Fairbanks and the Northern Lights

Fairbanks and the Northern Lights

Leaving Denali we quickly left civilization and cell service behind.  Hence the delay in posts.  September 1rst is the first day of hunting season here and the hunters were piling into every pullout to prepare for moose and caribou season.  They had every type of ATV we had ever seen and a few we had never seen, such as a tracked amphibious vehicle with a tracked tow behind.  The owner of this unit was heading out for 10 days of hunting and had this thing packed to the windows.



Glacier between Denali and Fairbanks

We hit Fairbanks late and restocked at the Fred Meyers store.  If ever in Alaska stop by one of these places.  It is a cross between a Walmart Super-Center and a shopping mall.  We would have enjoyed the shopping experience, but we were so tired.  The night before consisted of very little sleep and that day we were up at the crack of dawn to hike out of Denali, catch the bus for a 35 mile ride, pack up and drive 4 hours to Fairbanks.

A blog I have been visiting is called Travel with the Wynn’s and has some very good tips on RV traveling almost anywhere.  The have a blog about their trip to catch the northern lights and mentioned a camp site at mile 47-48 on the Chena Hot Springs Highway that was perfect in terms of openness and away from city lights so to see the Aurora Borealis.  It’s a long dark road at night, but we finally found a lake side camp site at this location with no one there.  We sat up camp and kept looking to the skies.

11:00 We really didn’t know what to look for, but the sky was absolutely clear.  We saw this strange band of white color which stretched form horizon to horizon.  You could see stars through it, but it did not move.  It was cold, so we went back in.

11:30  We looked out again, same band with no movement.

12:00 Kevin looked out.  “Bill, get out here”.  The sky was going kind of crazy.  The band was still there, but there were green lights on the horizon to the west that would make circles, long stretches of light that would suddenly have pieces of light start to drop towards earth.  Light would form figure 8s and stretch and twist. On the horizon were brighter green lights and what appeared to be an intense display, but over us it was mainly kind of a wispy green and white.  The original band pretty much stayed out the whole time without changing, except that at the end of the show, it would move as a line east and west.  I tried to photograph some of the lights, but it was a difficult thing to do, especially with the weak colors we were seeing

Our best Aurora photo -  Good Job Kevin

For about an hour we watched quite a show.  It finally faded out and we hit the bed hard till about 7:00 am the next day..  This was another bucket list item both Kevin and I wanted to see.  I’m kind of glad the colors were weak, that way when we take our wives on a winter Borealis trip, we can experience a vivid light show together.

Back to Fairbanks to visit REI and wash laundry.  We were down to the clothes on our backs and ready for some fresh smells.

When at the North Pole, you talk with Santa

On our way out of town, heading toward the Wrangle St. Elias Mountains, we stopped in the town of North Pole, Alaska.  After a short visit with Santa, and a kiss from Mrs. Santa, we headed out. 

I think I'm on the Naughty List

About 8:00 we stopped at a pullout on Highway 4 between Paxson and Glennallen, on our way to Wrangle St. Alias National Park.  We were about 500 feet above a chain of lakes facing west in one of the most gorgeous camping areas in Alaska.   One of the coolest things about Alaska is that you can pull over almost anywhere and camp.  Our “free” campsites so far have consisted of a park in Talkeetna, a lakeside site to see the northern lights, and now a view extending 10 miles to the north, west, and south.

 Prepare for a long post on McCarthy-Kennicott coming soon.

 

 

 

Northern lights campsite

 

Mullis catching grayling on every cast

 

Campsite on Highway 4

Denali - Part II

DENALI  - PART II

The Wild Side

We have a perfectly good 27' motorhome with thermostat controlled heat and very soft beds.  So Kevin said, “Let’s park the RV for the night, load up all of our clothes on our backs, all the food we have left, 7 pounds of water, and spend the night with bears in the back country?”  OK



Kevin has a bucket list of items the he wants to accomplish.  One of which consists of camping in the wilds of Denali and waking up with snow covered mountains outside the tent.  Being the great friend and relative that I am, I said “Are you freaking crazy, I don't have a real pack, I don’t have a sleeping bag, and on and on was my complaint.  We are not going camping”.  In reality we had been planning this for months and hoping that the stars would align and this would work out.  Boy did it ever.





