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Showing posts from July, 2008

Alaska: Seward and Eastern Kenai

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A "cache" in Seward where they have a style of their own. Part Three of a Series: Please read the previous entries first. When we reached Denali from Anchorage we were only about 1/3 of the way up into Alaska. We didn't make it to Fairbanks, which is a couple hundred miles further north. Beyond Fairbanks there is a long drive to the Brooks Range , an older mountain chain than the Alaska Range . Beyond the Brooks Range there is still another 1/3 of the state until you reach the Arctic Ocean coastline. This doesn't count the sprawling panhandle around Juneau nor the long chain of the Aleutian Islands which stretch in volcanic peaks hundreds of miles westward toward Siberia. In other words, as much as we saw of Alaska it was still just a small portion of what exists of this vast, generally pristine state. Still, we drove 1100 miles in our time there. After Denali we had more or less a travel day, which was fine since it rained the whole day. Our immediate destination was

Alaska: Into Denali

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Keith hiking into an open valley near the Eielson Visitor Center . Photo by Jennifer - June 21, 2008. Note: This is the second in a series. It is best to read the first entry for Alaska on this blog before reading this one. ~Keith It is slightly larger than the state of Massachusetts. Denali National Park offers a vast, spacious wilderness area that mostly protects the northern reaches of the Mt. McKinley footprint. A lone road goes in there. It is a one-way 90 mile road. There’s a loop at the end where you come back the same way you went in. With few exceptions, the rest of the 6 million acres is trackless, open and free. You hear no planes overhead. There’s little human noise, even along this lone road as it winds through much of the ridgeline that borders the valley to the north of the Alaskan Range. The road is mainly gravel, though all dirt in a few stretches usually where road preservation is at work. Buses take you in there. Denali has its own timed and scheduled bus line. At a

Alaska: All the light and space really put the zap on my head

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Denali (or Mount McKinley) at 5:30 a.m. June 20, 2008 from 40 miles away. A June 2008 trip to Alaska with my wife was intended as a celebration of our 20th wedding anniversary but it ended up being so much more. Uncharacteristically, I had read nothing nor researched anything for our trip. All the details were left to Jennifer with the exception that I wanted to see Mt. McKinley. As a consequence of my ignorance I experienced the whole of our Alaskan adventure with a child-like fashion, beginner's mind. The possibilities were many, the space was vast, I was awestruck and - often - speechless. They say only about one-third of those who visit the Denali National Park ever see the mountain. The area is so huge and so isolated that it more or less makes its own weather. Clouds frequently obscure the view and I was told it had been wetter than usual this year. We arrived at our hotel in the early afternoon on June 19 after a 7.5 hour flight from Atlanta into Anchorage the day before.