Large-header entries are made on days when I actually write; small-header entries are "catch-up" / memories. Though I will try to link many of them below, the photos can also be found in my Flickr stream.

jump to this day in june of 2009:
6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21

anticipation

As the trip approaches the world recedes. Thoughts slip idly into daydreams and loose plans. Any minor injustice is tolerable, just so long as the trip is soon.

6th

Waking early is always a chore, a burden, but the morning of a trip is a blessing -- the body still hurts and aches, but I am able to ignore those minor pains and look forward at what is to come.

Packing, traveling to the airport went without a hitch. One thing thing I doubt I'll ever understand is people who show up late for flights. While checking luggage, a couple came running in behind us, perhaps five or six minutes before boarding for their flight was scheduled to close. Even with the assistance of kindly people allowing them to cut through most of the line, security was a bottleneck for them, and by the time they finally squeezed through and burst out of it, running down the terminal, it was already five minutes past the supposed cutoff point. Perhaps they had valid reasons for showing up late -- car would not start, dog ate their homework, etc. Perhaps they did not. Either way, I do not believe that they made their flight.

The flights themselves were uneventful, as airplane rides are wont to be.

Once in Alaska, we hopped a cab for downtown Anchorage. Traveller's tip: renting a car from a location downtown can be much, much cheaper than renting at the airport. We saved $500 doing so which less the $25 cab fare each way comes out to a $450 net benefit. Tragically, these savings were very nearly not realized, as the worker behind the counter struggled mightily with the computer system, and failed entirely to find our reservation. I could remember approximately the quoted total for our rental, but Crazy Incompetent Avis Lady expressed her disbelief that there was any way we could have been quoted that price. The Avis affiliates in Alaska, it seems, are independent contractors. I personally couldn't care less about this fact, but C.I.A.L. seemed to find it important to inform us of this fact about once every other minute. She used it as a sort of dead space filler, the way some people "um" or "uh." Fortunately, even though our printer was on the fritz when I made the reservation, I had enough foresight to save an HTML cache of the page on my laptop. This allowed us to show C.I.A.L. not only the end quote, but the "rate code" and other arcane details of the reservation, which she required to make the computer do its apparently nigh-on-impossible task. In the end, she had to call somebody at another branch to figure out how to punch in our code. It seems that the website on which I made the reservation made a mistake, and should have charged a higher rate for Alaska. My advice to Avis: code a better website.

Other thoughts: There is a ubiquity and a comfort in fast food. Groceries, like everything else, are expensive in Alaska. Our campsite had its own "private waterfall," which is even mentioned in one of our travel guides. It doesn't get dark at night ... just sort of twilighty.

7th

A grizzly at the turnoff to Hope. Nothing actually in Hope worth mentioning.

The Gull Rock trail: Blasts of beauty. Mud flats. Mountains seemingly everywhere. Many people with dogs accompanying them on the trails, none with leashes.

A municipal campground in Seward: not so bad, if not particularly great.

After dinner, we headed down to the Seward waterfront to shop for a glacier/wildlife cruise. A marked difference in quality of customer service between Renown and Kenai Fjords Tours led us to choose the former.

8th

(written on the 17th)

After loitering on the waterfront a bit, our glacier and wildlife water excursion began.

Many of these sights, especially that of the breaching whale and of the tidewater glacier, and done a grave injustice by the photos thereof. These photos are at best triggers for our memories, and a hint for others of the sheer presence and awesome grandeur that these events/objects possess when experienced in person.

9th

(written on the 17th)

There are times when you are the only person on a ranger-led hike. This morning was one of those times. A kindly volunteer named Lew led us on this hike, up to the edge of the glacier. His presentation was at times forced and a bit corny, and he had a habit of asking leading questions without properly leading in to them, but I would say we learned a fair amount on the hike. For example: Lew asks, "What color is that water down there?" "Brown," I say. "Dirt colored," Lea says. Lew nods his head while saying, "No, not exactly," clearly waiting for one of the nonexistent members of a larger tour group to say the answer he is looking for. It turns out that the answer is grey, which, to Lea's credit, is the color of the dirt there, or, more exactly and to the crux of Lew's point, the color of the rocks there. The river is grey because it is fed by glacial melt, and glaciers do other things than just melt: they grind up rocks on their underside, among yet other things.

