So my traveling companion has a name. I had suggestions to use a place I loved, and I wanted something that started with a “P” ( for porcupine). There’s a mountain in Denali National Park called Polychrome, noted both for its many colors and the fact that it decided to get rid of the road that went past it. So…say hello to Polly Porcupine.
The first phase of my year of travel is nearly over. My last tour ended yesterday and here I sit in the airport heading back to Anchorage. I’ll be heading down the road the day after tomorrow- the end of fifteen years of post-retirement seasonal work. My guests kept asking me if it was sad to know I wouldn’t be back. Not sad, really, but bittersweet.
In these years I’ve made wonderful friends, had amazing experiences, and had the privilege of sharing this gorgeous part of the world that I love so much. I’m so lucky.
Goodbye, Alaska. We’ll meet again, I’m sure.
On this busy morning in the middle of a tour I took time to listen to Denali. They say the mountain sings. My ears can’t hear it, but my heart can.
Last year I talked a bit about how everything here seems to be in a hurry to stuff everything they can into the short summer season. When the warm weather arrived here, it seemed as though the mountainsides turned green overnight. One of our drivers told me she saw the roadside flowers bloom between 2 AM and 6 AM. Just that fast. With 21 hours of daylight here in Denali, summer is in high gear.
The moose have been very evident along the roads, chomping on all that nice tender greenery. I hear tell the beavers are busy at Horseshoe Lake, too, but when I finally made it there yesterday the only wildlife I saw was the Alaska State Bird: the mosquito. There were so many my pictures are full of blurry little smudges.
While last summer we experienced very few really warm days, this year seems to be trying to make up for the late arrival of Spring. Today the thermometer (according to the Weather Channel) hovered at 88 degrees. There is no air conditioning. Fortunately I have a fan, but it’s still pretty uncomfortable.
The good thing as that since this is Alaska, it might snow tomorrow. We can only hope.
This is what I’ve been waiting for since I arrived two months ago…
I finally got to take the shuttle into Denali Park on Saturday. I rode to the Eielson Visitor Center, and saw my first grizzly of the season. Actually, the tally was 31 Dall sheep, four grizzlies, 14 caribou, six moose, and three ptarmigan. None of our encounters was extraordinary…no bears walking down the middle of the road, no baby moose, and no view of the Mountain (Denali, for the uninitiated). But the landscape continues to call to me, the sheer joy of being in a land untroubled by modern civilization.
Well, there was one bear reasonably close, and since it was my first good look for the season, I’ll take it.
The plan for Sunday was to relax, do laundry, and maybe venture over to the Park entrance to hike to Horseshoe Lake. It’s an easy hike, under a mile, with a pretty lake with beavers and other wildlife (including the gigantic Alaskan Mosquito). Somehow I never made it. My friend Diane convinced me to do the hike early instead of later, so we started out toward the Park only to be waylaid by a moose and twin babies. Of course we had to stop and take lots of photos.
Finally, off to Horseshoe. We got about halfway in to the lake when Diane spotted an owl having a disagreement with a raven. It seems the raven had its eye on the owl’s nest; whether it was for baby owls or eggs we don’t know. We spent a good deal of time watching the drama unfold, and at one point the raven came right to the owl’s nest, who proceeded to spread her wings and cover the nest to keep the raven out.
Pretty amazing day, right? Well, we never got to Horseshoe Lake. We got a call telling us we could take a glacier landing flight if we could get back to the lodge in a half hour. So we hustled back, always within the speed limit, of course. The weather was beautiful, but I was worried that I was in a t-shirt with no jacket, heading up to Ruth Glacier on Denali. I needn’t have worried. I was so excited, and the weather was so beautiful, I never noticed the chill.
This was a bit of my personal history coming back to me. When we landed, the pilot pointed out a building that belonged to the famous bush pilot, Don Sheldon. Many years ago when I was just a child, Don was in my mother’s restaurant and tried to talk her into letting him fly me up to the glacier. Mom’s reaction was mostly along the lines of “Are you kidding me? I’m not letting you take my 9-year-old up to land on a piece of ice!” Of course, I was doing every bit of wheedling I knew to get her to let me go, but no dice. So, Mom, wherever you are up there, I finally got to go!
This is why I come back to Alaska in the summer. Why I actually work when I’m supposedly retired. Because you never know what you might see around the next corner.
I guess I got a tad overconfident about the weather when I posted last weekend. It seemed like Spring. It felt like Spring. But Mother Nature had other plans.
Beginning early yesterday morning, we got hit with a major snowstorm that is just now finally moving on to bother someone else. When you’re in a business that’s involved in transporting vacationers and giving them a wonderful experience, a snowstorm is a BIG DEAL. All we could say was “Welcome to Alaska!”
My hopes of driving into Denali National Park today were dashed, so instead I’ve spent most of the day watching movies. I’m figuring that no self-respecting grizzly would be out wandering around in a blizzard anyway, and even if he was I wouldn’t be able to see him! I did go out and clear about eight inches of wet, heavy snow and ice off the car I leased for the season. There wasn’t an ice scraper or snow brush in the car-it was only for the summer, after all.
