While in Alaska

Denali Et Al.

// July 29th, 2010 // 2010: Adventuring

I have neglected my blogging responsibilities of late, to say the least. However, it’s never too late to redeem myself and return to good standing in the blogosphere.

For the 4th of July, I road 15 miles up to Wiseman for their annual Independence Day celebration. It was a very rainy ride. Consequently, the turnout was very weak. I ditched the bike and found a ride back to Coldfoot as soon as I could.

Kevin, Cory, Caroline, and I headed to Denali National State Park on the 21st. We flew from Coldfoot to Fairbanks and then rented a car in Fairbanks. We rented a wreck (Chevy Impala) from Rent A Wreck. The name of the company didn’t really instill confidence in me. Regardless, we took our Impala down to Denali where we drove 30 miles into the park to the Teklanika Campground, where we tented out for 3 days. Normally, park visitors aren’t allowed to drive into the park with private vehicles but we had a pass that allowed us to drive to our campground. From there, there were buses that regularly shuttled park patrons to the end of the park road. We took the bus down to Wonder Lake. On the way, we saw an incredible amount of wildlife; bears playing, herds of caribou, wolves, moose, dall sheep and the occasional ground squirrel.

(Blake Turley)
We were very fortunate to have seen these two grizzly bears playing just a matter of yards away from a herd of caribou. On the other side of the road, we could see a herd of dall sheep. It was really a spectacular sight.

(Blake Turley)
We saw wolves on a couple of occasions. This wolf in this picture was wearing a collar. There’s controversial research going on in the park to track the alpha male in each pack.

It was a rainy stay in Teklanika but we kept dry enough to enjoy the park. It was surprising to me how many blueblocker-wielding old couples occupied the park with their annoyingly large RVs. On the bus tour, these same couples regularly alerted the bus driver of wildlife or what they thought to be wildlife. All of a sudden we would hear a loud STOP THE BUS!, ” I think I might see a moose.” More times than not, it turned out to be a rock in the distance. These stops extended the bus tour into a 10 hour voyage.

(Blake Turley)
Only 1/3 of visitors to Denali National Park are fortunate enough to get a view of Mt. McKinley. This was our view of the mountain.

After 5 days of “vacation” from Coldfoot, we returned to more accommodating tents with beds and pillows and floors! This last week, I have been hard at work trying to finish my VISA application. I flew down to Fairbanks and then took an ERA flight from there to Anchorage where I had an appointment at the US Immigration Office. The appointment consisted of a photo and fingerprints and lasted about 10 minutes. I flew back to Fairbanks where I hung out with a Couchsurfer (http://couchsurfing.org). He had a little cabin party with other locals. It just so happens that he is also heading to the UK in the fall to the University of Lancaster.

I put all my VISA docs together and had everything sent down to Fairbanks with a guide who was kind enough to drop everything of at UPS for me. It’s finally out of my hands! Now, it’s just the waiting game.