The Harding Ice Field hike. I have many thoughts to share about this hike, but not the time to record them at this moment.

10th

Waking up hot in a tent is not a thing I would normally choose to do. Sitting on a picnic table and having cold leftover gyro pizza for breakfast, on the other hand, is. We collapsed the site quickly, and headed into town.

The SeaLife center in town was a nice excursion.

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Picking a hotel. The glory of a put-off shower. Falling asleep involuntarily on the bed.

Dinner: steak and deep-fried scallops.

Ah yes, and the reason for this splendor: today I turn 29.

Asleep between sheets.

11th

It is a pleasant thing to wake in a bed. As always, waking is a surprise, something that happens quickly even as you come out of it slowly. Waking in sheets, being able to take a shower: these are simple pleasures, that I too often overlook.

After restocking supplies at the supermarket, it was goodbye to Seward. We headed down the Sterling Highway with a brief stop and microhike down to the Kenai River for some "scenic views." It is, as I understand it, king salmon season, and from our scenic outlook, we could see no fewer than four fly fishers standing hip deep in the current.

Cruising on through Soldotna, we drove up the Cook Inlet to the city of Kenai. There we stopped in at an Orthodox Russian church, and listened to tales and theology given by an old man in a purple headpiece of some kind held together with Scotch tape.

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North of town, we toured Kassik's Brewery. Turning off a highway on to progressively sketchier thoroughfares led us eventually to a lot tucked behind trees with a small house and a large garage. A man with salt-and-pepper beard waved us in, and a large black lab greeted us earnestly if not energetically. Inside the oversized garage we saw the brewing equipment, kegs stacked and lying around, and were given a sampling flight. The beer: excellent. Seeing how as he and his wife only sell it by the keg around the state, I rather doubt that I will get to taste it once back in Wisconsin; hopefully, I can get some more of it at a restaurant while I am still here.

Down to Homer, we drove immediately out on to the Spit, to camp on the beach with the great unwashed.

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12th

A quieter day, with two museums and a walk on Bishop's Beach.

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13th

Sunrise on the Spit.

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A boat ride, purportedly to sight wildlife as well to carry us to Seldovia.

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There is not overmuch to see in Seldovia. Two hilights: the entries of the recent Chainsaw Carving Competition, and the "Otterbahn," a trail built by middle and high school students in the mid 90s which led us to Outer Beach.

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14th

In the morning, the long drive back to Anchorage.

In the afternoon, the Alaska Native Heritage center.

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15th

To open the day, a hike up Flattop Mountain.

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The afternoon was filled with another long drive, this time up to Denali.

16th

Various ranger programs around and near the Entrance of Denali National Park. I will elaborate on our fabulous ranger, displayed here, later.

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17th

I am filled with the urge to write but sporadically; in this way, the desire is much like my desire to read. At times it seems to wash over me, soaking and infusing me with the will and the way. Generally, unfortunately, I am empty of such longing, and any attempt to write ends up feeling, sounding, being empty.

No doubt such states are influenced by surroundings, by circumstance. This morning I sit on the benches at the Entrance, that area of Denali cordoned off for general consumption. People wander past, some with purpose, most with a slow hesitancy. Seemingly, they do not know or do not care where they are headed. Such aimlessness is often a pleasure; it allows one to expand, to fill up the space around one's self, to gain a sense of place. Indeed, our trip to Alaska was and has been designed with this aesthetic in mind: we feel as we go, we find our bearing by finding our place.

There are times that such formlessness leaves one seemingly stranded. For instance, I sit now in a small coffee shop / grill, surrounding by the aged and the overweight who eat their breakfast with a relish that almost matches the premium prices that commodities in these places demand. The coffee station attendant bustles in front of me, straightening and organizing racks of vacuum packed chips and saran coated baked goods that do not need straightening or organizing. She is here for the summer, I assume, and on this day has drawn the unlucky early shift. She fills the time as best she can, the self purported "grille" still predominantly empty, the buses and trains full of folk still as yet not arrived.

