SOME SAY MCKINLEY SOME SAY DENALI…

Denali Park Road

Continuing north from Byers Lake we stop in Cantwell at the Cantwell RV Park just off the Parks Highway on the west side of the Denali Highway.  Partial hook-ups H20, power and dump station. Good Wi-Fi when the park empties out.  This is our base camp to explore the front of Denali National Park and the surrounding area.  After setting up we take a drive on the Eastern Denali Highway.  It’s one of THOSE ROADS, the one’s they warn you about but it’s really typical of most unpaved roads with a few rough patches, but nothing Dave can’t handle.  The scenery is typical Alaska spectacular, mountains forests and tundra. We don’t see a lot of wildlife, just and abandoned beaver den, a caravan of Jeep Wranglers driven by Princess Cruise Tourists, some folks picking wild blueberries and a couple changing a flat tire… So, maybe the warnings are warranted.

There’s not a lot to Cantwell, a couple of gas stations, a trading post and a mini-mart.  Thirty miles up the Parks Highway, just north of the Denali park entrance, is an area known as Glitter Gulch. The hotels, shops and restaurants were built for the Princess Cruise tourists who arrive by train and bus.  It looks like Disneyland’s Frontier Land, so we just drive by shaking our heads. A little further north is the town of Healy with a Brewery, gas station, liquor store and mini-mart.  Between Cantwell and Healy there are Adventure Tours, Rafting, Tours, Air tours, cabins to rent and some restaurants and of course the road to Denali National Park.

Husky Pup

Mention Denali National Park and most people think of Mt. McKinley, AKA Denali or The Great One, but the mountain is actually a recent addition to the park.  The original mandate of the park was to protect wildlife, specifically the Dahl Sheep. Access by powered vehicles to most of the park is limited. During the summer months, most visitors are shuttled in busses to various spots along the ONE road in the park. Winter access is by dog sled (no snow mobiles here!) and the park maintains a kennel of Alaskan Huskies that are used to patrol the park when snow closes the roads. During the summer there are dog sled demonstrations and rangers at the kennels to answer questions about the dogs. On our first visit to the park, we visit the Kennels and later take in a ranger talk about his experiences mushing in the park with his own dogs.  It’s interesting, but this experience is pretty limited to the few folks who have access to a team of dogs and want to camp out in way too many degrees below zero weather.

Savage Cabin

The Visitor center has some diorama displays, information about the wildlife and a short film about the park.  Nearby is the Murie Science and learning center dedicated to research of the arctic and subarctic ecosystems.  There are a number of interactive displays where we spend a few hours reading about the flora, fauna and geology.  There is also one restaurant, The Morro Grill, at the visitor center campus where you can get a cold beer and a really tasty burger.

Bull Moose

The first thirteen miles of the Denali Park Road is paved and open to all vehicles.  We drive this a few times watching for wildlife and explore the Savage Creek Area.  The Savage Cabin is typical of early trapper or homestead cabins and is still used by rangers today.  It is a one-room log cabin with shuttered windows.  The shutters and areas around the windows are covered with nails, the pointy ends sticking out, to keep bears from breaking in.  There is an interpretive trail near the Savage Creek Campground with photos of the early campers from the 1920’s.  It is interesting to see how the landscape has changed.  What was formerly barren tundra is now turning to forest as the climate warms. We also hike a couple of miles around the Savage Creek.  It’s an easy loop hike along the creek bed with two bridges to cross the river.  We see some arctic ground squirrels and a beautiful caribou bull with stunning antlers. Along the road we also drive past a magnificent Bull Moose.

Arctic Ground Squirrel

For the second half of our week in Denali, we move to the Teklanika Campground.  It is located twenty-nine miles inside the park.  There is a minimum stay requirement of three days, which should be plenty of time to explore the western end of the park.  We are given a pass that allows us to cross through the gate at the Savage River Bridge and drive the unpaved road to the campground. Dave will stay parked until it’s time to leave. Since we are dependent on the bus system, we purchased a Tek Pass, which gives us unlimited travel on the park shuttle busses from the campground to the end of the road in the Kantishina distriict. 

