Alaska – Page 4 – Travels with Billie

Starting Over (Almost)

I finally got my Internet challenges resolved today-for the most part, at least. It turned out that my mobile hotspot wasn’t working properly. A new hotspot, activated courtesy of my hubby (you can’t activate it in the wilderness, I’m told) and the slowest Priority Mail package in history, came today and it’s burning up the satellites.

I have a LOT to catch up on-the leaves have sprung us right into a full green summer, and the place that just three weeks ago was all white is now 70 degrees. The mountains around us change daily…no, hourly…and provide a constantly changing show.

I had the privilege of having dinner with the editor of Alaska magazine and their photographer. For a lover of the written word and of Alaska, it was a real treat!

I walked into the entrance area of Denali National Park last weekend and shared the walkway with a moose-very cautiously, of course. The whole walk was exciting-one minute I’d be marveling at the vast mountains, and the next I’d be on my knees inspecting the newly-blooming flowers. Even the rain, when it came, was fun. It was a soft rain, making everything look more intense.

Pictures are now no longer such a challenge, so I hope to be able to build some posts around some of my favorites.

Getting Settled

Finally moved into our housing for the season, although even that was a challenge. For the first few days we didn’t have water, which required the use of a porta-potty and walking a goodly distance to the showers in very chilly weather. Then we got water, but it promptly froze up every night. Each night I’d check that we had hot water and would go to bed looking forward to a nice hot shower in the morning, then in the morning there would be nothing.

A trip to the dumpster one day revealed the reason for the water problem…the pipes are running above ground! Hey, it’s Alaska.

Anyway, the weather finally turned nice just in time for my birthday. I got to try out two

Climbers on Denali — Mountain climbers head to the base camp on Mt. McKinley.

tours in a row-the tour vendors want to show us how great their adventures are so we’ll tell the guests. First we did a helicopter tour over Denali National Park. The following day we did a flight around

Mt. McKinley. The weather was absolutely spectacular, and we could even see the mountain climbers hiking up toward one of their base camps. It was a truly thrilling experience and I feel so fortunate for it to have turned out so perfect.

On my birthday I walked to the post office to pick up my mail; it’s a mile and a half each way, but a nice walk. Then I treated myself to a king crab dinner. My coworkers provided a cake during the day, and then we gathered in our trailer for a glass of wine in the new wine glass I was given.

This was a birthday I’ll remember for years!

Summer is Coming…I Think

The first week brought new people, new tasks, and a constant stream of learning. After the hundreds of nights I spent in hotels in my career, I walked behind the desk for the first time. Being in the huge lobby with all the furniture stacked and covered, it was an eerie feeling at times, evoking memories of Jack Nicholson wandering through a closed and creepy hotel.

Every meeting brought an exchange of names, a discussion of where they are from, what they will be doing in Denali, and how many seasons they have been working here. Despite the seasonal nature of the work, there are a lot of people who return. There are retired policmen, a former Coast Guard officer, a chef who has worked all over the country in great restaurants, secretaries, teachers. We have young people looking for a new adventure, college students, young couples, retirees…they come to earn a living, but mostly they come for Alaska. The mountains, the wildlife, the immense beauty.

As I walked through the property, it seemed as though every time I made the walk the mountains looked a little different. The light changed, the clouds changed, the weather changed, and every change brought a new look to my surroundings. I found it hard not to just stop every few steps to think about how fortunate I am to be in Alaska again.

We were greeted the first day with snow that started as flurries, but occasionally became swirling white. The next morning we woke to a white world. It didn’t last long, but it was a reminder that winter owns this land and only gives it up temporarily.

One challenge of being here in the wilderness is that Internet service is slow, and at times nonexistent. While I hope to post pictures, unless I have a great connection it tends to send my efforts into a black hole. Stay tuned. I’m hoping it will get better as the season moves on.

Heading for Denali

Off to Denali National Park! I was amazed to see a traffic jam in Wasilla, which used to be nothing more than a couple of bars and a gas station on a gravel road. Once we got a few miles out of Wasilla, however, it started looking more like the Alaska I know. Funky little roadside businesses, and trees. And mountains. The best part of the drive was the first glimpse of Mount McKinley. I’ll not call it that again…in Alaska we just call it Denali-The Great One. As you drive along the Parks Highway, suddenly you round a curve and there is that amazing mountain towering above everything.

We also had a caribou cross the road in front of us, so we had our first official wildlife setting. I’m not counting the moose in Anchorage. They are ubiquitous there.

Because our housing isn’t quite ready, we’ve been put in temporary housing. It’s a building that used to house pipeline workers on the North Slope. It’s nothing more than a bunch of modular housing that was moved here and stacked up again. The funniest part was the bathroom. It’s down the hall, and there are two doors-one at each end. both ends have sinks and toilets, and there are showers in the middle. On one door the sign says “Men” and on the other it says “Women”!

Starting a New Adventure

Last summer’s trip to Yellowstone and Glacier prompted me to think about seasonal jobs. Remembering a conversation with an employee in Denali Park a few years ago, I decided to apply. So today I sit in Anchorage, getting ready to leave for Denali. This will be the record of my summer adventure.

First, it isn’t summer here. I left Phoenix three days ago after a couple of 100 degree days, and arrived here to mid-50s. Although I spent a lot of my childhood in Anchorage and graduated from high school here, I find the city barely recognizable. Controlled-access roads where there used to be gravel trails. Hotels where I used to live. And my favorite bar, which started out in the late 60s as a log cabin with soft chairs and a fireplace, is now a two-story giant sports bar.

Some things don’t change, though. Heading out to pick up some items from the store yesterday, I first encountered hills that seemed out of place. Turned out they are the leftover snow from winter that got dumped there after they cleared the roads. It had to go somewhere, you know. And on the way back to the hotel, traffic slowed to a crawl to allow a moose to cross the road.

And the light. It’s different here than in the desert. Most of the time since I arrived it’s been overcast, which I remember to be a pretty common state of affairs. But then late in the day, as the sun gets lower, it peeks under the clouds and hits the mountains. Anchorage is surrounded by mountains, still covered with snow at this time of the year. They light up and glow with the sunset, blue and white and jagged against the sky. It brings so many memories of my younger years, when the mountains were the backdrop to my life.