I’m holding on to great hopes that I might get into the park tomorrow, which is the last day cars are allowed to drive beyond Savage River. With the snow it’s likely I won’t get beyond Savage anyway, but it’s worth checking, anyway.
Alaska has a long-standing tradition called the Nenana Ice Classic. It started in 1917, probably by people who were suffering from cabin fever and needed something to do. Why not bet on Spring? Besides, Alaskans will bet on almost anything. So every year a tripod is set up on the ice on the Tanana River, in the town of Nenana, south of Fairbanks. When the tripod falls over, breakup is official. People buy tickets and make their guess on when the ice will go out. Last year the winner received $350,000. The latest the ice has ever gone out was May 20, 1964, the same week I graduated from high school in Anchorage. I remember it being a cold spring-I wore a heavy coat over my graduation gown because it was so cold. It looks like this year might set a new record. On May 6 the ice was still 40 inches thick. That was the last measurement, because the ice starts to get soft and it isn’t safe to go out on the river. With the very cold weather we’ve been having, I somehow think that ice hasn’t deteriorated all that much in the last couple of weeks. I’ll keep checking and let you know when the ice goes out. I;m ready for it right now!
I always try to live in the moment and enjoy whatever comes, especially in Alaska. There is so much beauty here, and the many seasons and types of weather make it a constantly changing picture. But I’ve been here now for seven weeks of winter. Seriously, I’m ready for summer.
According to the TV weather, this was the third coldest April in interior Alaska since they started keeping records. Of course, this had to be the year I spent April in Denali. It got to the point where every morning my coworkers would wander into the dining area, look out the window, and moan “Oh, no, more snow!” As our maintenance crew was working to haul away the snowbanks on the hotel property, more was falling to take its place. This was the view of Healy on the first of May. Oh, the building in the middle? That’s our grocery store! The Stampede, where I’ll live for the season, looks like a perfect winter scene.
Once the snow started melting, it began to freeze at night, making walking treacherous. We were required to wear studded snow tires on our boots to help prevent falls.
The good news is that Spring did eventually come. In just two weeks’ time most of the snow has melted (with some stubborn snowbanks still creating mud as they melt away). After living in Arizona for so many years I thought I had completely acclimated to the warm country, but when it hit the upper forties here I found it wonderfully mild!
Arriving in Denali early meant coming to the Interior of Alaska while it’s still in the grip of Winter. While the rest of the country experiences Spring, what Alaskans look forward to is Breakup. It means the snow is melting, the ice is turning to puddles (or lakes…or rivers…) and there is mud everywhere. Unfortunately, we’re told by the TV weather people that this is the coldest April in the Interior since 1927. I believe it.
I arrived back in Denali on April 3 this year. I’m hoping to do a better job of blogging the summer this year; I finally gave up last year after struggling with the Internet service. The good news is that my Internet connection is working MUCH better this year.
We drove up from Anchorage on a beautiful sunny day in the 40s, and The Mountain (Denali) was out in all her glory. So I was thinking, “Great! Breakup is upon us and Spring is here!” Wrong. The next day it started snowing and continued for a couple of days, with the temperature dipping into the -20s every night. Yesterday we woke to no water and no heat, but that was fixed very quickly. The first day I worked in my office it was 55 degrees in the room, but fortunately Maintenance found a space heater for me and that made it very comfortable. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in weather this cold, and I’m starting to relearn some things I forgot: ALWAYS wear your hat and gloves, don’t bother with earrings because they’re pretty cold in subzero weather, walk carefully because there’s ice under that snow.
It’s a small crew up here getting ready for the season, but it’s growing almost every day. We’re all stuffed into the Stampede housing until they open up the other building, so it’s starting to get a bit crowded. We have a great group of people working together here, so I’m really looking forward to the season.
My only wildlife sighting so far has been a huge eagle feasting on a baby moose carcass. The biggest eagle I’ve ever seen! There were several ravens standing by, but none of them seemed interested in challenging the eagle for a meal.
This is the scene behind the main lodge of the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge. It looks a lot different now than what our guests will be seeing this summer.
As a child living in Alaska, I remember seeing Fireweed everywhere during the summer. It grows wild and loves areas that have been newly cleared or burned. Since most of the populated areas of Alaska were newly cleared when I was growing up, there was a lot of it.
This summer, living in Denali has given me the opportunity to get reaquainted with my old pal Fireweed. It seems as though there was none in evidence just a couple of weeks ago, and suddenly it’s everywhere, two feet tall already.
As wonderful as the Fireweed is, there’s a sad side to it. You see, Fireweed blooms from the bottom up. All Alaskans know that once it reaches its full glory, with the blooms going all the way to the top, it tells us the first frost is nearly due and winter isn’t far behind.
That’s OK, Fireweed, I’m glad you’re here anyway. You make me smile every day.
Travels with Billie 