Denali

Alaska is a large state without an Interstate freeway, it's all highways, most of them two lanes.  Therefore it took the better part of a day to drive from Homer to the vicinity of Denali National Park.  We stopped for one night in to the town of Talkeetna which is the starting off point for those who want to climb Denali.  Because of the cloud cover, we didn't see the mountain.  But this was a surprise.....

Throughout the interior (an once we had our eyes open to it...all of Alaska) there are Thai restaurants and food trucks all over!

Turns out the owner of Payos (milepost 2 of the Talkeetna Spur Road) is a Broncos fan.

From Talkeetna it's about a three hour drive on the George Parks Highway to get to the one and only entrance into Denali.

Outside the park is the town of Canyon and look at the first item on the menu.  This is more what I expected. Of course it's what I ordered.

The only way to get into the park is to take a bus tour which goes along the Denali Park Road.  The road extends about 92 miles into the park.  We took an afternoon tour that took us to milepost 62 and back.  It was an eight hour trip.

From the entrance, there is no way to see Denali, but as the road goes west into the park, it climbs up into the mountains.

We riders are all part of the animal lookout crew!  If we see something, we yell, STOP and then all rush to look out the window.  Can you spot the three bears?

Crown Peak of the Alaska Range

Round the corner and there it is, Denali.

Now, it's a grand mountain and at 20,000+ feet in elevation, the highest point of the North American continent. But being a Washingtonian, a visit to Mt. Rainier is MUCH more impressive because there, one is basically ON the mountain.  Here's it's a long view.

I found the glacier features more spectacular.  Right there are the kettle lakes, eskers and moraines we studied in Geology class.

The one thing that is hard to convey in photos is how huge the landscape is.  I was telling Onions how this reminded me of Xinjiang in western China.

Channeling my inner caribou!

Caribou right in the middle of the road on the drive back.  Turns out that the animals of Denali have become habituated to the buses and have learned not to fear them.

It's a rule thumb that Denali is only visible one out of three days.  We were lucky to see it on the day we arrived, but here we are at our tour's turnaround spot and the clouds were already moving in.  Animals and Denali, we saw it all, except wolves.