Alaska Musings Post #3 Denali

Denali means "The Great One" or "The Tall One" in Athabascan....it is the name of the National Park which has the highest mountain peak in North America - Mt. McKinley, which the natives like to call as "Denali". Personally, I would prefer to call it Mt. Denali as well....

We took a flight tour over the National Park and landed on a glacier - I think it was the best experience so far of my Alaskan trip. The Alaskan mountain range is spectacular, and getting to see it from such a close distance was just amazing. The great gorge, the glaciers, the valleys - it's fascinating to get to see the rugged wilderness so close. And then landing on a glacier - out of this world! I kept firing my camera and took as many shots as my lens would allow....so I will have lots of photos to share once I get back, but here is one for now.

The mountain itself was covered with clouds, so we did not get a perfect view of it on the day of our flight, but then we saw it all day in Talkeetna from our BnB, so I was not disappointed at all.

We then drove to Denali National Park and checked into our lodge for our last stay. The location was again fantastic....the lodge was on the banks of Nenana river, and had great views of the mountains. It also had very good trails along the river which were easily accessible, and a great visitor center plus gift shop. We took an 8-hour bus tour into the National Park up to Eielson Visitor Center.

There is no food or water available inside the park, and no private vehicles are allowed. There are also no paved roads, only a dirt road on which these buses travel. It is 6 million acres of pure wilderness, and as our bus driver Wayne told us...this is a place where we put people in a cage (bus) and take them around to visit the animals....(the zoo is the other way around).

The entire area is spectacular....pristine....picture perfect....a slice of heaven. It is so quiet...my baby slept for more than 5 hours on the bus trip, so it gave me much needed time to ponder and reflect, which was nutrition for my soul :). We saw bears (one right outside our bus), gall sheep, caribou, moose, lynx, arctic squirrel, along with the tundra and the mountain range. The wind was blowing hard (we saw a fallen tree on the road on our way back), and it got chilly at times. The clouds were hovering over Mt. McKinley, but they cleared only for a few minutes while we were at the Eielson visitor center to give us a picture perfect view. Traveling through the park was like quiet rolling meditation.....it gave me so much peace from within.

It certainly reminded me of the movie - "Into the Wild" which was shot in Alaska. There is a rustic cabin inside the park, called Artist-in-Residence cabin, where artists are allowed to stay up to 2 weeks in wilderness and pursue their art (see picture below). Their work is then displayed at the Eielson visitor center. I saw some works on display which were stunning.

It started raining today (at times it rained heavily) on our drive back to Anchorage....and we just felt grateful to be blessed with awesome sunny n warm weather throughout our stay. This trip was a small token of gratitude to my parents for having helped us take care of our daughter through her precious first year of life, and I feel so happy to be able to give this experience to them. I asked them today how they felt and whether they enjoyed, and they are WOW'ed. This was easily the best trip of their lifetime in terms of exploring nature at its best.

I did not do much hiking or camping or backpacking. But just to be able to pull off such a trip with an infant and retired parents was difficult. I hope to come back again some day, when my daughter is old enough to hike and camp with me :).