North to Alaska VII

The last time around I left us on the train to Talkeetna AK. Talkeetna is a small town with a year-round population of about 800. It's a popular tourist destination and it's other claims to fame are as a jumping-off point for expeditions setting out to climb Denali (Mt. McKinley) and as the town which was the inspiration for the quirky little Alaska town in the 90's TV show "Northern Exposure". That show was filmed in Washington State, but having been an occasional viewer of the show and having seen Talkeetna, I can see where they captured the atmosphere of the town pretty well, including the community radio station. Well, we pulled into the Talkeetna RR station and our faithful bus and driver were waiting for us. The next stop was our hotel: the Talkeetna Alaska Lodge.

It was a very nice hotel with two restaurants and a huge wood-burning fireplace in the main lobby. But it's main claim to fame is that from the patio in the back of the lobby, you can see all the way to the Alaska Range and, weather permitting, get an excellent view of Denali itself. Well, the weather only permits on the average 60 days out of any given year.

Here is a picture I found of Denali from the Lodge on a perfect day

Here is the view we saw. If you look hard, you can sort of see a bit of the mountain poking through the clouds above the dark, saddle-shaped mountain in the center.

That evening, we took a shuttle bus into the booming metropolis of Talkeetna in the pouring rain. We ended up at what I would consider the ultimate Alaska wilderness dive - a bar and restaurant called the "West Rib". We loved it. Contrary to what you might expect from the name, they did not serve ribs of any kind. The name refers to an approach route to Denali used by many climbers. What they did serve was an amazingly good seafood platter of salmon, halibut and Dungeness crab. I also tried an ale called "Ice Axe" which was around 9% alcohol. It tasted like regular ale with a shot of vodka in it. After one, I switched to Alaska Amber.

Michelle and her sister in the "West Rib"

The next day, we pretty much had to whole day to kill in Talkeetna before our train left in mid-afternoon to take us to Anchorage and the end of the trip. We went back into town and ate breakfast at a place called "The Roadhouse" which is a restaurant and bakery. Their breakfasts are so huge we were advised to order a half portion which was plenty big enough even for my appetite. Afterwards, we wandered up and down Talkeetna's two block long main street and checked out the various gift shops and galleries. There were some nice but expensive things; however, nothing jumped out and said "buy me". In the end, Michelle found a neat miniature mask in the hotel gift shop of all places. It is by a Native American artist and depicts a wolf with its prey in its jaws.

Main Street Talkeetna with the "West Rib". The "Roadhouse" is down the street to the right.

Eventually, we returned to the hotel and hung out in the lobby until it was time to get on our bus and go to the train station. It was during this time that we got the (very) partial view of Denali from the back patio.

We got on the train and headed for Anchorage. Dinner was served on the train and we saw some more scenery and eventually we wound up at our last hotel, the Marriott in Anchorage. The next day we were up at Oh dark hundred to catch our flight home via Seattle.

Well folks, that concludes the story of our Alaska adventure. I'm sure I left a lot out, but that will be stuff to bore family and friends with. Generally speaking, I would say that the cruise/land tour is the best way for the average person to see Alaska. My only recommendation would be that anyone who does this reverse the order. That is, arrange to do the Alaska interior land tour first, and then get on the ship in Seward and cruise to Vancouver. The trip can be booked this way and has the advantage that after the fairly hectic schedule of the land tour, you can look forward to the relatively relaxing cruise portion. Other recommendations (some of these are based on an earlier cruise-only trip we took): try to make it to a Dungeness crab dinner, gold-panning is fun, the WP&Y railroad is great, whale watching is very enjoyable, if your ship happens to go to Sitka (this trip didn't) there's a wonderful raptor rescue center there with close-up views of bald eagles. Also, see Denali Park, don't miss river rafting, and be sure your tour takes the riverboat in Fairbanks. Oh, and if you like beer, don't miss the Alaska Amber.

North to Alaska VI

After a bus ride of several hours, we arrived at the gates of the Denali National Park and Preserve. Denali is the Native name for the tallest mountain in North America also known as Mt. McKinley. The bus dropped us off at our hotel: The Grand Denali Lodge. It is located on top of a mountain near the Park entrance and there was a spectacular view from our room. After a few minutes to freshen up, we were off to our whitewater rafting adventure on the nearby Nenana river.

