this point we were so glad that we had taken the time to backtrack a little. We decided to take advantage of the beautiful day & drive the whole 15 miles & and do a short hike at the end of it. While on our hike we spotted some Dall sheep, more ground squirrels, ptarmigans and a marmot. A great time was had in Denali but it was time to move on, and so off to Fairbanks- the only sunny place in Alaska this week. We found a good RV park right in the city and Jo frantically perused the guide books to find things to see and do here. It's not the most exciting place in the world but thank goodness the Sandhill Crane Festival was on. We went off to see the cranes, as well as hundreds (thousands?) of Canada Geese on a stop here while migrating south for the winter. Apparently the cranes pause here every August en route to Saskatchewan & ultimately Texas. Then we cruised through the Fairbanks downtown area - a very brief stop, as it was pretty much closed for Sunday, but didn't look like it would be much livelier on a weekday - and off to North Pole, Alaska. We had planned to spend the night here but it was just a little too much. The light standards are candy cane colours, the street names are things like Santa Clause Lane, Kris Kringle Lane - well, you get the idea.
A must see - so we were told - was Santa Claus House where one can buy anything and everything for xmas decorating. All this xmas spirit and xmas music was just too much for us and we had to move on, and move on we did to Delta Junction - the starting point for the Alaska highway. Tomorrow onto Tok, Chicken and Dawson City, Yukon.
More in a couple of days.
j&k