After coming out to civilization again we decided to spend another night in Riley Creek Campground near the park entrance so we could take care of some laundry, catch up on email, and take much-needed showers.

Laundry – the mundane of overland travel

Denali has the only working sled dog team in the National Parks system, and Quinn decided that he wanted to stick around until 2pm to see a demo of the dogs. That left us with lots of time, so we indulged in a pancake breakfast in the van, then visited the Murie Science Center for fun with stuffed toy birds and a dinosaur puzzle on the floor.

Making pancakes in the van

The sled dog demo was definitely worth waiting around for. The park’s first superintendant back in the early 1900s was given a budget of $8000 (about $110,000 in today’s money) to manage the park’s 1.6 million acres. Oh, and he had to pay himself out of that budget. He was an expert musher, so he figured the best thing to do would be to buy a team of sled dogs. The park has used dog teams exclusively for all winter work (supporting researchers and patrolling the park) except search and rescue almost continuously since its inception. The only exceptions were during WWII when their dog teams were appropriated for combat duty. They were replaced briefly with tracked vehicles, which “although they can travel farther in a day than the best dog teams, have far more trouble with carburetors.”

The demo itself consisted of 5 dogs being hooked to a sled which they very enthusiastically towed around a short gravel track. All of the dogs went absolutely nuts when it was time to get hooked up. The theory is that whoever barks the loudest gets to be on the team. The dogs clearly loved to run, pull, and work. In other places dogs are trained and exercised in the summer by getting hooked to an ATV and pulling that along. We saw a team pulling an ATV along the Denali Highway a few days ago. I don’t have the bandwidth right now to upload the video I took of the dogs in the park, but someone else already did.

Looks hard on the dog, but the park personnel explained that the dogs are so strong that picking their forelegs up by their collar is the only way to prevent injuries to the handlers.

At the end of their careers the dogs are put up for adoption. The only requirement is that the adopters live an active lifestyle in a northern climate. Skijoring anyone?

In case you haven’t had enough doggie cuteness today, check out the Denali Sled Dog Center’s puppy-cam.

Who wouldn’t love to adopt this guy?

Thanks Witt and Jen for letting us post these old pictures. Of course, Witt was checking out the rocks at the entrance to the park – saving a few to throw in the next river. This was in July – note the clothes and boots! Oh my, I wish I would have had a camera like W&Js, ah technology –  We did see the mountain, but not nearly as clear as Witt, Jen and Quinn.You guys are very lucky and keep the pictures coming!

The morning of our first full day in the park dawned… Overcast and rainy. We had a reservation on a shuttle bus out to the end of the park road (90 miles from the entrance and 60 miles from our campground), and we figured we might as well spend a rainy day riding a bus and looking for wildlife. We saw some Dall sheep and a couple of grizzlies during our bus ride, but other than that the scenery was limited. We stopped at the excellent (and LEED Platinum certified) Eielson Visitor Center at about mile 60 for lunch and learned about early climbing expeditions to the peak.

A Dall sheep looks out into the rain from his perch atop a cliff.

Just to prove we rode the bus as far as possible

We also found out that the mountain hadn’t been visible for the past week, and that the forecast for the next day wasn’t much different from today. The round trip bus ride took almost 9 hours along the winding dirt road, with stops for bathroom breaks and wildlife viewing. On the way back most of the passengers were asleep and the windows were covered with grime, so we couldn’t have seen anything anyway. We dreamed of sunny Baja beaches…

Quinn was a trooper on the long ride, with the help of videos on the Kindle Fire and a game of word association with a very patient mom.

When we woke up the next morning we were startled when we unzipped the windows of our pop-top. What is that up there? Who turned the clouds blue? What hath the gods wrought? And later, a strange burning orb appears in the sky! It must be the end times! Repent!

Blue skies!!

With renewed hope, we roused Quinn from slumber, tossed a bowl of cereal at him, made a quick pot of coffee and threw some food for lunch in our packs. Not wanting to tempt fate, we also packed warm clothes and rain gear, and headed out to the bus stop.

We were fortunate to get on the first bus that came by (we only had reservations for the first day – subsequent use of the buses is on a space available basis). Not wanting to do the whole 9 hour trip again, we rode out to Eielson Visitor Center and did a nice hike up to a ridge line for some spectacular views of Denali and the surrounding landscape. Quinn didn’t much like the cold wind at the top, but he insisted on completing the hike.

We did a 2 hour, ranger led hike about 900 feet up a ridge behind the visitor center.

Later in the visitor center, he started playing with a couple of kids about his age and excitedly dragged them over to a window where he pointed at the mountain we had just climbed and told them about his hike!

The bus trip and the hike afforded some spectacular views of Denali as well as the abundant wildlife in the park. Here are a few photos. And here are a few more.

One of 4 grizzlies we spotted from the bus

Quinn meets a friend on the bus ride back to camp. Sofie is 5, from the Czech Republic, and speaks 3 languages fluently!

More fall colors on the way out of the park

The mechanic spent Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning working on the van. In they end they bypassed the tank selector and hooked it up directly to the front tank. At least we were on the road again!

We departed on Wednesday around noon for our second attempt at the Top of the World Highway. The leaves were definitely more vibrant, but it was also overcast and rainy, so the views weren’t as good as they were on Monday. Our welcome back to the US was in the form of 13 miles of road construction. It was raining off and on, and the mud was just as bad if not worse than what we encountered on the Dempster. Eventually the road improved, and we made it back to the Alaska Highway at around 5pm and found a state park to camp in.

Fall colors on the Top of the World Highway

Finish that sandwich before the rain gets here!

Here it comes!

Yay! More mud!

The Alaska Highway was constructed right after the US entered World War II to establish a supply route to help protect North America from an invasion. I’ve been wondering why it was necessary to build an overland supply route when stuff could easily be brought in by ship. A helpful exhibit at the state park explained it. In addition to the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese also attacked and even occupied several of the Aleutian Islands. Leadership at the time was concerned that Japan would be able to close the shipping lanes in the Pacific.

The next day, after a stop in Tok to stock up on Alaska tourist info, we headed for Fairbanks. We stopped in the town of North Pole, where we were supposed to be able to see Santa Claus. Santa was on vacation, and the rest of the place was just a year-round Christmas store, so that was sort of a bust. We headed into Fairbanks and found a campground to spend the night.

A nice spot for lunch

A big, snowy mountain that we don’t know the name of