Days 4 and 5: Alaska Railroad and Denali National Park

Ahhh, back to civilization and the wireless access to the internet. I hope you find this post and the accompanying photos worth the wait.

Day 4

We got up at 6:30 to board our 8 a.m. Alaska Railroad train from Fairbanks to Denali National Park, home of North America's tallest peak, Mt. McKinley (aka, Denali). It's a four-hour trek through the tundra of Alaska en route to perhaps my new favorite place on earth. I never thought Joshua Tree National Park would take a backseat to any park, but then I had not yet visited Denali. Along the way, we saw several moose lumbering around munching on greenstuffs along with some of the most incredible scenery I could have imagined.

As I posted during the ride from the trusty BlackBerry Storm, there was a 5.5 magnitude earthquake somewhere in the state. Alaska state law requires all train service suspended until the epicenter is determined. While the Alaska Railroad employee assured us it was no big deal by telling us what a perfect spot we were in at the time. He was quite wrong as we were on a mountain side with loose rock above and a whitewater river rushing hundreds of vertical yards below. Long story short, not the best place to be in an earthquake. However, all was well and we continued onward after a few minutes.

Our train pulled into the Denali station at noon and we caught our van to the Crow's Nest, which would be our lodging for the evening. It's basically a series of log cabins built on a mountain side overlooking a river valley opposite the Denali entrance. How do I say this...it rocked. You can see that the ground beneath the cabins shifts regularly as there are piles of wood shims under each corner of the forward slanting abodes. If you dropped a ball at the head of the bed with the door ajar, it would roll out the door and down the mountain. No lie.

We had a 2 p.m. park shuttle reservation for an eight-hour bus tour that ran 66 miles into the park to view the landscape and, hopefully, some wildlife. I always seem to be wildlife repellent (it took many visits to Joshua Tree before I saw my first coyote), so I wasn't all that optimistic. Again, my limited vocabulary can't even begin to do justice to the splendor and beauty of this place. Add to that the variety of wildlife that we encountered in eight hours and it was unlike any trip to a National Park I've ever experienced. We saw things that most people only see in zoos, if they are lucky -- Dall's sheep, ground squirrels, caribou, a red fox, moose and the following elusive animals: grey wolves, a Gyrfalcon and several grizzly bears, including a mom and two cubs.

Day 5

Denali National Park is the only national park that boasts its own sled dog team. The rangers use the dogs to patrol the park in winter since the park road is closed after mile three. It goes on for 96 miles and snowmobiles are not an option in the park.

The sled dog kennel is located in the park and you can visit to pet the dogs and get a demonstration of their canine coolness. These pups rocked.

There's something interesting about Alaska...it rains a lot. It's rained every day since we've been here, but other than obscuring any views of Mt. McKinley, it actually made the visit better. There are no downpours, only light drizzles that never seem to soak you for some reason. That being said, after the dogs, we hiked about eight miles from the sled dog kennels to Horseshoe Lake. It was one of the best and most well maintained trails I've ever hiked. The smell of the air here is unlike any scent that has ever entered my nasal cavity. It's the freshest, most fragrant air and not in that extremely crappy, make my nose run instantly, Macy's perfume counter way. I can't count the number of times I stopped just to take deep breaths of the Alaska air on the hike.

Once we reached Horseshoe Lake, we could see a moose and her calf (although he was old enough to match her in size) in the lake. Moose are vegetarians and like to consume aquatic plants, thus the lakeside feast on plant life morsels of moosey joy. Other hikers tried to be the bosses or moms of us and told us to turn around as we strolled by en route to the moose. Then we did one of those things you hear about on When Animals Attack and think, "Dumbasses." We stayed on the trail (for the most part), but the moose calf was only about 25 feet from us and we advanced towards him for better photo ops. Who wouldn't? How often are you in Alaska with a moose only 25 feet away? Who cares that they can kick your head off of your neck with one hoof blow to the chin? Not us. We did have good sense enough to start backing up when momma moose was within 20 feet or so. We went to the other side of the lake and got our look on.

Needless to say, Denali rocked like a Prince, U2 and Jovi Lollapollooza lineup. Yep. I said it.

I'll stop babbling and making you jealous now. Click HERE to see the photos of Denali joy and near death wildlife experiences.

Super Cool Denali Bonus Video

Day 6 Agenda - The Arctic Circle