Hunting Grizzly

 After setting up we catch a shuttle to the Eielson Visitor Center.  Our driver is Wayne Iverson, apublished author (Hobo Sapien) he is informative and entertaining and stops so we can watch and photograph, Dahl sheep, Caribou, and a Grizzly sow with her two spring cubs. At the Visitor center we check out the exhibits about climbing Mt. McKinley and are treated to another pair of bears who seem to be having some sort of disagreement near the center. At one point one bear begins to lope toward the center and the rangers quickly get folks off the trails and up onto the patio.  A loping bear moves really quickly and covers a lot of ground. 

Caribou Bull

Our second shuttle experience is a little different.  This time our driver is somewhat informative, but dry and not too entertaining.  He does stop for wildlife and we see more bears, Dahl sheep and Caribou. We travel to the end of the road to Kantishina. Originally a gold mining settlement it now is home to a number of upscale resorts where folks pay a hefty price to stay in private establishments within the boundaries of the park.  The stop here is brief to view a homestead cabin and walk along the creek where we look for traces of gold.  The scenery here is pretty underwhelming when compared to the rest of the park.  On the return trip we stop at Wonder Lake. The only thing this body of water has going for it, is on a clear day it reflects Mt. McKinley.  But it’s overcast and rainy so no wonderful reflections.  However, there are an abundance of wild blueberries that are ripe for the picking so we get a couple of handfuls to munch with our lunch.  Past the Eielson center we spot another grizzly, loping up the hillside.  He stops, digs, pounces and comes up with an arctic squirrel that takes him moments to devour.  He digs around some more but the other squirrels have left the den. We joke about returning later to put some flowers on the spot where the squirrel met his demise.

Grizzly

Our third shuttle ride is completely different.  This time driver number three has no commentary, only comes to a rolling stop for photos, and sometimes stops the bus in front of shrubbery, when he could pull up a couple of feet, so the passengers could get a better view of the animals.  Ironically on this trip we see wildlife closer to the road that any other trips. (go figure.) But our fellow travelers are fun and we entertain ourselves.

Dahli Rama

So after a full week in Denali, we have a lot of photos of wildlife, but the mountain has been shrouded in clouds and it’s rained every day.  But that’s OK we saw McKinley from the road when driving around Trapper Creek and Byers Lake, but we never stopped to take a photo.  (pretty lame huh?) Well as driver number three so dryly put it, “it’s just a big rock covered in snow.” Driving out the road is muddy and by the time we exit the park Dave and Dimples are in desperate need of a spa day!

Overall Denali is good and bad.  Lots of wildlife and incredible scenery, but the shuttle busses are pretty uncomfortable and you feel like you are on s school field trip.  A month in Yellowstone is barely enough a week in Denali is more that enough… time to move on…

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BIKES AND HIKES AND BEARS… (Oh my!)

Week three in Yellowstone… There is a statistic that less than 1% of the visitors to Yellowstone ever leave the paved roads. Considering how little of the park is paved… they are missing a whole lot-o-amazing!

Temperatures at night are below freezing but the days are warm and sunny.  We are acclimatizing to the higher elevation.  The trails are calling and we answer.  Every day we check out our Nat Geo Map of Yellowstone and look for new paths to explore.  (Dave and Dimples Recommendation: The National Geographic Parks Map App for iPad and iPhone, with park maps in HD!)

Fairy Falls

Natural Bridge

Most of the trails in the park are for foot traffic only, but there are a few that allow bikes and we unfold the Montegues and hit the dirt (or gravel as the case may be.)  The bicycle trail to the Natural Bridge is a little over a mile, an easy uphill jaunt and a short hike up and around a natural stone bridge surrounded by forest and meadows.

Three and a half miles of the Fairy Falls Trail is a gravel road through sweeping meadows and is open to bikes.  The ride is slightly up hill and against the wind. The last few miles are foot traffic only.  We are pleasantly surprised to find a bike rack at the junction where bikes are no longer allowed.  At this point, the trail narrows and winds up through pine forest and over a small creek to finally arrive at the falls. The Falls are pretty; the hiking pleasant, and the return ride with the wind at our backs is fast and fun.

