Newspapers, #2

DENALI PARK, AK - - I can usually find an abandoned copy The Anchorage Daily News nearly every day, left by bored tourists looking for USA Today, The New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. The ADN, which is the state's main newspaper, tries to be a bit of everything to everyone. The paper includes a small feature five days a week entitled Alaska Digest. It's the first thing I go to. The feature highlights community profiles of all communities in Alaska like the item below which I condensed. FYI: If you have a population over 50 you are 'big time.'

SHAKTOOLIK: 2006 population 214; located on the west shore of Norton Sound, 125 miles east of Nome. A Malemiut Eskimo village with a fishing and subsistence lifestyle. Development of a fish processing facility has been a village priority. Reindeer herding also provides income and meat.

Translation: The place is in the middle of nowhere (although there are similar small places like it relatively close by so "nowhere" does have a few "somewheres") with no roads and is basically accessible only by plane and (probably) not by any vessel big enough to bring lots of supplies. There are no Wal-Marts, McDonalds or anything else in the 125 miles to Nome and not a heck of a lot of things in Nome either. Subsistence means living off the land, growing your own, baking your own and hunting to stock up for the winter.

However, Wal-Mart, Fred Meyer (a classy version of WM), and other stores through-out Alaska offer "bush mail" which is sort of like what some of us used to do when we ordered things from the Sears-Roebuck catalog. Only here we're also talking food and just about anything else...and delivered by bush plane with a brave pilot, no tower control and a bumpy gravel air strip probably too short and bordered by trees a bit too close.

Check out the profile of communities like Flat, Atka, Naknek, Gulkana and Mekoryuk, a small Cup'ik Eskimo village on Nunivak Island in the Bering Sea which maintains reindeer and musk ox herds, at: www.commerce.state.ak.us/dca/commdb/CF_CIS.htm

More photos

TALKEETNA AND THE GEORGE PARKS HIGHWAY, AK - - A few photos from this week's days off. (Above) Want to land on a glacier?? Check the skis/wheels on these small planes which fly from Talkeetna to the Don Sheldon Amphitheater (Sheldon was a famous bush/mountain pilot from Talkeetna). The landing is in an area at the base of Denali where the convergence of a number of small glaciers come together to form the Ruth Glacier.
THIS is the Eldridge Glacier partially in cloud cover and underlined by some of the ever-present fireweed alongside the GPH.
WE believe this (below) is Mount Foraker, at 17,400, a little sister to Denali. It it also a prime climbing location, a bit harder to reach and a more technical climb than Denali.

ATTENTION

DUE TO being somewhat computer-challenged the blogs below are in the wrong order. So, to make sense of them please read the second blog down first. This will explain the pictures in the blog below this posting.

In memorium

TALKEETNA, AK - - The climber's memorials range from the stone above dedicated to an individual who died on the mountain's South Buttress; to one celebrating an individual who climbed Denali, but lost his life on Mt. Everest.
This individuals family arranged ice axes (below) to frame the headstone. He died while attempting to summit Denali.

Denali '07

TALKEETNA, AK - - This town is the main jumping-off point for climbers attempting to scale North America's tallest peak. Mt. McKinley, as some call the huge megalith, or Denali as the mountain is more commonly known, is 20320' of ruggedness.
THIS year 1,202 individuals with a dream attempted to scale the mountain. Of those, 573 made the summit. Some ran into trouble as Park rangers were involved in 20 rescues. Some paid tyhe ultimate price for their dreams as five individuals - - three male, two female - - died attempting the climb on Denali or the mountains of the Alaska Range surrounding Denali. Their names will be added the Mt. McKinley Climbers Memorial, a quiet place in the town's cemetery.

