Post #4: Denali

<FYI – All the posts prior to this one were composed by Dan (with a few small edits based on info from others). This post is also primarily Dan’s work, with the italicized text in this post representing Nina’s contribution. We hope to have fuller contributions from others soon.>

Although I’ve labeled this “Post #4,” it’s out of sequence of our trip. Rather than be constantly looking way back, I’m jumping ahead to what we’re doing now (or rather, what we’ve done in the past few days). I hope to get the blog caught up eventually with posts from the rest of the cruise.

We finished our 14-person journey on Sunday, 8/11, in Seward, and went in four different directions.

* Becky and family were picked up at the dock by Charley’s sister, Emmy, and her son, Casey, and they all went on to Homer, where Emmy and family (including husband Ted and daughter Elsa) have lived for quite a few years.

* The rest of us took transportation to Anchorage (which included a stop at a wildlife center that cares for injured animals). From Anchorage:

—Six people (Ben and his family, and Tamar and her two boys) went home to the Bay Area on a late afternoon flight to SFO.

—Joe and daughter Shoshana took a redeye to the east coast, where they will do some college visits (Shosh is starting her senior year of high school), and also do some kind of puzzle contest adventure.

—Nina and I stayed in Anchorage two nights, and then took the train Tuesday morning to Denali, from which we’ve just returned to Anchorage. We drive to Homer tomorrow and will rendezvous with the others there.

So — about Denali (once known as Mt. McKinley, for no good reason):

We arrived Tuesday evening, checked in at our hotel

and went for a wonderful walk that took us down to the Nenana River, (Because of its Nana-Nina like name, I tried to get shot of one of the signs for the river – we crossed it in buses many times – but never got a coherent photo.) Here are shots of each of us down by the river:

Along the way, we came across this piling up of rocks, built into a retaining wall of the road above, that went on for about 100 feet.

On Wednesday morning, we set out by bus with about 36 others on a full-day Tundra Wilderness Tour, with a wonderful guide/driver, named Bill, who was initially a wildlife photographer and has been working in the park for at least 30 years.

The bad news from the tour: It was too overcast for us to see the majestic mountain, 20,000+ feet high. (Our tour itself was generally at about 4000 feet.)

The good news: We saw lots of wildlife: moose, caribou, bears, and dall sheep (which are the “signature animals” of Denali), as well as lots of birds (including – this is for Josh and Barbara – ptarmigan).

The bus was equipped with screens that were connected to the driver’s powerful camera, so even when we couldn’t see the wildlife clearly directly, we could see the animals close-up on the screen via his camera, and then could take photos of the screen. I’ve included one such shot.

One special sighting was of a brown bear scurrying down a hillside, maybe 500 feet away. (Some very sharp-eyed passengers, with powerful binoculars, would shout “stop” whenever they saw something.) The bear got to the bottom of the hillside, and proceeded through the brush toward us, and eventually crossed the road right behind our bus. Unfortunately, we were at the front of the bus, and he was hidden in brush just before he reached us, so we didn’t get a close-up photo.

Here are some of our best photos from the bus tour, including a few wonderful vistas (but, as I said, not Denali itself).

This shot, as you might notice, is of the in-bus screen. That’s a caribou.

Here’s a moose (which has the recognizable hump, and a more elongated head than a caribou):

Another caribou, partly hidden (but you can see the antlers):

Dan, on a hillside off the side of the road:

And two vistas:

Climate Change in Alaska:

Alaska is the canary in the coalmine for global warming.  Permafrost, which starts around 5 feet under tundra and can extend down for 50 feet, is melting at a rapid rate. Communities are losing usable land. Roads and buildings are buckling under the strain of the melting permafrost.

Shorelines are changing. Warmer water temperatures disrupt the fish that feed species like salmon and seals, which in turn disrupts the economics of entire fishing communities and the economic viability of the industry and way of life. The problem is everywhere you turn here.

Our last evening in Denali:

Wednesday evening, we went to a slightly hokey musical show, including dinner, with songs and stories about Alaska. We were greeted at the door by one of the performers doing a dramatic reading of Robert Service’s “The Cremation of Sam McGee” (which I probably last encountered in 7th grade or so). It’s one of my all-time faves. The young actors also waited on tables for a family-style meal (delicious and efficiently served), had some beautiful voices and several with real acting chops.