Mid week we plan a hike around the Southern Yellowstone Canyon area.  We park in the Artist’s Point parking lot.  The place is packed with tour busses and tons of tourists.  (Oh… I forgot to mention… the lull immediately after labor day, that we were so pleased about, was short lived and this week the park is full of tour busses and visitors who, like us, thought that this time of year would be less crowded.) After photographing Artist’s Point we head over to the Sublime Point Trailhead. There we recognize a Park Ranger from a hike we did last week.  She invites us hear her talk about bears before proceeding.  We have read the literature and we have bear spray, but it never hurts to have more information so we stick around.  Half way through the dissertation she looks over our heads, excuses herself, and walks a few feet up the trail.  We turn around to see a young male grizzly bear, newly on his own, and approximately three hundred and fifty pounds of wild, ambling across the trail about thirty feet up the hill.  Within a few minutes two Park Rangers armed to the max appear.  They are loaded with guns, ammo and bear spray. They question the first ranger and head up the trailhead after the bear.

We learn that there are two types of Park Rangers, there are the customer service, information, education, warm and fuzzy – rangers; they give the talks and teach the visitors about the park and the wildlife. Then, there are the police, animal control, and public safety, Rangers.  They issue speeding citations, herd bison off the roads, warn visitors when they are getting too close to wildlife and in this case try to teach a young bear that hanging out too close to humans is not a good idea. 

Within a few minutes we hear two loud firecracker type pops and a shotgun blast.  Another PR type Ranger arrives and after speaking with our first Ranger, heads up the trail.  He returns and reports that the Rangers are only “hazing” the bear. They are pelting him with beanbags, setting off firecrackers and discharging the shotgun to encourage him to move on to a less populated location.  A second set of firecracker pops and a shotgun blast reverberates through the forest.  The bear takes off and the trail is temporarily closed, until the Rangers feel sure that the bear has decided not to return to the area. 

Lamar Valley

OK… plan “B”… We head up to the Mt. Washburn Trail.  This is another bike trail.  It climbs from 8,750 to 10,243 feet in 2.5 miles. This one is a bit beyond our comfort zone, so we opt to hike rather than bike up the steep terrain. From this trail we can look down into the Lamar Valley, look across to where the Cygnet fire continues to burn and revel in the vastness of the YNP wilderness.

Palette Spring

The boardwalks around Mammoth Hot Springs are not much of a challenge, the inactive springs are a bit dull and tough to photograph, but the few active springs are lovely.

Yellowstone River

At the end of the week, we check at the Visitor Center and are informed that the Sublime Point Trail has been reopened. They did warn us that the bear had to be hazed two days in a row before he finally left the area and to be alert.  Armed with our bear spay, we head up to Artist’s Point.  The first leg of our hike is along the canyon rim to Point Sublime. We can peer over the edge and see the Yellowstone River way, way, way far down below. The views take our breath away – and the heights make that “funny feeling.”  We then back track and turn off toward the Clear Lake - Ribbon Lake Trail.  This trail takes us through forests, past a serene Lilly pond, through a steam spouting, mud pot boiling thermal area, back into forest past the turquoise spring fed Clear Lake and up over meadows at the east end of the Hayden Valley, where a little mud spot shoots a geyser upon our arrival. There is no sign of the grizzly, (who we call Boo-Boo Bear.)  We continue around past the upper falls where a fairly fresh pinecone laden bear scat sits right off the trail.   We have no way of knowing who left this… but we stay alert.  Our hike continues along the canyon rim past lower falls back to our starting point without any incident.  Of all the hikes so far, this one encompasses all of the features that Yellowstone is famous for and rates amongst our favorites… We hope that Boo-Boo Bear finds a better area to forage during this last month before hibernation for his own safety.

THE ADVENTURES OF DAVE AND DIMPLES VOL 1.15