Big Game hunting

DENALI PARK, AK - - We hiked today, one called the Triple Lakes Trail. There were plenty of moose hoof prints on the trail as we got closer to the second lake. We stopped to take a look at the lake and Lydia spotted a young male grazing in the water on the opposite side of the lake. This guy must have thought the 'grass is greener on the other side" because he plowed into deep water and began swimming. Lydia took off up the trail while I put my pack back on. The photo above shows the "Big Game Hunter" at work...with the 200mm lens. ***To see Lydia's pics, go to her blog listed on the right side of this page.
We spent about 20 minutes watching this fellow stuff his snout with grass and oh-so-slowly move parallel to us and out of the trees. (Above) Each time the shutter clicked he would look our way. Finally, he must have had enough of these silly games. We got the 'stare' and then he took off (Below) to where he wouldn't have to deal with intruders

Newspapers, #1

DENALI PARK, AK - - As a news 'junkie' I like reading the daily newspaper....or two or three. At the library back home in Ormond Beach I had an even larger selection. My partner, LH, is now former news junkie in withdrawl whose only real interest in 'fish wrappers' is the crossword puzzle.
IN Skagway last year, if you wanted to read today's paper you only had to wait until about 8pm that night when the papers arrived from Juneau on the mail plane. So you read yesterday's news in today's paper as they were printing tomorrow's paper with today's news in it...or something like that.

DENALI has been a pleasant surprise ain that we can get the Anchorage Daily News at 6am on the day it is printed. Since we have trains running between Anchorage and Fairbanks and the other way around I (wrongly) assumed that the paper was dropped off (or more likely tossed off) a train as it slowed to pass through the Denali Park Train Station.

SO I cornered the newspaper lady at 5:30am as she dropped off the papers one morning and learned that: (1) The papers are picked up in Anchorage at 9:30pm fresh off the press. "We get the first ones off, load up the car (a Honda Fit) and take off," she related. (2) Talk about a paper route! The papers are delivered to stores and newspaper vending boxes along a 250-mile (one way) drive which ends in Hinton, 11 miles past Denali. That's 500-miles round trip.

THE next morning I saw the same car, but driven by a man...her husband. "One day on, one day off," he explained. "You drive two days in a row and you get a bit stressed and very tired." How is the drive that early in the morning I asked. "I wish we could do it in a pickup truck or a good SUV because that would be more space, more convenient and more comfortable. The problem," he continued, "is that anything comfortable and functional burns up too much gas." What he didn't say right then is that driving something bigger is safer. "You have to stay alert all the time because of the animals," he noted. "I had a close call with a moose last year which dinged the driver-side headlight, the fender and knocked off the mirror. At least it didn't make the car into a convertible...hitting a moose can do that."

On the trail, again

DENALI PARK, AK - - They call them "Disco Hikes," short for discovery hikes for a small group (11 individuals) with a park ranger guide. There was only one vacancy on Wednesday, I signed up and LH waited to see if anyone would cancel. Sometime later Tuesday afternoon Lydia decided that since she drives the road five days a week that it might be better if I went...alone...and we would see what next week's hike destination would be.

Things started off smoothly and we had our own bus for the lucky 11. 4 miles later we picked up our guide, Alex. He is now a full time ranger in the park both summer and winter. I asked how he dealt with the long hours of darkness in the winter. His reply: "I sleep a lot."
Although his home is in Ohio, he says his heart is in Alaska.

About five miles from our Sable Mountain trailhead destination we came to a stop. A "honey truck" was right in the middle of the road blocking the way. Blocking might be the wrong word because the driver of the truck had planted the driver-side front wheel up to the axle. He wasn't going anywhere...and the tour and VTS busses were jamming up behind him. Not only was he in deep s**t, his truck was full to the brim of the same stuff.

Help finally arrived to pull him out, but that was nearly 90 minutes later and we were long gone...with Plan B in effect. This meant we walked half a mile further out the road and then about 2.5-miles up a creek bed with some running water to a green spot called the lower summit of Cathedral Mountain.

It was about 50-degrees; there was rain sprinkles off and on; the clouds hung low and everybody had a great time.