I dwell as well in this empty time, but its formlessness leaves me time to unwind, to relax, to write. Lea sleeps in the car, a victim of eternal light and shifting time zones. Where she has reacted to the three hour differential and midnight sun with mild insomnia, I have responded with a strange somniferous depth. I fall asleep at eight (local time), where at home I am not asleep most night until two. This being a vacation, we have been sleeping in most mornings, but today an alarm was set, so that we could arrive at the visitors' center here at the Entrance right at open and sign up for a space-limited ranger-led backcountry excursion for Friday. Where I awoke this morning at the sound of the alarm with more than ten hours of sleep already filling me, I assume that Lea had rather less. And so, now, I connect with you all while Lea connects with her rest.

I will try and fill some of the days already past with a small collection of photographs, but who knows how much longer Lea will sleep.

I'll be trying to post some Alaska material here when/where appropriate.

(written on the 21st)

After writing the above, we went and hiked the Mt. Healy Overlook trail. A nice hike, to be sure.

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After getting back, I worked further on the webpage, until the "grille" closed up. On being kicked out, we went to Riley Creek Campground to set up for the night, then went and attended a ranger program. The ranger program was fantastic people-watching. Our favorite moment was when one couple asked the ranger, in all seriousness, "Where should we go to see Sarah Palin?" The ranger tried to answer the question seriously, saying Wasilla was probably the best place, but that she was occasionally in Juneau as well. Immediately following this explanation, however, another couple asked, "We came to Alaska to see Russia -- where should we go to see that?" It was all Lea and I could do to contain ourselves.

18th

We decided not to take the early early bus into the park, so it was a nice leisurely morning as we packed up, and got our gear and car to bus stop. There are two paradigms that can be applied to mornings like this: the "I must get up early and fill the day" view and the "I will sleep in and enjoy myself" view. We chose the latter.

On boarding the bus, we met with Alan, our driver. Alan was a fairly bus driver, and his longest screed was against mosquitos. He opened by asking, "Are any of you all mosquito apologists?" When we applied in the negative, he responded with "Good, I don't have to prove any of you wrong." He proceeded to talk at great length, spread out over the course of the ride, about how mosquitos do not appear to be the primary or even a major food source for any animals in the park, and about the fact that he does not believe that mosquitos pollenate blueberries. It turns out that the main "silver lining" / "glass half full" argument put forth by people in the park in defense of mosquitos is that "they pollenate blueberries," but according to Alan, and apparently to his source, some Canadian who is considered the foremost expert in the world on blueberry pollination, quote, "Mosquitos do not pollenate blueberries." Take that, mosquitos.

We saw a variety of wildlife on the bus ride out to Wonder Lake. The bus rides in general, over the next couple of days, really were a pretty good thing; we generally saw some sort of interesting wildlife from the bus windows, and it prevented a general logjam on that single road through the park.

Upon arriving at Wonder Lake, we walked in to camp. Let me backtrack a moment and discuss our trip planning. Many years (though not this year), all the "interior" campgrounds in Denali National Park and Preserve are filled to capacity; thus, it is quite important to make reservations ahead of time. The Wonder Lake campground has the honor of being closest to The Mountain (this is what everybody in the park calls Mount McKinley, though the peak is also referred to by the name Denali alone by many) -- about 26 miles from the base of it, nearly due south. None of the other campgrounds have a direct view of The Mountain. We read that the views of The Mountain (if you're lucky enough to see it) from Wonder Lake are stunning. We also read that you should bring mosquito headnets. No problem, right? We are, after all, from Minnesota/Wisconsin. Since The Mountain is only clear about one day in four, if that, in June, we decided to reserve three nights at Wonder Lake, and hope that we would get lucky and get said stunning views at least once.

