DENALI TOUR
August 4:
Our blessings continued when we awoke to another glorious, sunny day. We plugged in GPS directions to the Mount McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge and steered toward Denali. We were disappointed about how long it took to get outside of the Anchorage metropolitan area. It reminded me of the drive from Chico to Shasta Lake with all the towns and strip malls along the way. Soon after the last stop light and foothill town, we were surprised and amazed by our first glimpse of Mt. McKinley.
We realized that it could be fleeting since, we were told, only a small percentage of tourists see it unless the weather conditions are just right. But this was different. We kept on seeing the mountain every time the road lined up with it. At a special exit for the southern view we could see it in all its glory. We couldn't get enough pictures. Less than an hour later at the northern view exit, it was hidden in clouds. Maybe our good luck had ended.
Luck also abandoned us when the GPS lady announced that we had arrived at the Mt. McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge, our first scheduled stop for the day. No road signs or sight of anything resembling a lodge. When I signed up for the Denali wilderness tour, I was assured that a bus would pick us up there for the tour. I was skeptical because the lodge was at least 1.5 hours below Denali Park, but I thought I might be wrong. The skeptic in me led me to research that told me to go directly to the bus depot near the visitors center in the park. When we arrived there, an agent laughed and assured us that the bus would pick us up at the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge a few miles up the road. The booking agent had confused the two Princess lodges.
We had arrived plenty early at Denali, so we drove to the Denali National Park Visitors Center where we immediately faced a traffic jam of tourists in cars and RVs taking pictures of a lonely moose munching plants at the entrance, a sort of Yellowstone moment. Barbara managed to snap a photo of the moose's rear. It seemed to enjoy mooning the shutterbugs.
Once we escaped the traffic, we sat down to a beef stew and beer lunch at the visitor's center with a view of the surroundings.
We had time to snap a view pictures and to stroll around the visitors center before driving up the road to the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge.
Later on, we found out that the wilderness tour bus doesn't stop at the visitors center. The Lodge was bulging with hundreds of guests from various cruise lines, especially Princess. The cruise lines had arranged for multitudes of entertainment excursions nearby. A bored cruise line tourist was bad P.R. Throngs of tourists lined the walkways to catch a bus to different venues. We found a veteran concierge who assured us that our tour bus would arrive exactly at a certain time in a certain place. He was right.
Waiting for the tour bus at the right spot
Soon we had boarded the wilderness bus with our tour guide, Justin (from Hersey PA), a veteran of 26 years of wildlife tour guiding. He braked as we entered the unpaved wilderness road for a local ranger to welcome us.
Once on the road, he made lots of disclaimers that we might not see all the wildlife that we had anticipated, but he would use all of his experience to see all that we could. On this trip he was substituting for another guide during a different part of the day than his usual one. As soon as he had finished his disclaimers, he slowed the bus to a crawl and stared in amazement. Slightly up the road were three grizzly bears in a sort of family outing. The daddy bear was leading the way while the mommy bear kept an eye on the baby bear who kept standing up on its rear legs in curiosity of its surroundings. Our guide kept stressing that this was very unusual even in his years of experience. Before the day was done, we had spotted four more grizzly bears, a caribou, a spruce grouse, a golden eagle, another moose, and some mountain sheep. Our guide saved the day with his own high resolution, high zoom video camera hooked up to monitors throughout the bus. Without his equipment, many of the wildlife views would have been too distant to appreciate. It also helped that the weather remained clear and sunny, rare in August.
Wilderness country reserved for wildlife; no cars allowed
camouflaged bird
Distant caribou
As our tour ended, my sinuses became painful and I felt some chills like a fever was coming on. Despite this, we drove to Talkeetna, a tourist town, a few hours south of Denali. It was obvious that the main draw here was the train from all the cruise ships that passed through here on the way to Denali and back. The quintessence of a tourist trap. We found a restaurant off the main drag for a hamburger and a chicken sandwich. Then we were in search of the elusive Mt. McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge. Google Maps was useless, so Barbara tried Waves. Thankfully, it took us there by midnight.
Talkeetna
By now my chills had gotten worse. When we found the lodge, the staff told us that our cabin was in group four but that we needed to park in group five. It was dark and we couldn't make out the numbers on the groups of buildings. Returning to the main lodge, the staff offered no further assistance even when I demanded it. Somehow we found group four by way of a service road designed for a golf cart. We dropped off our bags and searched for parking in group five. All parking spaces taken. We ended up in the group eight parking area and fumbled around in the dark until we found our cabin in group four. As I shivered with chills, I discovered my own version of Alaska survival. But all the chills were worth it for the memories of The Mountain:
Next: Mt. McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge