Patrick prepared a picnic breakfast for us, we said a little prayer for clear skies, and headed to Denali National Park and Preserve. Two-hundred and fifty miles south of the Arctic Circle, the park covers nearly 10,000 square miles (6 million acres) of wild and primitive Alaska: quiet lakes, snow-capped peaks, flowing glaciers, varicolored tundra, and an abundance of animal and plant life. It is our nation's third-largest national park, best known as the home of the highest peak in North America, the 20,320-foot Mount McKinley. Mount McKinley was known to the early Athabascan Indians as Denali, "the High One," and that's still the name used by most Alaskans. Mount McKinley actually has two peaks: South Peak, which is the true summit, and two miles away, North Peak at 19,740 feet. This monster mountain isn't all alone out here in the wilderness - it is part of the Alaska Range, and the park includes 17,400-foot Mount Foraker, 13,220-foot Silverthorne, and 11,670-foot Mount Russell. Other North American parks have wildlife, but none has animals as visible or diverse as Denali. Other parks have their mountains, but none with a stature so stunning, a summit so towering as Denali.
Our journey begins at the Main Visitor Center, surrounded by the spruce forest, or taiga. The forest was mostly black and white spruce, with a sprinkling of balsam, poplar, white birch and aspen. The forest floor is carpeted with lichens and mosses, along with shrubs such as currant, blueberry, and willows.
We boarded one of the park shuttle buses for the 66-mile ride to the Eielson Visitor Center, in the shadow of "the mountain." Only the first 15 miles of road are paved and that's as far as private vehicles can travel. After that, it's a narrow gravel road with lots of curves and limited to the park buses. The road soon climbs out of the taiga and into the treeless expanse of the tundra. Tundra is a treeless plain that consists of moisture-retaining soils and permanently frozen subsoil. Here the climate approaches that of Siberia and other Arctic regions - only hardy, specialized plant species can survive the frozen, windswept winter of the alpine tundra.
Magnificent vistas open up, wildlife was out and about, and what a grand ride it was. We saw moose, caribou, bears, dall sheep, golden eagle, even a ground squirrel.
The idea for Denali Park began as a way to protect the Dall sheep from over-hunting, and today there are about 2,500 sheep in and around the park. They eat low-growing alpine plants year-round.
About 2,000 moose roam around Denali. They like water vegetation as well as willow leaves. In winter, they leat leafless twigs and branches.
There are about 70 breeding pairs of golden eagles in Denali. They nest and summer here, but spend the winter in (slightly) warmer climates, in the lower 48.
The park's 2,000 caribou roam in small groups. They graze in open fields and tundra, sometimes moving to higher elevations to escape the bugs that torment them. Bulls weigh up to 400 pounds. Both male and female caribou have horns (the only member of the deer family in which this occurs).
In the Park, there are about 350 Grizzly bears, weighing up to 600 pounds. They eat roots, berries, bulbs, and fresh vegetation. Bear cubs stay with their mother for two years; for the females, it's usually three years between litters.
Sadly for us, the Eielson Visitor Center was the end of the road. Happily for us, the clouds parted and we had a pretty nice view of Mount McKinley - Denali. Look hard - you can see the North and South Peaks high up in the clouds - nearly four miles UP. This slope has been a favorite viewpoint for years, but this is a relatively new visitor center - built into the tundra slopes, with the roof serving as observation deck.
Leaving the park, we checked out a beaver pond before heading east on the Denali Highway. This rough, dusty, gravel road is open only in summer; it used to be the only access road to Denali Park before the opening of the Parks Highway. The Denali Highway follows along the south side of the Alasaka Range, following a traditional migration route of early peoples in Alaska.
Just outside Denali Park, the highway begins at Cantwell and travels east for about 135 miles through high tundra country. It offers views of the high tundra and the Alaska Range to the north. We stopped for a hike to see glacial lakes and rivers fed by Susitna Glacier, far up in the Alaska Range.
Further out, there are views of the Nenana River valley, where the steel-blue river, its banks and islands edged with spruce, wanders among green fields. About 35 miles west of Paxson, the road crosses MacLaren Summit (4086 feet), the highest pass for cars anywhere in Alaska. Here the land almost meets the sky, interrupted only by the low profile of the Alaska Range to the north.
Here, too, at Mile Marker 82, is Gracious House, the home of Butch and Carol - proprietors of a gas station, air taxi service, and the Sluice Box Bar - a little taste of "real" Alaska. We had an interesting visit with natives Butch and Carol - over a cold drink, they entertained and amazed us with tales of their 40 years living here - 260 miles from the nearest grocery store.
Near the middle of nowhere, the Tangle Lakes Archaeological District was set aside to protect more than 600 archaeological sites with artifacts ranging from pit-houses to handmade stone tools. Trails in the area have been used by people since the Ice Age. Athabascan hunters traveled these paths seeking caribou and miners later used the same trails to explore gold claims. The area has been inhabited for over 10,000 years and contains some of the earliest and most continuous evidence of human occupation in North America.
A common plant of the tundra is Arctic Cotton, which - as you can see - looks at lot like cotton, The native peoples used it for insulation to help keep warm in the long winters.
Finally, we made it to our destination - the Tangle River Inn, a unique and very Alaskan lodge, said to be the finest rooms available along this highway. Pretty scary thought - our cabin was the Mallard's Nest (pretty basic accommodations, at best).
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