In A Word, Terrifying

Mile 5131. Denali Grizzly Bear Resort, Denali National Park. 37 days on the road.

One day I think there’s not enough to write a post, not enough photos to share, and the next there is too much. I won’t know until I get to the bottom, but there may be a “to be continued” at the end of this blog. If not, I apologize for the slow rendering of this page caused by all the photos.

Week 5, which ended a few days ago, was not one we wish to repeat. The week started with the severed cable and being homesick and ended in the back woods of Denali in a bit of a pickle and in between, the fires, which came back with a vengeance. 118 in total, from what I read, most started by lightening strikes or flare ups of old long burning unattended fires. We had a few clear blue sky days, enough to tease us into thinking the rest of the trip would be fine, only to drive right back into a big unhealthy carcinogenic fog just south of Fairbanks. In spots, like the North Pole, the smell was like being in a locked room with all 118 fires. 

We are discouraged and I’m starting to feel it in my lungs. Other than to travel roads we haven’t traveled before, our main desire was to see and experience the state’s natural beauty. It’s what we were most looking forward too and something we aren’t able to do right now. Our length of stay and mode of transportation give us options and for awhile we considered altering the itinerary, skipping sections and driving long days to push west to the coast where the fire activity appears to be less. Denali was next on the itinerary, a place we visited many years ago with our best travel buddies, so skipping it and moving onto Anchorage wouldn’t have been the end of the world. But without knowing the conditions ahead we decided just to stick with our original plan and just take each day at a time. From what we’re told only rain can wash away the smoke and cool down the temperatures. We’ve gone from wanting to escape rain (in Jasper) to wanting it desperately to rain. And now it’s raining and already the air feels better. We still can’t see the mountains, but at least now there’s a chance of clearing.

On the last day of week 5 we turned off the highway onto a single lane dirt road. We’d just missed the exit to our Denali campground and were looking for a shortcut. Sometimes highway turnouts and rest area and even streets and businesses where you can turn around are many miles apart. The road appeared on the GPS map, which we trusted, and Mark was hoping it would either loop back to the highway or provide its own area for turnaround. It of course did neither and a few miles later the road ended, at a residence of a woman who owned a small isolated property off the beaten path. There was no sneaking away from this encroachment on her property, not pulling a trailer. And if that wasn’t bad enough her property was not set up in a way that allowed us to easily turn around. Three hours later, after hard work in the hot sun and alot of ingenuity we were out of there. Sorry, but there are no photos for this one because the situation we put ourselves in was pretty serious. I’d just as soon not share the story at all, but you can’t commit to a blog and then omit the ugly parts. What made it serious in my mind, other than trespassing, was all the things that could’ve gone wrong while we were there. I prayed for the success of each new idea and helped where I could because I didn’t want to think about a scenario where we couldn’t get the trailer turned around. A grizzly bear could’ve snuck up on us. You think I exaggerate, but Denali is grizzly bear country and recently there was an incident reported by campers where a grizzly bear chased a baby moose through campsites at a populated Denali campground. The property owner, who ended up being very patient with us, could’ve been a loner with a shot gun. Mark could’ve hurt himself. I could’ve hurt Mark. I’m flying home if this happens again.

So there it is, and now we’re into week 6 and it’s raining as we hoped so we’re off to a good start. 

What do you do when smoke covers the tallest peak in North America? The majestic mountain of Denali and its surrounding peaks and glaciers? You rise above it. And that’s what we did flying a twin engine 9-passenger plane up 12,000 feet to see the peaks of Denali and a little blue sky. Mark would describe the experience as terrifying, especially when the plane hit an air pocket or the pilot swiveled his whole head away from the direction we were headed in to point at something out the side windows. I loved it.

We’ve been trying to recreate our memorable visit from a few years ago, driving out to and hiking the Savage River Loop trail, and the following day taking an 8 hour beautiful but harrowing bus trip 66 miles into the park. This six million acre park is unique in that it has only one road. It is 92 miles long and after mile 15 access is restricted to only park buses and employees. Except for a few rest areas and campgrounds and the Eielson Visitor Center at mile 66 there are no concessions after mile 15 so we had to pack in everything needed for an 8 hour bus trip. You can exit the bus anywhere and hike and backpack and never see another sole for days. The limited number of maintained trails does not limit access to the park. This is very much the scene described in Jon Krakauer’s book (later made into a movie), Into the Wild, the story of Christoper McCandless who, after surviving the winter in the Denali Boroughs in a broken down old bus, died of starvation after discovering the spring melt had made the crossing of the Nenana River, the route back to civilization, impossible. 

The harrowing part of the bus trip was a section of road barely wider than the bus with an avalanche in waiting on the side rising above us and a sheer drop on the other. The bus drivers are trained to navigate these roads with strategies for allowing each other to pass when approaching in opposite directions. But some of the curves are so sharp there seems no possible way of knowing there is another vehicle approaching from the other side. Honking is not allowed because it startles the wildlife. There is a small subsection that is actively sliding, where you can see a lower road below the one on which we’re driving. Mark and I both describeed this experience as terrifying. The storm that was expected to arrive did a few minutes after our arrival at Eielson bringing with it lightening, thunder, rain, and hail. None of us wanted to drive back through that harrowing passage in these conditions, but fortunately it let up before we got there. A funny side note is that it also rained back at camp, where we’d left all our windows and roof vents open as and our chairs and BBQ out. 

Despite the smoke there is still beauty to be found in Denali close to the ground – green vegetation, brilliant Fireweed, and lots of wildlife – caribou, grizzly bear and bear cubs, moose, arctic ground squirrels, a red fox, hares, mew gulls, ptarmigans. Watching a mother bear roll around in the grass with her cub was the highlight by far.

There’s a hotel perched up on a hill outside the park. The owner has a sense of humor as you can see from a few of the road signs below.

Back in Fairbanks (sorry, if the timeline is confusing), trying to avoid the smoke, we visited a wonderful antique car museum where we saw this vehicle, driven by Robert Sheldon in 1913 from Fairbanks to Valdez, a feat some considered impossible, and an ice sculpture museum where Mark had a little fun.