Fast forward back to today. We arrive at the camp, and begin to set up. The mosquitos were ... well ... awful. We had been warned about the mosquitos, in the form of everybody asking if we had headnets. We had not been warned, however, that the mosquitos would be behavior-altering bad. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being no mosquitos at all and 10 being so many mosquitos you have trouble breathing, this was a 10. We expected perhaps a 6, maybe a 7 -- the sort of thing where you apply deet, and they hover, but you are still mosquito free. Given that everything else in the park that we had experienced was at worst a 3 on the Mosquito Scale, we were totally unprepared. When the man checking us in asked us if we were aware that there were mosquitos at Wonder Lake, he did not ask us if we were prepared to suffer a pestilential plague of Biblical proportions.

Throughout preparing dinner, the mosquitos clung to us like a sticky fog. Eating our mostly heated Campbell's soup, mosquito after mosquito would land on the rim of the pot, the outside, or the inside, and slide down into the soup, forcing us to ingest extra protein. We stuck around outside just long enough for the ranger talk, through which we huddled, then crawled into our tent and went to bed. (This was at about 8:30.) We were stunned by the raw omnipresence, the thickness, the noise and the feel of the mosquitos.

We were, in a word, miserable.

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No views of The Mountain. It was entirely cloud-covered that first day. The problem with Denali / Mount McKinley / The Mountain is that it is so much taller than everything else around it that it forms its own weather. When clouds flow past it they run into its side and "stick." Thus, near constant cloud cover. Oh well; we had two more days, right?

19th

Denali National Park and Preserve offers what it calls a "Discovery Hike" each day. One of the unique and great things about Denali is that the core 2 million acres of it are designated wilderness; thus, no man-made improvements are allowed on it, and there are no pre-set trails. What this means is that, for the majority of the park, if you want to get off the Park Road and the bus lines, you need to go off-trail. In order to help along people not brave enough to go out backcountry by themselves, each day there is a ranger-led walk through the backcountry. Some of the walks are more strenuous than others, and when signing up for the walks (which are limited to at most 11 people additional to the ranger), it gives you warnings about the sorts of conditions you will encounter. It tells you if you will be crossing streams, if you will be on the tundra, if you will be on scree slopes, etc. The ranger in charge of the sign up sheet also asks you, in a rather aggressive and challenging manner, all of these warnings, in pseudo-question form. "You know you need good hiking boots for this right? That your feet are going to get wet?! You know you need to be able to deal with wet feet if you go on this hike, right?" And so on, and so forth. We assured the boy (most of the rangers running the desk at the main visitor center were about 18) that we were aware, and ready. Despite the discouragement, we signed up.

There were a few logistical concerns about us meeting up with the Disco people ("Disco" is how all the workers within the park refer to the Discovery Hikes), but it turned out fine and good. Our bus driver dropped us off at the predestined starting location of our trail, Mile 64 on the Park Road, when we saw two rangers sitting there in an SUV. It turns out that the main Disco bus, which was bringing the majority of the participants from the park entrance, had broken down somewhere along the way, and they had to wait for the next bus headed west to continue their journey out to us. (The rangers leading the hike were staying at a campground inside the park, and thus avoided this delay.)

Following a little "warm-up" hike up the foothills north of the road, we were standing back down by their SUV, when we saw a strange sight. A wolf (which we had sighted in the extreme distance on our bus ride out from Wonder Lake) was trotting down the road. This in itself is not odd, since many of the animals of the park use the Park Road as a convenient pathway for travel; what was odd was the bus stalking the poor girl. We realized that the wolf could well come trotting directly passed us, so we all jumped into the vehicle. Still quite some distance away from us, the wolf jumped off the road and climbed a little way up the foothills, and the bus slowed to a stop. Park policy regarding the wildlife is as follows: do your best to maintain at least 25 yards from all animals (except bears, which demand the respect of 300 yards), and for vehicles, stop moving if you are altering the behavior of the animal. The bus just sat and waited, next to the wolf, until she finally jumped back on the road and continued trotting down it -- whereupon the bus continued creeping along behind it. This was beneficial to us in that we were rewarded our closest view of a wolf that we would have in the park, but the rangers leading our disco felt that the bus was inappropriately interacting with the animal, and called it in.

