Delightful Day in Denali.

Today we got up early to catch the shuttle back to Denali. We grabbed a lovely breakfast at the Creekside Cafe, including a delicious fresh cinnamon roll the size of my head. We grabbed the Alaska Mountain Hostal shuttle again at 8:20am, and we had our first wildlife sighting - a unfortunate moose lying dead by the side of the road after being hit by a car... (our driver tried to distract us by having us gaze out the other window at the pretty mountains, but her distraction technique didn't work. :) ) We arrived at the Wilderness Access Center around 9am and were ready to shuttle in to the park. We had decided that since we had to be back to the train station at 3pm, we couldn't take a paid bus into the interior of the park. Instead we opted to take the free bus 15 miles into the park and do some hiking around the park entrance.

Ready to hitchhike outside of Carlo Creek Lodge in case we miss the one shuttle... :)

This is a SERIOUS cinnamon roll...

We discovered to our dismay that the free shuttle runs only every two hours, and the next shuttle was not for another hour and a half. If we wanted to get a paid shuttle, we would have to pay full price to the final destination i.e. 60 miles into the park no matter how far into the park we were going. So we wandered on the nearby bike trail to the Visitors Center and back to kill time until the shuttle picked us up.

The shuttle ride was uneventful other than stopping to catch a quick glimpse of a bear. It dropped us off at Savage River loop trail, which followed the glacially-fed Savage River for about a mile, crossed it on a bridge and went back. It was an easy loop with beautiful views of the mountains through the river valley, and it didn't take us very long. It was still another hour and a half before we could catch the bus back, so we decided to walk along the park road and see if we could catch a ride with someone going back. I stuck out my thumb and hitchhiked for the first time in my life - the second car we saw stopped for us, and we got to ride in the back of their pickup (first time doing that since I was a kid!) back to the Park Headquarters, and we even got to stop and see a moose along the way!

Beautiful Denali!

Savage River - not looking all that savage right now.

Walking the Savage River loop trail.

View from Park Road as we tried to hitchhike a ride back to Park Headquarters.

Riding in the back of a pickup truck, just like we used to do on the farm! :)

At Park Headquarters we took the peaceful Rock Creek trail about two miles through the forest, then it joined the Taiga trail, which we followed down to the Wilderness Access Center - a grand total of about 8 miles of hiking/walking today. :) We stopped by the Morino restaurant near the train station for more price-gouging food before catching our train up to Fairbanks.

View from the top of the Rock Creek trail.

The train ride to Fairbanks gradually left the mountains and came into flat permafrost land covered with the only trees that can live on permafrost: the black spruce. We also got a quick glimpse of a moose through the trees. The scenery wasn't nearly as dramatic as the approach to Denali. We arrived in Fairbanks at around 8pm and caught a taxi whose driver was kind enough to take us to a grocery store and wait for us while we shopped for our dinner food, then she drove us to the house we rented outside Fairbanks. We were excited because it was out of town and would hopefully have a good view of the northern lights, but unfortunately it was completely cloudy. We made a late dinner and ended our evening relaxing with a glass of wine.

The Alaska Railroad engine.

 

The Alaska Railroad follows the river up to Fairbanks.

 

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