June 3rd, 2010 - Day 3

It is so unexpected when you look at your watch and the time is so much later than you would think. When we got back to our room tonight and thinking it was about 8 o'clock - I said well now what are we going to do? Allan looked at his watch, it was 11 o'clock and still daylight outside!! I'm going to bed! Good Night.

Great music, story telling and humour

Who do you think won the bar maid - this guy! I think he may even have taken he teeth out to play the part!

The fellow on the left (with the hat) was also chosen at random from the crowd - not so good! But that made the scene even more funny!

Now this fellow was picked at random from the crowd - he was a natural and played his part so well!

Following our rest after the Denali Park tour we attended the "Cabin Night Dinner Theatre" What a hoot!

We enjoyed an all you can eat meal served family - style including Alaskan Salmon, BBQ ribs, vegetables, baked beans, biscuits and blueberry cobbler. What a meal! Following dinner we were entertained by a cast of professional actors/actresses as they took on the characters of Fannie Quigley and her friends to portray a true to life Gold Rush tale of adventure in the early 1900's Alaska.

A picture just doesn't put distance in its proper perspective

Here is another photo of our resort - Grande Denali Lodge. At the bottom of this picture you will notice a mirror - the road up to the Lodge is very steep and it zig-zags back and for up the mountain causing several blind corners - a mirror is placed on each corner so drivers can see around the corner.

By the time we got closer to Mt. McKinley this is what happened! She hid behind clouds!!

The Doll's sheep are in small flocks, without the zoom lens they are small white spots on the mountains above the tree line. This is for protective reasons, they can see predators that might be coming toward them.

The Red Fox

Doll's sheep a little further away

A Doll's sheep

We had a packed lunch provided to us on the trip - we were not allowed to eat outside of the bus. They don't want the birds or animals to have food other than what is naturally provided to them in the park.

The scenery is so beautiful - everywhere you look there is another photo opportunity. Oh, and another point of interest - there is a limited number of professional photographers to be given permits to be in the park in a year.

This is known as a braided river - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braided_river for more information on braided rivers

Our tour took us 62 miles into the park one way, we did get to see moose, caribou, wolves, grizzly bears - one walked down the road in front of a bus (going in our opposite direction) very unconcerned that he was holding up traffic. You see, the buses can not pass animals if they are on the road, the drivers have to follow or wait until the animal has decided on his/her own to wonder off into the fields of forested area. No one can do anything to cause undo stress to the animals. We were also fortunate enough to see many birds including the eagle.

Mt. McKinley (previously known as Denali Mountain) in the distance - this mountain is so big it has its own weather pattern. It is the highest mountain peak in North America and the elevation is 20,320 feet above sea level. This picture is taken miles away from it.

This is the parks officer who welcomed us to the park, all vehicles are required to stop at the check point both coming into the park and leaving. There are only 400 vehicles per day allowed into the 6 million acre park. They have strict regulations in place to protect the parkland and the wildlife within it.

The snowshoe hare

Here you see the Willow Ptarmigan

Today we took a bus into the Denali Park - what a day! We managed to see all the animals the parks boasts, except for the lynx! Our tour guide was very knowledgeable, she talked the whole 8 hours and was always telling us something of interest and spotting the various animals, birds and other points of interest. There was a video camera on the bus which she used to zoom in on the subject and it was then displayed on a screen in the bus for everyone to see. If you came without binoculars - no need to worry, she had it under control.

Early morning views from the Lodge on June 3rd

The lodge is located on the Sugarloaf Mountain, the road twists and turns up the mountain, when you come to the lodge you get a panoramic view of the surrounding Denali wilderness and the Nenana River Canyon.

A few pics of the Grande Denali Lodge where we stayed for 2 nights.

June 2nd, 2010 - Day 2 of inland tour

The storm passed and finally the sun came out again - no rainbow to be seen

The storm passed and left behind a bit of fog

more hale

This is the hale that was left from the storm

You can see the storm hanging in the air waiting for its time to show

A beautiful day turned into thunder, lightening, rain and hail. It is very rare to have a thunder storm in this area and we had one tonight.

Now, did anyone think "how stupid!!" We were told prior to our walk about the park to be aware of your surroundings and stay away from the wild animals and why. Well, here are 2 members of our party trying to scare a cow moose and her yearling calf out into the opening so they could get a clear picture! For those of us unfamiliar with the moose and their actions, Momma is going to protect her young by chasing and attacking. Mamma moose must have smelled the green on these men because she ignored them while our tour guide yelled and got them to come away and get back a safe distance with the rest of us.

One lady in our group thought she could walk up to the moose and pet it becaused it was staged - deliberatly put there for us to see close up!

Oh look, no tummys showing!!

a little out of focus but still beautiful!

Beautiful wild flowers, Allan kept loosing me.

We really lucked out on the weather again today

This is Witche's Broom which is a fungus found on the bearberry and spruce trees. It causes the tree to put out shoots of abnormaly dense broomlike growth, then this section of tree dies.

This is moss which grows on Spruce trees, the Caribou eat it in the winter

The wild flowers were beautiful - I didn't get names, sorry!!

When we first arrived at the park we had lunch then met with our tour guide who explained the park to us, the do's and don'ts within the park and what to expect to see.

The train station in Denali - more mounains!!

Denali off in the distance!

As we near Denali we start seeing MOUNTAINS AGAIN!!

There is still snow and ice in Alaska

White Water Rafting is a popular sport. We didn't do this excursion because we decided to go into the Denali Park instead. It is on my bucket list along with tandum skydiving!!

There are no high mountains in this area

The merky water in this river is glacier fed and full of rock silt

Trees here are growning on the permafrost - notice they are small

These telegraph poles spot the county side along the tracks. Years back a company was hired to remove the poles and the wire. The wire was removed (because of its value in copper) and the poles were left. They tell us the government is going to send someone in to removed the poles. It will be sad to see them removed because they mark an important method of communications in the day. I wonder if our Grandchildren know what the telegraph was? We received telegraph messages at the time of our Wedding - I wonder if I still have them??

The Alaskan Railroad runs close to the main highway at this point. We were given Goldstar service on route and they tell me this is the last full-service railroad in the US.

This is the University of Alaska, Fairbanks which holds 9,828 students who come from Alaska, most other states and 52 foreign countries. It originally opened its doors as the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines and in 1935 became the University of Alaska.

This is the menu for our delightful breakfast

We caught the dome train at the train station in Fairbanks - the trip was very similar in confort and service as the Rocky Mountaineer we took from Banff to Vancouver a few short days ago.

This morning we left our comfortable accomodations and caught our tour bus at 7:30 a.m. heading for Denali. If I have not already said so, Sophie Stations staff were super and they have suites which are very comfortable. A must if you are staying more that one night.