TOP PIC: Alex explains options on the trail up.
BELOW: Lunchtime at 4,750' overlooking the Teklanika River
Check out the center of the pic for the sort-of white Hoary Marmot. This fellow watched us for a couple of minutes and then took off up a steep slope behind and to his left. Given his color, we could watch him climb for a long time until he dove out of sight.

DENALI PARK, AK - - It seems my title bar isn't working...thus the two entries with no title.

Going through previous pics I pulled out this one of the wolf I recently saw. The park service estimates that as of April, 2007, there were 83 wolves in 16 packs roaming the park. More wolves appeared to be traveling alone during track observations and sightings in early spring of '07; probably because of a high population of snowshoe hares.....sort of 'fast food' on the run.

DENALI PARK, AK - - It's hard to believe that this dog and its 37 cohorts were in a frenzy as the park rangers were hooking up five of the Alaska Huskies to a sled. Once the sled left it was time to conserve energy for more important things - - meal time and the 2pm and 4pm shows. The trees, plants and flowers are on steroids with 18 hours of light to pump them up but stopping and smellling the flowers isn't on the list of things-to-do today

And on the Fourth of July

DENALI PARK, AK - - On the Fourth of July, with no parades in sight, LH and her faithful sherpa, headed out to hike up Mt. Healy. This is talked-up as a favorite hike of those we work with. It's one of those where when you get to what is marked as the top - - there are plenty more peaks beckoning. And so three peaks later here we are.
Using trail guide LH as perspective, you can follow the trail down until it appears to go out of sight....this is the spot marked as the top for those less adventurous. And the trail continues on behind us. At this point we spotted two camera shy marmots and a couple of squirrels.

Santa Zone

NORTH POLE, AK - - On our July trip to the Fairbanks area we found one of Santa's hideouts at the North Pole, Alaska-style. The gentleman in the NP Visitor Center (where we found Santa and the reminder of how many days to Christmas) said "Don't blink or you'll miss it," to the query of how big was North Pole.
WE also found out that Santa shares a taste for good BBQ and (apparently) frequents the main reason we go to Fairbanks - - Big Daddy's

The early bird

DENALI PARK, AK - - At 5:30am at the 11-mile mark on the Park Road, Denali was out in good form with the rising sun making the upper portion of the mountain shine while low clouds obscured the base. Why am I out in the park this early? I was off and Lydia was working, and if I wanted the car to do an early trip I needed to take her to work. In between the north shot of Denali and the south/moose shots I stopped in the EDR for breakfast.
CANTWELL, AK - - Three hours and 35 miles down the George Parks Highway and 4 miles up the Denali Highway, the south exposure of the mountain was in full view. This angle presents a much larger view with the base spread out more and not as hidden the by Alaska Range as it is when seen from the north. That pesky low cloud was still hanging around.
ON THE GEORGE PARKS HIGHWAY - - In between the two mountain shots and about 20 miles south of the park this young moose was having breakfast. The noise of passing traffic didn't seem to have any effect but the click of the motordrive was apparently annoying. In a good deal of the other shots I took, the moose was staring at me with ears up.
SO by 8:30am on my day off I had seen both sides of the mountain and bagged a moose. Not bad.

On guard duty

DENALI PARK, AK - - The Ptarmigan family group, two females and at least six chicks, knew I was there. The older birds made their warning noises and the chicks seemingly ignored them by wandering all around. They were mainly undercover in the bushes. I stood still for five minutes figuring sooner (if I won the waiting it out battle) someone would pop up to check on the intruder....or later (if the birds out-waited me) one of us would abandon the game.

I won as the above photo shows the Ptarmigan who, probably, drew the short straw and was the designated lookout.

On Duty

DENALI PARK, AK - - High atop a rocky outcrop the lonely sentinel stands guard, back to the cold Alaska wind.