The view from our room. The river is the Nenana where we went rafting

A bus from the rafting company picked us up at our hotel and took us to their base on the Nenana river. There we were all fitted with "dry suits". These are tight fitting rubber suits which are water tight and keep one from getting wet if you should fall into the river's icy, glacial fed, thirty-five degree water. We also had to don life vests. They then herded us onto a school bus and drove us to the put-in point some thirteen miles upriver from their base. There they divided us into groups of eight or nine to a raft. Each raft was piloted by an experienced river guide who steered us with a pair of oars from a middle seat - in our case this person was a young woman who despite her youth was quite experienced and had even done raft guiding in New Zealand. Our job was simply to hold on and enjoy the trip.

I should point out that the raft trip we took was one of two possible routes. Ours was considered more of a scenic wilderness trip and less of a thrill ride in that we only experienced a few class II and one or two class III rapids (rapids go from class I to class VI with VI being the most dangerous). The other route had more of the class III rapids. However, our guide told us that ours was by far the more scenic route. I think she was probably right. Other than the other rafts, we saw no other humans or signs of humanity during nearly the entire 13 mile trip on the Nenana. It was only as we came to the end that we saw some houses along the banks. The scenery and the atmosphere was really amazing, the rapids we did shoot were a lot of fun (those suits proved their usefulness) and while it rained a little bit during the trip (who cared? Rubber suits!) it was enough to create a beautiful double rainbow which we haven't seen since we were in Hawai'i. The only bad thing is that we were not permitted to bring any cameras unless they were waterproof - so unfortunately no pictures of this trip.

Here is a picture from the Web of the area we rafted on the Nenana

By the way, the raft trip (including preparation) started at six o'clock in the evening and ended around nine forty-five - and it was still broad daylight. The sun only sets for a couple of hours a night in that part of Alaska in the summer! After the raft company took us back to our hotel, we ate a late dinner and off to bed.

The next day, we were picked up by a U.S. Parks Service bus for our Denali Park tour. The Parks service decided some years ago to ban all private vehicles from most of Denali Park in order to preserve the integrity of the eco-system. The only way to see the park by road is on the Park Service bus tours. The drivers are all park rangers and qualified naturalists, so this is probably as good a tour as you would get in any case.

The bus took us to the visitors' center at the park entrance where we watched a short film on the history of the park - and more importantly scored some coffee and bagels for breakfast at the snack bar. Then we headed off down the park road. The park was very beautiful with mountains, tundra, and taiga (taiga is a sub-arctic forest made up mostly of evergreens with some broadleaf trees). Unfortunately, we did not see much in the way of wildlife - just a couple of caribou too far away to photograph, some snowshoe hares, and some wild sheep which were pretty much just moving white dots high up on a mountain. The bus driver/naturalist said this was pretty much par for the course - seeing wildlife was a luck of the draw sort of thing.

The Savage River in Denali Park

Eventually, the bus tour wound up at the Alaska Railroad terminal in Denali Park, where we boarded a rail coach for the next leg of our trip. I found it interesting that the cruise companies have their own private rail cars for their land based tours. They are coupled on to regularly scheduled Alaska Railroad passenger trains traveling on the line between Fairbanks and Anchorage. The RCL coach was quite nice. It was two levels with the top having a full length vista dome and the lower level being a dining car and kitchen facility. On the day we left Denali bound southward to the town of Talkeetna we ate lunch on board and it was quite good. While we spent most of our time up top in the dome where the view was unobstructed, the dining deck had large picture windows so that even while eating we did not miss much of the spectacular scenery. The train also had an on-board tour guide who told us what we were looking at and answered questions.

A view of our train from our private coach. The other cars you see are regular Alaska Railroad passenger cars

Eventually, our train pulled into the town of Talkeetna AK where we were to spend the night. More on that next time.

Next: Talkeetna, a classic Alaskan gin-mill, and the elusive Mt. McKinley.