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Eventually, the rest of our group showed up, and we were able to hike. Hiking on tundra is a strange experience; the ground you are walking on is generally a couple inches of lichens, mosses, and roots tangled together, above several inches of decaying matter left by previous generations of plants, above a layer of ice. The decaying matter decays very slowly, because it is too cold for many of the bacteria that would eat it to function. What you are left with is a springy substance that can sink anywhere from an inch to a foot when you step on it. In addition, because the layer of ice underneath constantly melts and refreezes, it contracts in some places and expands in others, are you are left with a vast field of low, springy hummocks. Before coming to Denali, I thought of the "the tundra" as being a snow covered plain with sparse, long-dead wheat or grass stalks swaying in the bitter wind. The ground in this imagining of mine would be hard as rock, the soil long set in place by the deep freezing of the winters. Such is not the case at all. I learned something!

We hiked through some low tundra, which was rather boggy, then up into the foothills below the Gravel Mountains. I say "low," but this is only in comparison to the land around it: we started our hike at about 3500 feet above sea level, already above the tree line. While we ate lunch on a high clearing, the sun came out, and we watched a herd of caribou make its way across the tundra on which we had just an hour before been trekking. It was a wonderful feeling: partially due to the soul-infusing splendor and majesty laid out before our eyes like a too-full feast table whose delights can never be fully explored, and partially because we were eating our lunch, some PB&Js we made earlier. PB&J is tasty.

Finishing lunch, we hiked up a bit higher, and crossed over a couple of drainages to a ridge to the west, where we were afforded views of a valley not visible from the Park Road. The view here was intimidating: so many things to look at, so many colors to absorb, such highs and such lows, that it left me stunned, only able to look, and to look. One among our group pointed out that there was a sow grizzly and two spring cubs on the tundra in the valley below us; I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to find the tiny brown dots in the picture I post.

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On our way down and back across the low tundra, a single young caribou came running towards us. It is generally a strange (and bad) thing to have wildlife running directly at you, but we figured this critter had been spooked by another pair of hikers coming down off Stony Hill to our west. He/she eventually saw us, and veered off towards the foothills we had just been in.

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Sadly, all good things must come to an end. Our hike was over, and we had to head back to Mosquito Hell. My skin crawled at the thought of it. The only upside to this was that we had an hour and a half to kill at Eielson Visitor Center. Not many buses go all the way out to Wonder Lake, so we had to wait there for the 6:30 bus to take us "home." However, sitting at the visitor center we ran into a couple who had ridden out on that first camper bus with us. Though I do not recall their names, I know they hail from Vancouver B.C., so I will refer to them as the Vancouver Couple. Speaking to the male counterpart of the Vancouver Couple, I ascertained that they had indeed been able to affect a switching of campsite reservations from Wonder Lake to Someplace Not Hellish, something which they had been discussing on the bus ride east out of Wonder Lake that morning (they were day hiking in the backcountry around the visitor center while we were doing our comparatively more structured disco). They did this by asking the bus dispatcher at Eielson nicely if he would make a call. I, therefore, asked the same thing. As it turns out, and as we were later informed, the usual answer to such requests is "no." This is likely in large part due to the red tape that needs to be slogged through to get it done. Our dispatcher at Eielson called a dispatcher at the Wilderness Access Center (back at the entrance of the park), who walked across the room and talked to one of the reservation agents, and manually relayed our reservation change request. The agent then made the change, and gave the new Slip of Paper You Hang Up In Your Campsite to the central dispatcher. The central dispatcher then radioed the driver of the first bus to be leaving the next morning, and told him to be sure to pick up this slip when picking up passengers at the WAC. The central dispatcher then talked to the bus dispatcher at the WAC itself, and gave her the slip, which she was to give to the early bus driver the next morning. The next morning, the bus driver picked up the slip, and dropped it off with the Eielson dispatcher (who made the call for us in the first place). When we arrived at Eielson, headed eastward and away from Mosquito Hell, we were to pick up this slip from him, so that we would have the appropriate paperwork for our new campground.

