And the road is in perfect condition. What you have to look out for are rogue pipes bouncing down the road at 65 miles per hour. Luckily our tiny rental was able to swerve out of the way of certain death. The passengers looked back thinking about scenes from the Final Destination series of movies.That, not Denali, was the highlight of our day trip. Now don't get me wrong, Mount McKinley, our nation's and continent's tallest peak, was beautiful. It was stunning. It was breathtaking. There are not enough words to describe it. Awesome.
We got up around 7 a.m. to leave an hour later. It was going to be a long day. Over 200 miles to the park, whatever we decide to do in the park, and over 200 miles back. It was going to be exhausting, but when will we be in Anchorage again? After navigating a detour with a crudely drawn map we were on the freeway.
Cameras at the ready, we were on the lookout for wildlife. While there was plenty of scenery to photograph, my cousin and I already had a lot of scenery in our memory cards. There's only so much you can take before it becomes repetitive. Parts of the highway reminded us of parts of Long Island, New York.
After about an hour or so of barreling down the highway at 50 mph (stupid trucks), we gave up on the wildlife search. And we agreed that Alaska contains absolutely zero animals. We rounded another corner about halfway to the park entrance and something big appears out of the tall forest surrounding the highway. “Is that the mountain?”, my cousin Matt calmly asked. Sarcastically, I respond, “Probably...”
Here's a fact: about 30% of visitors actually see Denali. The thing is big. Big enough to have it's own isolated weather patterns. And that weather usually is clouds. Lots of clouds. After avoiding death by beheading, today was our lucky day. We could actually see the entire mountain (except for the portion blocked by the trees by the road). We pull over to snap off some quick shots in case clouds come in before we get to the park.Satisfied with the pictures we took, we set off to the park. Three or so miles from where we pulled over, we see signs for the Mount McKinley South Viewpoint. Who knew? The mountain was still out so we decided to stop and get better views. Fantastic. Good thing I brought my hikers because there were trails! And I was off. To get to the top to get the best view of Denali was my quest. The “trail” was fairly lame and I ignored the signs pleading us to not deviate from the path.
Matt and I made it first and 10 minutes later my parents appear. We spent an hour at the “summit” watching the clouds roll in and hoping that they roll out soon. Matt and I laughed at the misfortune of the others in our group who left two hours later and will get to see nothing.
We decided to head back to Anchorage considering that the view of Denali would only get worse as the day went on. Hungry, we made a 14 mile detour to the town of Talkeetna for lunch. We pull up in Talkeetna with what seems like a million people in the road. On that very weekend is the Moose Dropping Festival. Seriously. We left. We didn't want to wait in line for food, we were starving.
We got our food and we were happy. The rest of the ride home was mostly uneventful. We did drive through Sarah Palin's hometown of Wasilla. Some guy decided to throw out his fast food trash onto the highway. And we had to renavigate that detour.
Even though we almost died, it was a great day trip.
This is just part one in my travels to Alaska. If you wish to see more of my photos, please visit this link. Tony's Alaska Photos
