Alaska trip 3 – Denali

Day 3. We got up early and headed towards Denali National Park. It was a long drive of about 4 hours. Unfortunately, it started raining and it kept raining as we drove towards Denali. We could hardly see the road so had to drive slowly. Fog had everything covered so we missed the scenic drive completely. We could not see Mt.McKinley when the viewpoint came because of the fog and the heavy rains. We were disappointed that the whole trip to Denali would be wasted. I was wondering how we were going to spot animals in this thick fog and heavy rain. We could not even see trees, let alone spot wildlife. We reached Denali National Park and the rain had not stopped.

After driving for sometime, the clouds began to grow thin and we could see white clouds ahead of us. And then it stopped raining all of a sudden and even the fog was gone. I could not be more happy. We stopped and took some pictures of the amazing tundra. For the first time, I saw tundra and loved it! Everything was so colorful and the forest looked very beautiful. Once we crossed this point, it no longer rained and thankfully our trip was successful.

Arctic tundra is located in the northern hemisphere, encircling the north pole and extending south to the coniferous forests of the taiga. The arctic is known for its cold, desert-like conditions. A layer of permanently frozen subsoil called permafrost exists, consisting mostly of gravel and finer material. When water saturates the upper surface, bogs and ponds may form, providing moisture for plants. There are no deep root systems in the vegetation of the arctic tundra, however, there are still a wide variety of plants that are able to resist the cold climate.

All of the plants are adapted to sweeping winds and disturbances of the soil. Plants are short and group together to resist the cold temperatures and are protected by the snow during the winter. They can carry out photosynthesis at low temperatures and low light intensities. The growing seasons are short and most plants reproduce by budding and division rather than sexually by flowering.  Source: link

Denali National Park is 3 times the size of Yellowstone national park. Before going to Alaska, I had browsed through a book to do some research on Alaska. There it said that Yellowstone was for those who could not afford to visit Denali. It is very huge and they do not allow public vehicles inside the park. So we took an 8 hour bus tour to the park. We went to the Wilderness center to collect our bus tickets and then checked into our hotel. We had lunch at the restaurant in our hotel. He took hell lot of time to serve and we were pretty tensed that we would miss the bus. But somehow we made it. The bus picked us up at our hotel.

According to some blogs that I read and some photos that I saw, Denali did not look that good in summer. Fall (sep) is the best season to visit Denali because of the fall colors. We visited in fall without knowing that it was the right time to visit 🙂 I just loved Denali. What is not there to like here? Tundra, fall colors, colorful mountains, beautiful scenery, snow filled mountains, glaciers and rivers. When I spoke to a friend of mine, she had doubts that it might be very cold in september. It was cold but not very cold. However, winters are supposedly very harsh here.

The tour guide was really good. He gave us a lot of information about the park. He also gave us lot of stops and hence plenty of opportunities to take photos. But we were only allowed to get down at the designated stops. Below picture gives a glimpse of the polychrome mountain. The glaciers here have melted by 50% in last 20 yrs it seems. Not sure how long they will last.

Not everyone who visits Denali gets a chance to look at Mt. McKinley. But I guess we were lucky since the clouds had cleared and we were able to see the majestic mountain. Mt. McKinley (called Denali – the high one) is the highest mountain peak in North America.

At some 18,000 feet (5,500 m), the base to peak rise is considered the largest of any mountain situated entirely above sea level. It has a summit elevation of 20,237 feet (6,168 m) above sea level. Source: Wiki

Once the tour was over, we were dropped back at our hotel. Afternoon when we went for lunch, a guy at the restaurant told us about a Thai place right in front of our hotel. So for dinner, we went in search of this Thai place. The food was pretty good and having rice after 3 days felt so awesome. I cannot survive without eating rice for a long time 🙂 Night it got very cold. I could not stand outside for 2 minutes without shivering and chattering teeth, even though I had worn a very thick jacket. We had registered ourselves for Aurora call, where the hotel staff will inform in case aurora is visible. But we did not get a call in the night.

Other posts on Alaska:

Alaska trip 1 – Anchorage
Alaska trip 2 – Seward
Alaska trip 4 – Coldfoot
Alaska trip 5 – Fairbanks