Denali

On Friday we started our journey north toward Denali National Park.  The weather forecast was for another beautiful day which is unusual because we read Anchorage averages only 4 fully sunny days and 5 days of partly sunny weather during the month of  September.  We would now have two days in a row of fully sunny weather!  We also read that only 30% of the visitors to Denali National Park actually see the mountain (Mt. McKinley) so we knew we were in for a treat.  We later found out that for 47 days in a row before we arrived the mountain was not visible at all!

We ate a quick breakfast and headed north out of Anchorage.  Before too long we stopped off at an Orthodox cathedral in Eagle River, AK.  We read about this cathedral in our Milepost book, which is a book detailing just about everything from dirt pull-offs along the side of the road to attractions along every mile of every highway in Alaska (the Bible of Alaska driving).  The book has proven to be very useful and is an absolute must for anyone driving in the state.  The book described the cathedral as a unique geodesic-dome cathedral with birch ceilings.  We thought this sounded pretty cool so we detoured slightly to check it out.  The ceiling of the cathedral as advertised, did turn out to be really beautiful and we were glad we checked it out.

Once we got back on the road we made another stop in Wasilla, AK.  The night before in a liquor store we saw some local vodka that was infused with smoked salmon.  We did not try it but instead we noted that it was made at the Alaska Distillery in Wasilla.  Since it was on our way we decided to stop in.  The distillery was down a dirt road pretty much in the middle of nowhere.  When we got there we were confused as to where the distillery actually was because there wasn’t much out there besides an airstrip, a couple of houses and a warehouse that looked closed.  We found out that the warehouse was actually the distillery but they didn’t offer tours.  In fact, the place was closed.  So we struck out on sampling the smoked salmon infused vodka.  We will likely end up buying a bottle before we return home though.

We got back on the road heading north.  Every single turn exposed another amazing view of the mountains and of Mt. McKinley in the distance.  Mt. McKinley, also known as Denali, is the highest mountain in North America at 20,320 feet tall.  It sits inside of Denali National Park, a park that is bigger than the state of Massachusetts.  The mountain is big enough to be seen from Anchorage on clear days, which is a 4-5 hour drive.  We kind of took our time driving, stopping off at several rest areas and pull offs on the way up to look in awe at some of the scenery.

We saw a couple of Roadside America attractions as well on the way up: first we saw the Batmobile (not the real one but a poorly done replica) and we also saw a giant igloo, which by the way is for sale! 

We started getting a little closer and realized we had a problem: we had no place to stay for the night.  Before the trip started we figured we would wing it when we were around the National Park.  The only thing we did not count on was the fact that most places were now closed for the season.  We miraculously got cell phone service at one point on our drive (2 bars) so we decided to take advantage of that and try and make a reservation someplace.  The first place we called answered the phone but informed us that they had closed for the season and that there were only 2 places in town that stayed open all year.  That kind of narrowed down where we would be staying.  We called the first of those two places and they had rooms, so we made a reservation.

We were now about 50 miles from the park entrance.  Given the clear day we decided that we should probably drive into the park just in case we had poor weather the next day.  So when we reached the park entrance we went in and started driving down the park road.  There is only one road in the park.  It runs 90 miles to a dead end.  After the first 10 miles or so it is a dirt road but is very scenic with lots of chances to see animals.  In the summer private vehicles are not allowed very far in to the park. They want you to use their shuttle service.  There are buses running every few minutes all day long for the whole length of the road into the park.  In the off-season, however, private vehicles are allowed to drive all the way to the end of the road.  The only problem is that the end of the road is 30 miles in during the off-season.  Once the snow starts falling the end of the road is reduced, depending on how much snow they get.   We were still able to drive 30 miles in and our goal was to see bears and moose, maybe some mountain goats.  Really we would take whatever we could get.  We drove all the way to the end and we only saw a pair of moose and maybe a bird or two.  We turned around, taking our time, looking for anything that moved but all we got were great views.  Maybe the sunlight scared them off?

We left the park after about 2 ½ hours and before heading to our motel we went for dinner.  We ate at one of the two places that were still open for the year: the 49^th State Brewery.  The place was certainly lively and the food was pretty good.  We got a couple of really big burgers and some great local beers.  On the property they had the bus used in the movie Into the Wild.  We checked out the bus before leaving.  We learned that this was not the actual bus that the kid lived in but just the movie version.  The actual bus was nearby however, but it would require a long walk into the Alaska wilderness to get to.  We settled for the movie version.

We finally arrived at our motel and pretty much went to sleep right away after our long day.