Leave only footprints, take only memories

DENALI PARK, AK -- The turn around point on Lydia's Sunday route was Fish Creek, a spot on the road 63 miles into the park. The Stoney Hill Area, as the surroundings are known, is grizzly country. We didn't see any, but a short walk down to the small creek produced evidence that they are around.
TOP: The front paw print .. and some careless human's shoe print nearby.
BOTTOM: The back paw print is a bit less visible. Anyway, the bear would wear large shoes.
BELOW: This wolf trotted up the road toward the bus, then past the bus and then went into the bushes alongside the road. By his look he knows we're trespassing in his territory.

Air Talkeetna, #3

DENALI PARK, AK - - This shot is through the window behind and to my left. It was sometimes hard to get the shot you wanted because of the way the plane rolled around and the turns the pilot made. The Muldrow Glacier is in about the middle of the pic. It appears brown because of the dirt covering but it is solid ice underneath the covering.
THE bottom pic is of one of our favorite places and one which appears in numerous blogs: Polychrome Pass. You can see the road weaving up and down the mountainside. The small buildings are the rest area and there's even a green bus heading back to the Wilderness Access Center where the tours start. This is Lydia's picture, but it seems she doesn't want to think about or look at anything to do with our high-flying adventure. Oh yeah, did I mention it was her idea.

Talkeetna Air, Part #2

DENALI PARK, AK - - Here's the twin-engine, eight passenger (not counting the pilot and co-pilot) aircraft we flew in. The suspiciously familiar looking person in the two-tone blue jacket and brown pants is none other than LH. Shortly after takeoff and the first few air pockets we dropped into LH was about as green as the swath on the plane's tail section. The headwinds which caused the plane to move about quite a bit didn't help either.
This our pilot, Erica. And the co-pilot in the right seat. She flew, he kept up an ongoing guide of what we were seeing and answered questions. On the way back, a female helocopter pilot kept us informed of her whereabouts and altitude on another flight-seeing trip. Inbetween transmissions, Erica kept up a rap about how the chopper pilots randomly give names to locations which they then use on the radio - - only nobody else has much of a clue where thay are. It doesn't really help much since traffic control is basically visual recognition and altitude spacing.
We were fitted up with headphones so we could listen to the pilots, the radio transmissions, and ask questions as well. The clear tubing connects the air masks to the air supply. We wore the masks (loosely) above 12,000'. Since the cabin wasn't pressurized, the hardest thing (for me) was trying to keep the pressure even in my ears without getting a roaring headache. By flights end, Lydia was sort of Green Eggs and Span-colored and I couldn't hear much at all - - which Lydia says is normal anyway.

Some days you get lucky

DENALI PARK, AK - - Some days you get lucky. Lydia scored a free seat on a FlightSeeing plane, called me so I could call our Rec. Dept. and I got a seat on the plane also. This was step one in the process. Step two involved hoping we didn't get bumped by paying customers. We didn't. The ride was bumpy, swoopy and the plane danced around a bit at lower altitude due to winds and the fact we had to follow a valley southbound directly into headwinds before gaining altitude.
TOP PIC is of the South Face of Denali. At 19, 470' the peak is 850' lower than the North Face (20,320') which is obscured by clouds.
MIDDLE PIC is of the saddle between the South and North Face. Note the sweeping light clouds above the mountain. This is caused by the 60-plus mph winds at the summit. Not the best weather for an assault on the top. The temp. is -20 below zero.
BOTTOM PIC is of a "river of ice". The name of the glacier - - seen in the lower right of the pic with the 'crinkled ice' - - escapes me. Lydia is asleep...and I know better than to wake her just to ask a question.

MORE info and pics tomorrow on our adventure with Air Talkeetna.

Bees and Bunny on a day off

DENALI PARK, AK - - Whether it's the common dandelion or the wild rose, it seems the honey bees are buzzing everywhere. Especially on a morning after a nice rain. The long hours of daylight give the plants and flowers a lot of energy so they grow about twice as fast.
I surprised the young snowshoe hare in the pic below as he was chomping on a clump of grass..at least I thought he was chowing down. Since he ran off with a mouthfull of grass and disappeared into a warren of rocks maybe he's bringing some 'take out' to those still at home and too young to venture out.