Bear Box and Pack

We stopped at the backcountry ranger station to get a camping permit.  Part of the process is watching a 30 minute safety video on crossing streams, setting up camp, and wildlife encounters.  The bears are so prevalent that the rangers give you a bear box to put all of your food in and anything else that smells, such as toothpaste and hand sanitizer.  These are round plastic containers that look like small kegs with lockable lids. We then had to select a location of the park to camp based on the nights of stay and number of slots available.  In order to keep the park wild, and to protect it from overuse, they only allow so many people to camp within certain areas.  We were able to get Section 13.  It was like winning the camping lottery for us.  This area is just below the Eilson Visitor Center and is the main part of the Park, for fantastic Denali views.  Every tour bus stops here for about 30 minutes for people to eat and stare at the mountain.  For a limited number of visitors, the clouds break and the mountain shows her beauty.

 



We checked in with the Camp Host, who graciously allowed us to leave the camper set up in our spot at Teklanika for one more day, at no charge, while we had an adventure.  Kevin and I both talked about all those bears we saw over the last two days and the weather forecast was 39° for Thursday morning, and ………………(In reality, it is important to note that it is a rare event for a violent bear encounter in Denali thanks to a very successful wildlife management program and aggressive wildlife encounter training, which was lucky for us).

Heading off for the night from Eilson

The day started with a hike down a steep hill from Eilson (in Florida we would call that a mountain, it is about 600 vertical feet and about 1 mile long) to get to the riverbed below.  At the base of the trail



Look at red titles for Visitor Center and Trail

is rock monument where hikers place a rock on it as you start for good luck (it also helps you find the trail out when you are leaving).  From here, it was about a 4 mile hike to our camping area.  The trip over was uneventful till we hit the river. 

Braided Stream

We were walking across a mile wide braided stream toward our camping area on the banks of Glacier Crystal Creek.  We picked this location since it would face Denali when we awoke, refreshed the next day (not).  The braided stream is not a simple stream, it is created by the glacier as it melts in the Summer.  Due to the sediment load, the streams meander across a wide river bed and drops out rocks in sizes from pebbles to boulders, depending on the flow of the day.  It is not like walking across a gravel bed.  It’s like walking across the floor and someone rolls marbles and bowling balls in front of you, and you have to constantly look at your feet to keep from tripping on balls, or in our case boulders, to rocks, to gravel (all mixed up).

 

All that to say because we were walking toward the river with roar of the water in our ears (you can’t hear), your eyes are staring at your feet (can’t see), and Kevin yelled “Stop!” and I yelled “What?” and looked up and there were 3 caribou (aka Reindeer) heading right toward us.  All of our yelling must have scared them, since they stopped short of us, shifted direction, and ran off .  At about 40 yards off, it did startle us, but I guess they look at their feet too, since it scared the scat out of them when we yelled.

Young Female Caribou



Hey Bear Bear!!!!!!!!!.  We first tried to camp on that ridge. No way.

 

Remember the river?  We had to cross it to get to our campsite. No way around it.  About 20’ at its narrowest that we could find.  We looked north and found thick mud.  We looked south, more streams joined the main river making it even bigger. 

• Option 1: Wade through and get your feet and shoes wet.  Not good, remember the forecast.
• Option 2: Roll up your pants, take off shoes and socks, and wade through ice cold (glacier runoff) water to your knees, and wade across rocks barefoot, to cross.  Only option we could take.  One problem, my pants legs won’t roll high enough.  No problem, take your pants off. No Pictures.

 

When camping in the park you use the 100 yard triangle rule for eating, food storage, and sleeping. Each must be separated and shouldn’t be in a line.  Well, we were in a river valley with a roaring glacial outwash and our separation had to be linear.  So we ate supper (PBJ/TM/Bark) ,moved  100 yards, stored food in Bear Barrel, another 100 oh, 200 to be safe and pitched camp.

We ended up camping beside Glacier Crystal Creek on top of some soft moss and grass.  We were near a path by the creek, and slightly out of an animal path.  We only saw an old scat pile and only a few mom and cub prints a ways up the creek.  Setting up the tent and waiting for the sun to go down so we can get to sleep.   The last thing we saw outside was sunset on the Denali.

It is so cold and the wind starts blowing.  Finally a gust of wind rattled the tent flap and I about died.  I knew it was a bear and the Rangers didn't never told us what to do in case of bear attack in tent.  Kevin LOL’d till he APIHPs. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Morning with Denali

We got about 4 hours sleep with no more scares.  Daylight is about 6:30 and we were up breaking camp and getting ready for a 3 ½ hour hike and stream crossing back to Eilson for bus pickup. We start out and begin walking down the creek back to the braided stream.  Kevin takes the lead and we are both yelling “Hey Bear” and jingling our belt bells.  It sounds funny to yell “Hey Bear” when you are safe in your house, or safe on a park bus, but after seeing all those bears, you know they can be anywhere and you don’t want to startle one.   Kevin said in this strange voice “Bill! Bear!!”.  I glance up from my feet and look straight ahead and about 30 yards away stands a boar grizzly looking straight at us.  He is on all fours and trying to figure out what we are. 

