All Aboard the Alaska Railroad

This morning we got up early to catch the train to Denali National Park. Our slightly odd host made us a delicious breakfast of fresh coffee cake, toast and omelets, all the while making strange, offhand comments like "This refrigerator would make a good coffin." He also kept on talking about "the owner" of the B&B, which prompted me to ask how he knew the owner. He replied, "I've been married to him for 25 years..."

Our host dropped us off at the train station, where we picked up our tickets and "Gold Star" pins and boarded the train. The Gold class of the Alaska railroad are seats on the upper level of the train with domed glass ceilings and a private bar. It was another rainy day, so our views of the Alaskan wilderness were once again obscured by fog. Our best view of the eight hour trip was of Hurricane Gulch, the longest bridge on the Alaska Railroad which crosses a gulch that is over 300 feet deep. As we got closer to Denali, the fog lifted a little, enough for us to see the lush, green, cloud-dusted mountains of the Alaska Range, and just enough for us to see Panorama Mountain, which is 1/4 the size of Mount McKinley.

The Gold Star car of the Alaska railroad.

Our view through most of the ride was something like this. :)

A view of the train from the outside platform.

Hurricane Gulch.

Fog and foliage in front of the Alaska Range.

When we arrived at the train station at Denali, almost everybody on the train had a shuttle to their hotel and quickly disappeared, leaving us the only lonely people outside the station. We called our lodge, the Carlo Creek Lodge, to inquire about a shuttle, and they told us to call a shuttle service that would cost $45 PER PERSON to go the 12 miles to Carlo Creek! Luckily I found another shuttle from the Alaska Mountain Hostal that would drop us off near our lodging for only $10 per person, but that shuttle would only pick us up at the Wilderness Access Center. We had to wait a half hour for a bus to take us to the Wilderness Access Center, then another hour for the shuttle to Carlo Creek! (we had assumed we could just take a taxi, but there were no taxis at all in Denali!)

After finally settling in to our cozy little room at Carlo Creek Lodge, we walked over to the Perch to have dinner. It was a cute little restaurant perched (hence "Perch") on the top of a little hill with view of the mountains and forest. It was one of only three restaurants in the Carlo Creek area, and it definitely charged accordingly, i.e. $14 for tortilla chips with cheese dip!!! While we munched on our appetizer, a very grouchy woman sitting behind us reamed the owner/server for her disappointing meal; I felt really bad for him. THe owner of Perch let his dog in toward the end of our meal, and Gavin snuck him a few bits of his hamburger. The dog then proceeded to sit and quietly stare at Gavin for the next half hour, pointing out the guilty party who had fed him. :) The owner came out and showed us the many tricks the dog could do, such as "Go find zombies," shake both right and left paws accordingly and balance bits of sausage one on each eye and on his nose while the owner left the room entirely. Gavin and I felt sorry for him and tried to guess the command to release him and let him eat the sausage. I tried "Okay," but Gavin guessed it correctly as "Go," and the relieved dog was munching his treat as the owner came back in to release him. :) Since we were stuck in the Carlo Creek area for the night, we ended our evening by moving to the cozy couch at Perch for some wine after dinner, browsing through the various Alaska coffee table books, looking at the lovely views we would hopefully see tomorrow during our day at Denali National Park.

View from the train as we approach Denali National Park.

 

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