THURSDAY, AUGUST 22

THURSDAY,  AUGUST 22:

     Got a later start than we planned.  I had a hard time getting to sleep last night – my one ear kind of ached, and my head felt like a buzz saw was in it, and felt slightly nauseous.  I think all from the plane ride and my inner ear not being quite unplugged.  So anyway, I just couldn’t get going in the morning.  But it really didn’t matter – we just shifted plans slightly.

     Drove into the Park again.  Booked our bus trip for tomorrow.  Chose the Shuttle out to Wonder Lake, rather than one of the “Tour” busses because the shuttles are so much less $$, and you have more flexibility. The tour busses have formal narration by a naturalist/Ranger.  That’s the biggest difference.  But they’re far more expensive, and the shuttles offer you more flexibility, to get on and off when you want.  If we don’t feel that we had a deep enough experience, we can always sign up for a tour bus on another day.

     Then went over to the Visitors Center and poked around the book shop a little while till time for our Ranger-led walk at 1:00.  This was a very easy 1 ½ mile walk on a trail right by the Visitors Center.  The walk itself wasn’t anything extraordinary, but Stephanie’s talk was very well thought-out and cohesive.  You could tell she put a lot of thought into it.  Her theme was duality – how most things, both in the natural world and in human nature,  have both positive and negative characteristics.  She elaborated on that theme when talking of the natural history of the park – e.g., some berries that we found on our walk look beautiful, but are poisonous, and vice-versa. She also used that theme when relating some of the human history of this Park – e.g., how, in his passion to protect & save the wildlife in this area, the first Superintendent alienated the Native Athabascans and others who depended on this land for their livelihoods.  She furthered the theme to illustrate how we’ve since learned to cooperate more –e.g., when the Denali National Park was expanded to triple its size in 1980, the newly acquired lands were open to subsistence hunters, trappers, gatherers.  This is true in almost all of Alaska’s National Parks, unlike other Nat’l Parks in the Lower 48.   She asked us to consider how we think Denali NP is doing in balancing the tension between meeting the needs and desires of those who desire to see this Wilderness Park, and how to indeed keep it wilderness. 

 

Then we caught the bus over to the Dog Sled area near the Visitors Center.  There were about a dozen or so Alaskan Husky dogs we could see and touch.  Each one definitely has his or her own personality! 

 

 

Then a short presentation of why these dogs have such an honored history in Alaska, their training regimen, what a good team consists of,  how they are still used in the Nat’l Park today (e.g., in the winter, they patrol the backcountry, deliver supplies to backcountry ranger cabins, etc.  They go where motor vehicles can’t be used, in keeping with the Park’s wilderness ecology).

 

 

And then a demonstration of a team pulling a sled.  They became so excited as they were being hitched up – happily barking and jumping up and down.  Like Pappy when he knows it’s time for a walk!  

 

Got to take photos afterwards.  

 

 

 

This was similar in ways to what we saw at the Iditarod Museum in Wasilla, except these dogs are absolutely not bred and trained for speed.  They’re trained for steady, reliable work (which they love). 

      Ate up in the grill next to the Visitors Center.  Almost closing time, at 6:00.  And no one there but us.  Couldn’t figure out why, when any other Nat’l Park restaurant would be packed at that hour.  Then I realized – the Denali tourist calendar, like nearly all of the Alaska we’ve seen so far, is dominated by cruise ship traffic.  Most of the cruise ships will add a Denali stay of a night or two as an optional add-on.  One cruise line even has its own big lodge up here.  But . . . either the package contains meals at their own lodge, or the passengers need to be catch the late afternoon train or bus which will take them back to their ship. The hours of concessionaires aren’t much influenced by independent travelers like us!

      I saw a big black bear crossing the path just outside the restaurant. Bill had his back to it, so he didn’t see him.   

      Was a very cool, mostly cloudy day, although some blue patches in the morning.   By the time we went home, was raining, and continued to rain as we went to bed.