Remember our friends Tamir and Maya? They encountered a bear in their days in the back country.  Maya told us that they came up on a bear only meters away and they started shouting and waving to shoo the bear away.  I asked her if she took a picture.  She stared at me like I was crazy and said in her Israeli accent, “When a bear is that close to you, you only want to survive”. 

Back to our current situation, we look at each other like and say “Oh _____”  (place your expletive here).  Bear is looking, we are supposed to be yelling and make ourselves big.  Our survival instinct told us to be quiet and don’t move.  It is true battle going on inside of you.  Training takes over and we wave our arms and start yelling softly “hehhhhhh bearrrrr”.  This technique truly works.  The bear turned, our voices got louder, and the bear slowwwwwwly walked away.  He walked into the thicker saplings at the edge of the wash, and we lost site of him.  With fear and trembling we waited about 10 minutes and slowly walked toward where we saw the bear exit in order to get out of the glacial valley.  A few yards ahead and near the river, we came upon a pile of fresh grizzly scat filled with twenty thousand berry seeds of all types.  We know this because the bus driver stated that a study was done to determine how many berries a day a bear could eat (wild cranberries, blue berries, and others).  Some lucky scientist followed a bear all day and found that during berry season a bear poops 10 times a day and each pile has 20,000 seeds.  Do the math, that’s a lot of berries.  This gorging is to put on weight in preparation for a long winter of hibernation.  We were walking in his path and if we had been 5 minutes ahead of schedule we might have met him head on.  Thanks to the family for prayers of safety and guardian angels.



Berry Bear Scat

On the trip back we encountered three small groups of male caribou either eating berries on the hill or heading north for the mating season and wintering north of the Alaskan Range.  Seven total, including one with red antlers, just out of velvet.

Finally back to the monument and trekked up the 600 foot switchback trail back to Eilson Visitor Center.  Here we ate our last food and scheduled a bus to take us back to the campground.  Two quick showers later, we store our gear and head north out of the park to Fairbanks to try our luck at catching the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis). 

Caribou recently in velvet - red antlers.

Migrating Caribou

Our Greeter back at Eilson

Good bye Denali

Denali- Part I

 

 IN DENALI- PART I

The Tame Adventure

 

Denali Day One

It’s a little bit rainy and overcast today as we head for Denali up the Parks Highway.  We get to see a few glimpses of mountains, but generally not much.  We fuel up prior to going in since once we get past the gate, there is no turning around. 

We checked into the Ranger Station on the way in to attempt to check off one of Kevin’s Bucket List items, to spend the night in the back country in a tent and wake up to the Mountain  filling the door of the tent.  The Rangers said it was doable and issued us a backcountry permit for Area 13, which is in a perfect location at Eilson, facing Denali.  We had to watch a 30 minute about crossing streams, safe camping, and of course animal encounters.  After this, we collected our bear proof food container and bolted for the road.

Our plan is to spend three nights at Teklanika Campground located 29 miles into the Park and now one extra night backcountry camping right in front of the mountain.  Denali Park is basically one long road which travels into the heart of the park.  You can only drive your vehicle a few miles unless you are camping in one of the parks campgrounds.  To see the park you have to buy a bus ticket, which will take you all the way to Wonder Lake Campground.  We were a little concerned about our fate here when all we saw coming into the park was an owl, a squirrel, and a Ptarmigan (kind of like a chicken). 

We celebrated our first night in Denali with grilled steak and potatoes.  You can see the food theme continues. 

Denali Day Two/Three

Denali

Up at the crack of dawn, actually before, due to continued jetlag.  We are catching the bus at the campground at 7:15 to head out.  On the bus we meet Dor, an Israeli tourist who reminded me of what a true lumberjack would look like.  We ended up riding all the way to Wonder Lake with Dor and did some hiking to Reflection Point with lunch overlooking Wonder Lake with Denali in the background. 

Highlights of the Day:

