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GO TO: Seattle, Washington and St. Helen's - Alaskan Facts - Ketchikan - Skagway - Juneau - Sitka - Glacier Bay - Seward & Anchorage - Denali - Fairbanks - September 11th and Mt. Rainier - Portland, Oregon

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Trip to Washington

Washington, Alaska and Oregon: Aug-Sept, 2002

Denali - MAP

More info on Denali

The Iditarod Trail Headquarters

From the Starting gate for the Iditarod in Anchorage to the Headquarters across the river.

Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge

On our bus ride to Denali, we stopped for a delicious lunch at The Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge. In back of the lodge one can see the range of mountains that includes Mt McKinley in it's list. Regretfully, we were not able to see the mountain on our visit there.

Talkeetna Lodge is one of the most interesting log cabins that I've visited in my life. It is located off of the main road at the top of a small hill. The grounds were well maintained and very picturesque.

USFS View Point for "The Mountain"

Denali National Park

At the end of this magnificent park lies the highest peak in North America, Mount Denali or Mt. McKinley. There you can see the metamorphic rocks that make up the billion year old range of mountains. In 1980 a geologist suggested that over a half-billion years ago, the land surrounding this great mountain was once on the ocean floor. It is suggested that "terrances" or landmasses were moved towards Alaska by the movement of the Pacific Plate. This "conveyor-belt" like action caused the remote landmasses to be appended to the continent as they collided with it and were pushed underneath the North American Plate. Thus geologists have been able to explain why there are so many different types of rocks found within feet of each other. Other geological events also influence the area including volcanoes, glaciers, water and large extremes of hot and cold through out the year.

"Park pioneer Charles Sheldon first came to the Denali area in 1906 to hunt the Dali sheep that most often appear from the
road as white dots moving on mountain ridges. A Yale-educated easterner, he sought them partly for his own trophy collection,
partly as specimens for museums. Sheldon scrambled up and around mountains, across creeks, and through dense willow
patches, through mist and rain, sun and wind.

At first, Sheldon’s quarry eluded him. But he wasn’t disappointed. There was so much more to see, from tantalizing grizzly tracks to the flash of dark eagle wings overhead. He heard the murmur of braided streams and the crash of avalanches. By the time he left, the love he felt for Denali was more important than the sheep he’d bagged.

Sheldon visited again in 1907, wintering over in a cabin on the Toklat River. The time he spent here enhanced and expanded his ideas about wilderness. With future park superintendent Harry Karstens as his for months. He was concerned about the numbers of sheep being slaughtered each year by commercial hunters, and imagined a refuge where both wildlife and the rhythms of this majestic land could be preserved.

Sheldon became one of several early conservationists who fought to preserve Denali. In 1917, in response to these efforts, Congress passed a bill to establish Mount McKinley National Park. Renamed Denali National Park and Preserve and expanded more than three-fold in 1980, it is now larger than the state of New Hampshire.

If Sheldon was the park’s founding father, then another naturalist, Adolph Murie, was its dogged conscience. In the 1930s, biologist Adolph joined his older brother, Olaus, at the new park to study wildlife, especially wolf—sheep interactions. At the time, Denali’s sheep population seemed to be in peril, and wildlife managers with less vision argued that predator control was the only option.

Adolph Murie disagreed, arguing that predators are part of what keeps an ecosystem intact and healthy. Over time, his view prevailed. Today, Denali National Park and Preserve is rare among parks for allowing populations to be self-regulating, without herd or predator management." (Denali: A Living Tapestry, National Park Service, Pages 19-20)

During our four hour tour through Denali National Park we saw moose, caribou and several small mammals and birds. I'm glad that we went to the park during the change of seasons from Summer to Fall because we were able to see the foliage changing from green to shades of yellow, to rust to red. I was also told that this is one of the most interesting times to visit because it is also mating season. The over cast day made helped me to capture the area in several interesting photographs of the wildlife and fauna that live in the park.

The "Savage Cabin" is a very primitive cabin that is stocked with food and provides travelers and rangers from the elements. It was the first cabin built by the first ranger over 100 years ago and rangers still use it today. During the Summer, tourists visit it as we did on our drive through Denali. During the long, cold winters, rangers use it as they make their rounds through the park to assist visitors that have cross-country skied or hiked in. Rangers also spend weeks traveling through the entire park to enforce the laws protecting the wildlife and search for poachers and others who have come in unlawfully. The cabin is used to mark the park's "designated wilderness" boundary beyond which the park is to be left in it's wild state with only one road and a couple of rest stations on the landscape.

Below we see more of the interesting landscape with it's braided river and a small mammal watching us as we passed by.

An archeologist lectured on the theories that have been explored over the last few years regarding the movement of people into North America. Historically we know that the land has been used over 11,000 years by Alaskan Natives and others moving into Alaska and on to the balance of North America from Russia. Today the area remains much the same as it was thousands of years ago. We have discovered small bits of evidence to support the popular theories that inhabitants from the ancient Athabaskan people were hunting and gathering in the area as much as 3,500 years ago. Because of the harshness of the area these people became very familiar with the terrain and probably hunted in groups or bands of 20 to 75 people. They built fences in a U-shape then scare the caribou into the center where they used clubs, spears and bow and arrows to kill them. The most wise, fair and charismatic man in each group or band took charge of the distribution of food and resources to the balance of the band. Without this cooperation and leadership, the survival of their people would have been jeopardized. Today, decedents of these people continue to hunt and gather food in much the same way as their ancestors.

Several birds are known to use the park as their home including the Willow ptarmigan, Golden Eagle and chickadees. Willow ptarmigans, the state bird of Alaska, maintain body temperatures of 104 degrees even when the ambient temperature drops to 30 degrees below zero. They do this because of the winter feathers that they grow each year. Because of the insulating nature of these feathers, Native Americans used them on the back of their winter coats to protect them from the blistering cold. (People in this region have learned that it is better to walk back first into the cold wind and therefore the greatest insulation is needed on the back of their winter parkas.)

The Grande Denali Lodge sits at the top of the hill

Visitor's Center at Denali National Park

More info on Denali

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