Denali to Fairbanks

As we drove up towards Denali National Park on Friday we noticed the temperature was slowly getting colder the further we went north.  When we ate dinner and headed back to our motel it was already into the 20’s.  When we planned this trip we knew we would run into colder weather but we figured maybe low 30’s or high 20’s at night with 50’s during the day.  When we woke up on Saturday morning it was cold.  8 degrees cold.  That’s right, 8 degrees on September 22!  Needless to say there was frost everywhere.  Luckily we brought winter clothes with us.  We just didn’t think we would need them this early in the trip.

We had a nice breakfast at Rose’s Café, which happened to be one of the two places in town open for breakfast (the other being the gas station).  After breakfast we headed back to the park.  

Since we didn’t have any luck the day before with seeing many animals we hoped that first thing in the morning they would be more active.  Even though we had just driven into the park the afternoon before, the light of the morning made for some different views inside of the park.  We especially liked the way the sun shined on the frost covered bushes.  Just like the previous day, we had amazingly clear weather.  Once again you could see the mountains very clearly.  Like the day before we saw very few animals.  The birds seemed a little more active in the morning but the only larger animals we saw were a couple of moose off in the distance.  One of the flag people directing traffic at a construction site said that there had been bears reported earlier in the day but we never saw them.  We even took a side trip down a dirt road outside of the park in hopes of seeing some kind of wildlife.  Despite us not seeing any more animals than we saw the day before, the views were once again stunning. The mix of fall colors with the snow on the mountains made for some unforgettable scenes. 

We had set aside 4 days in our schedule for Denali National Park, mostly because we didn’t know what the weather would be like.  Since we lucked out with the weather the first day we were there we decided to head to Fairbanks a bit early.  After leaving the park we started driving north.  Once again the drive was great.  The views were amazing and there was very little traffic.  We only made one other stop before getting to Fairbanks: at the small town of Nenana.  What drew us (what drew Chris) to the town was a small railroading museum.  Small is a good word to describe it as there was not much on display in the small converted railroad station.  What we found out after stopping is that Nenana is famous for something other than the lightly visited railroading museum, it is also where the Nenana Ice Classic is held.  The Ice Classic is a fundraising event where individuals attempt to guess the exact time (to the minute) that the ice on the Tanana River will break up at Nenana.  The river usually freezes over sometime in October or November and by early April the river ice is at its thickest.  Sometime over the winter a large wooden tripod is placed on the ice connected by a cable to a clock on the shore.  At the exact minute that the ice starts moving, the tripod moves with it and pulls on the cable, stopping the clock.  Whoever guessed that minute wins the prize.  In 2013 the winner correctly guessed that on May 20^th at 2:41 PM the ice would move and as a result the winners won $318,500!!  Inside of the station/rail museum they had books with all of the guesses from past years.  The books of guesses were thicker than a phone book.  Unfortunately for us tickets do not go on sale until February so we will not be winning this year.

We left Nenana and headed to Fairbanks.  When we arrived at this small city of only 32,000 people (back home it would be a large village) and headed straight to the visitor’s center since instead of 1 or 2 days in town we would now have several.  Outside of the visitor’s center there is a cool archway made out of moose and caribou antlers.  Inside of the visitor’s center one of the workers who was supposed to be there to help tried to scare us out of driving up the Dalton Highway in a few days.  She tried to scare us saying we’d need extra gas, 2 spare tires, a satellite phone, etc, etc.  We were not bothered by this.  Instead we thanked her and got a bunch of information on the city and went to our hotel for the night.