I'm not surprised that the typical answer to this request is "no." I guess I am surprised that he was will to make this change not just for the Vancouver Couple, but for us as well. Thankfully, he did.

We knew nothing about these complications at the time. All we knew was that we had to get back on to a bus out to Mosquito Hell for at least one more night, and that we would probably, hopefully have a new campsite for the following night. As we drove back out to Wonder Lake, it started to rain. When we arrived at Wonder Lake, it was still raining. We figured that the rain would be a mixed blessing, that it would at least keep the mosquitos at bay. NO SUCH LUCK. The combination of the rain and the mosquitos was even worse than just The Mosquitos of the night before, a thing we had not thought possible at the time. The only thing keeping us from breaking down into sobs as we climbed into our wet tent, swarmed by gobs of mosquitos, was that we were leaving the next morning.

Still no views of Denali. The rain that evening was an odd thing, lots of dark clouds punctuating an otherwise blue sky. It appeared as if the clouds around Denali might break while we were preparing dinner, but The Mountain grabs clouds from out of the sky and cloaks herself with them. We could see a mountain-shaped bank of clouds where we knew Denali to be, but no Denali. As we were getting into the tent, I could see a fresh bank of clouds rolling in towards The Mountain, and thus our second night with a Chance of Amazing Views was fruitless.

20th

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. This particular photo captures both Lea's feeling of Wonder Lake Campground and the amazing views of Denali it afforded us.

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Fortunately, we ESCAPED. The feeling of joy that washed over us upon boarding the bus was palpable. Not even the information that Scott, our too-perky middle-aged bus driver imparted to us, could bring us down. It seems that (a) most of the red tape wrangling of the previous day took place on the radio, (b) all of the bus drivers in the park are tuned into that frequency at all times, and (c) our request was not a normal one. Thus, he referred to us as "The Whiners from yesterday." Having no great rebuttal to this, I had to settle for internal fuming that nobody warned us that we were descending into a Dantean circle when we made our reservation. Regardless of our new infamy, the move was worth it. You can't put a price on happiness, right?

Wonder Lake is not the west-most point on the Park Road. The early bus, which leaves WL at 6:30, heads straight east, pack to the entrance, so as to allow campers to catch the noon buses to Fairbanks and Anchorage. We did not feel like getting up in time for the first bus. The second bus of the morning, however, heads out the extra 10 miles north on the Park Road to its terminus at Kantishna. Kantishna is a long-dead gold rush town, which had a population of about 2,000 for one year in the early 1900s, and has had a population of about 50 ever since. There is some (albeit very little) historic detritus there, but the main draw is that as a pre-established town, it is not part of the Denali National Park and Preserve proper. As such, there are a couple of resorts there, and tiny little airstrip.

The resorts and the airstrip allows non-campers (heretoafter referred to as Tourists) a way to get and stay closer to The Mountain. All the people who boarded the bus at Wonder Lake (of which there were about 8) were Campers; we assumed that all the people who boarded at Kantishna were Tourists. Campers do things like sleep, stare quietly out the window, and generally behave while riding the bus. Tourists do things like jumping out of their seats while the bus is in motion, requesting the bus stop for any wildlife that rests nearly out of sight a mile and a half away, and talk very loudly about very inane subjects. This is Lea's reaction to a particularly exemplary display by the Tourists:

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That being said, not all the people boarding the bus annoyed us. Two in particular were among the hilights of our trip. They boarded carrying backpacks and a giant something covered in a Powerpuff Girls blanket; accordingly, I assumed they were Tourists. They were very excited and vocally thankful about every bird and flower pointed out by the bus driver as we passed through the kettle ponds on the west end of the park; this did not change my opinion. When the woman asked the man some detail about when he climbed Denali, however, my ears perked up. It turns out that these two, brother and sister, were truly joyful about the park and everything within it. They saw the landscape and the flora and a fauna as a gift, and reacted accordingly. Pat and Mike, which were there names, had grown up in Talkeetna, just south of the park, and had spent a lifetime visiting and revisiting it. Pat now lives in the lower 48, and was heading out of the park to pick up her husband at the Anchorage airport. Mike now lives in eastern Siberia, where he serves as a Catholic priest in a former gulag community. We talked with them some on the bus, and then more at the Eielson Visitor Center where we all were eating in the designated food area. Pat and Mike are Campers at heart, and though this time in the park they had stayed at resort in Kantishna, upon hearing about our camping, they immediately mothered us, giving us cookies and sandwiches they had not had the time or hunger to eat at the resort. Though we had to say goodbye to them when we disembarked the bus at the Igloo Campground, they left a powerful impression on me regarding those born and bred in Alaska.