1. Weather;  incredible.  Clear skies around Denali are rare, but today there were times when zero clouds were in the sky and views of the mountain were incredible.
2. Being chased by caribou.  Leaving Wonder Lake we decided to start hiking back to Eilson until a bus came by for us to hitch a ride.   Walking along the road Kevin heard a bus coming, turned around , and there was a huge caribou coming up the road being herded by the bus.  It finally saw us and then didn’t know which way to go.  It finally left the road and we were able to hitch back to Eilson.
3. Bears.  Bears were out.  We saw eight bears, 5 on the bus and 3 while hiking at Eilson.  We were checking out the area where we were going to camp and heading back up the trail when we stopped to talk with a hiker who was camping that night.  She told us that the trail from Eilson had been closed for about 45 minutes while a Mama Bear and two cubs were on it.  We slowly went back up the trail, constantly yelling “Hey Bear” and finally spotted them a distance away sliding down a steep gravel slide.  By the way, all the photos are of different bears.
4. New Friends.  Besides Dor, we met two other hikers (Maya and Tamir) coming out of Eilson who were also Israeli. They had been backcountry hiking for 6 days.  We all caught the same bus out and they were needing a place to camp so that they didn’t have to leave the park today.  We had a large campsite with extra space so they ended up camping with us for the night.  They set up tent and we all had leftover Moose’s Tooth Pizza and pasta.  Maya claimed to be a vegetarian, until she tasted the pizza and then she became a Pizza Hypocrite. We sat up till late discussing philosophy, politics, science, music, God, the south, Israel, and how they can spend so much time on vacation.

   

   Denali from Wonder Lake

    



The Summit

Grizzly Bears

Our new friend Dor

 

 

 

Denali from Reflection Point

 

Caribou that about ran over us

 

 

 

 

 

 

Female moose going underwater to get vegetation

More bears

More Bears



Dinner with Tamir and Maya



And more bears

Park Road in

Two foxes seen on the way to Eilson

Pack of Wolves on the hunt

And don't forget the bears

Talkeetna

Woke up this morning to 47° in Talkeetna.  Big change from Tallahassee  and Atlanta two days ago with 90+° and high humidity.  Fall is in the air, with minor tree color changes at this time and elevation.  Talkeetna is famous as the launch point for mountaineers attempting to climb Denali.  TravelAlasks.com describes it as a “tiny, funky hamlet straight out of many visitors’ mental picture of life in small-town Alaska”, and they are right.  It is located 115 miles north of Anchorage in the Mat-Su Valley, and when you come to visit Denali, don’t miss it.  It has log cabins, a roadhouse and clapboard storefronts line the dirt streets. Main Street is the only paved road in town.

It’s an eclectic blend of old and new.  Old being the Roadhouse mentioned above.  The Roadhouse, built around 1917, is one of the oldest establishments still in operation on Main Street and is famous for big breakfasts and bread/meat combinations called pasties.   The original structure is log and they will feed you, put you up in a room, and they have they only public washing machines in town.  Kevin and I ate breakfast there this morning with a pancake that flowed over a plate (that’s on a 10” plate in the photo) and another plate of eggs, potatoes, and bacon.  We figured that the next few days would be sandwiches and bark, well, except for that steak we bought just for a special occasion.  We also picked up a pastie and sweet roll for later.  My diet is suffering.

We were instructed to take some food pics on this trip so we are starting with some here. 

12" Pancake

 

 

 

Breakfast at Roadhouse

 

Talkeetna Tiny House

Float Planes at Talkeetna

 

 

August 26 - The Real Adventure Begins

The wife screams "Post Something, Anything".
So here it is.
I am sitting here waiting on Kevin to get here, so thought it would be a good time to log in.
Long airplane rides are not my idea of a good time.  It's exciting at first, but then the cramped space, interesting "neighbors", and occasional odd odors make you long for the journey to be over.  My journey started at 3:00 P.M. Friday with a short flight to Atlanta, a long flight to Seattle, then a somewhat shorter trip to Anchorage. Total flight time 15 hours with layovers.  I get in to Ted Williams Airport at 1:20 and hop a cab to Great Alaskan Holidays RV Rental.

I believe that this is best RV rental company in Anchorage. They typically have an airport pickup, but not at 1:30A.M.  It was a $23 cab ride from the airport, but I found out this morning that Alaska just allowed UBER to operate in this state two months ago (might save you a few bucks). Of course they were closed, but they had our ride ready for me to move on in, with the water heater on and furnace set at a cozy 68 degrees.

The bad thing about a 15 hour travel day is that it is really hard to go to sleep, at least for me.  I try, then give up and unpack the luggage, sort out sleeping arrangements, and then about 3:00 lay back down.  Kevin texted me about an hour later saying he had just passed security and would soon be on his way.

As I sit, Kevin should be soon landing and we will be on our way.  He will have to watch the mandatory driving video, and then we will be on our way.  This will be our home for the next two weeks.

 Just to let you know, we be heading north to Talkeetna and then to Denali Park for a three night adventure staying deep in the park.  No internet there, so you might not hear from us for 3 or 4 days till we get back through civilization.  Then north to Fairbanks to try and catch the illusive Northern Lights.  We have a good chance to see them if the weather permits, so pray for clear sky's and we will share our awesome photos (says Bill with great optimism).

The University of Alaska has a great resource for aurora prediction tool we are using at this link    Aurora Prediction