Page 11 of 15
Denali National Park, Alaska
So I can, so I can keep track of the visions in my eyes
The 91 mile long Park Road is the only practical way to see back country at Denali National Park, and all but the first 15 miles (or so) are closed to all vehicles except for the buses operated by those inescapable Aramark people, a park concessionaire who is better known for expensive, mass quantities of bad food at stadiums and arenas than for efficiently running a public transportation system. Still while the buses don't run on time, are often needlessly expensive and don't always have room for you, they're still the only way to get around on a road and in a park that both feel without end.
To say that the bus system is poorly structured is probably a bit of an understatement. First of all there are three types of buses- camper buses, hiker buses and tourist buses. Camper buses act as shuttles between the front country (visitors center, railway station, paved road) and the park's campgrounds. Hiker buses connect the front country and back country, allowing hikers to get off anywhere they want and then flag down a bus for the return. Tourist buses allow for round trips and guides who will talk endlessly about all things Alaska. Of the tourist buses, there are three trips. The first goes 15 miles into the park and is called the Natural History Tour, the second goes 60 miles into the park and is considered the wildlife tour, and the one I decided to book goes 91 miles in and is called the Kantishna Experience, named after the rarely visited town at the very end of the road. All of the buses (camper, hiker and tourist) stop at the same rest stops, stop to see the same wildlife and have drivers who personalize the experience with all of the stories you would probably expect to hear during such a journey. The flaw in this master plan is that tourist buses (which are reservable) are both expensive and rare, while hiker and camper buses (which cover the same territory in similar vehicles) are relatively plentiful and about a quarter of the price. The result is (of course) hiker buses that are clogged with tourists who never get off, meaning that every day in Denali hikers who follow the rules are stranded two or three hours waiting for return buses that are always full with tourists trying to cheat the system and save some money. Not the best system if you ask me.
The Kantishna Experience bus ride (on my first full day at Denali) was most certainly an experience. The longest of the tours, it was scheduled for 13 hours although I ended up rather thankful when it finished off at 12 and a half. The bus followed the regular route up past Fish Creek and then continued on for a quick, ranger led walk around the insect infested Wonder Lake and on to Kantishna itself where, quite honestly, not all that much was going on. With the exception of a few stream crossings and some interesting enough park ranger provided history, Kantishna was a good 20 miles past all of the good views. Still the trip was more about the journey than the destination- at every corner, at every pass, at every turn another impossible view opened up, something you just knew you would never see again.
Life on the bus wasn't horrible but certainly was no picnic, unless of course you count the picnic lunch. Paying close to $100 for a 13 hour school bus ride not only included the glamour of life on the bus but also a box lunch in a yellow bag which consisted of little individually wrapped snacks and just about everything that was available for purchase from the Aramark store in the front country visitor centers. And while most of the people on the bus were interesting and happy to be there (I did actually speak with quite a few), the annoying couple behind me unfortunately were not- they spent the balance of the trip complaining that their cell phone did not work in the middle of nowhere or complaining that the bus was stopping again to watch a roadside animal that they had already seen. It makes you wonder why they thought a 13 hour bus ride was a good idea in the first place.
As far as you can drive in the park, Savage River is about 15 miles from the Parks Highway and just on the edge between the taiga (stick) forest and the wide open sub arctic tundra. While the buses fly past this stop on their way to the real back country, I chose to drive out on my very last day in a vain attempt for one last mountain sighting (even on clear days the mountain is only visible from certain locations due to other, closer mountains blocking your view). So that last day while I may have missed seeing Denali again, I did at least get a consolation prize at Savage River: Savage Rock (or Rocks, if you ask me), an offensively named cool rock formation that vaguely looks like a slightly deformed Native American's head.
Two quick shots of the park, one near the beginning (where the taiga forest still stands) and another one a few hours away, where the higher elevations and harsher conditions leave nothing but sub arctic tundra for as far as you can imagine.
After the grizzly bears at Katmai, I wasn't too excited to see distant bears or any distant animals for that matter. The wide open spaces and a bus load of people looking for animals lead to a lot of sightings, some good and others that look suspiciously like dots. During my 20+ hours on the buses I saw at least ten additional grizzlies, although most of the time they looked more like rocks than anything else. A case in point is this photo, showing an unusually large gathering of dall sheep on a distant ridge. Even with my telephoto lens, the closest sheep at Denali was nothing compared to the farthest grizzly I had seen at Katmai.
Not all of the animals were blurry distant dots. Three quick animals: a fox, a golden eagle and a moose, presented (as always) in no particular order.
It never, ever, ever, ever got dark in Alaska, even at midnight, even when the sun set, at least when I was there. A novelty on the first day, a mild inconvenience on the second, an irritating mental condition a week later- it was almost as if my internal clock did not exist or was just flashing 12:00 all the time. If you've ever seen the movie "Insomnia" it was just like that, only with less Hilary Swank.