As we set up camp at Igloo, I felt like a stalker. To explain: the Vancouver Couple was also staying at Igloo. When the dispatcher had asked me the prior day where we would like to move our reservation, I suggested Igloo, having heard that it was a pleasant and small campground. At that time, I did not really think about the fact that Vancouver Man had told me earlier that they had requested to move to Igloo as well. Though there are not that many people in the interior of the park at any time, we still had already shared four bus rides with them, not to mention the ignoble pursuit of campsite-switching. Though we hardly saw them for the remainder of the day, I could not help thinking that they might just be a little bit creeped out by us. I hate feeling like a stalker, even if it is just an accidental one.

At Igloo, and not wanting to ride any more buses, we decided to do a bit of backcountry on our own. As we climbed the first hill, the tundra was especially springy, our feet sinking in to the ankles with most steps. Walking in this sort of thing, while easy on the knees, is hard work, and by this time, we were tired. Lea decided to head back to the campsite and read, while I continued on a little ways alone. My first thought was to head south, get up on a ridge I could see about three quarters of a mile hence, and get to see a whole new batch of land that I wouldn't have seen at all from the road. Rather quickly, however, as I crossed a small stream, I found the willow thickets to be too tangled and tall. Turning back, I hiked a short ways up hill from the stream, and then headed along side it, changing my plans to a set of low foothills to the east.

Hiking alone as I was, and aware of how one should act when in the backcountry, I was calling out "Hey bear!" at a moderate decibel level every minute or so, or just generally when I could not see very far in front of me (and therefore could not be seen from far either). As I entered a clearing, immediately following a "Hey bear," I saw a mother moose and two calves crashing their way out of the clearing across from me. They were perhaps thirty yards away. I was scared: very scared. More people are hurt by moose every year in the park than by any other wildlife, and you never want to be anywhere near a mother who feels her children are threatened. Fortunately, they seemed interested in getting away from me, and I returned the favor by walking directly away from them for several minutes.

I walked generally along the lightly beaten trails I assume are left by bear and/or wolf, since the tundra beneath these is more compacted, and sinks less with each footfall. Walking through willow thickets I found numerous remains of snowshoe hare: generally a totally untouched foot connected to a well-cleaned bone or a patch of fur. I have no idea why the wolves, who I assumed consumed these hares, did not eat the feet -- maybe they thought it would be unlucky.

Eventually reaching the ridge I was shooting for, I sat, and listened.

There were no sounds.

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Rather, I should say there were no man made sounds. There was the sound of the wind, as it flowed through and caressed the wildflowers and the trees and the shrubs and the the rocks surrounding me. Ridges are windy places, but the springy tundra makes a good resting place. It was quite tranquil.

We slept well.

21st

Happy solstice.

Today ends our Denali experience. It has been a good experience, to be sure, but a rather varied one. It may be best to read the 18th through the 21st in chronological order to get the full effect.

My thoughts on today will be brief, since my fingers are getting cold, and I'm just sitting at a park bench plugged into the electrical box at an empty RV site.

We did not see The Mountain from "up close," i.e. from the Eielson visitor center or any point west thereof, but we did eventually get to see it as we drove east out of the park this morning.

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We met another great camper, or, rather, re-met her, at Igloo. Susan from Anchorage had been on the original camper bus we took into the park, but we had not had much interaction with her at that time. Having neighboring campsites at Igloo, we struck up a conversation, and found her to be an interesting and funny woman.

Who knows how many interesting people we fail to meet, as we failed to meet Susan that first day, every time we ride a bus or a plane.