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| Denali |
We took the "Gold Star Dome" class train from Anchorage to Denali
National Park. The first half of the six
hour ride is not very interesting, but the second half is through mountain
valleys surrounded by snow covered peaks and is quite beautiful.
Denali, also known as Mount McKinley, has
been visible on the average of one out of every ten days this summer. You might think I was very lucky to take the
66 mile bus tour into the park on one of those days. But I think it is just good karma. The weather during the ten days we were in
Alaska was some of the warmest and clearest of the year.
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| Denali |
About thirty miles into the park, we got our first view of Denial. The sky was clear and the entire mountain was
visible. It was still 60 miles away, but
the view was stunning. At 20,327 feet
above sea level, it is the highest mountain in North America and it is 18,000
feet from the base to summit. In
comparison, Mt. Shasta is 14,179 feet above sea level and is about 10,000 from
the base to the peak. Denali has several
sub peaks that are all over 14,000 feet above sea level. Back in the 70's, I flew from Travis Air Force
base, near San Francisco, to Japan and had a three hour layover at an Air Force
base south of Denali. It was a clear
night with a full moon. I remember being
mesmerized by the mountain and watched it for the entire three hours as the sun
rose and bathed the mountain in golden light.
I did not know at the time how lucky I was to be there on a clear day. Now, more than 40 years later,
when it happened again, I realize it is not luck, but good karma. 
A misty cloud swept over the mountain in the afternoon, making it surreal. On the ride out of the park, the coulds shrouded the peaks and swept down valleys.
In addition to the mountain, which few tourists actually see, the main attraction
in the park is the wild life. Our guide
said if we were lucky we may see two or three grizzly bears. We saw fifteen to twenty grizzly bears, the
most the guide had seen all year…karma.
We also saw big horn sheep, moose, caribou, elk and a red fox.
It was fall in Denali and the foliage of the trees and shrubs was vibrant
yellow, red, and orange. The grandeur of
Denali National Park is amazing.
We took the Denali-Anchorage Connection bus back to Anchorage where rented
a car for the drive to Seward. Our first
day in Seward we took a guided tour to Exit Glacier, the only glacier in Kenai
Fjords National Park accessible by road (or a short walk from the parking
lot). It is managed by the National Park
Service which has an exhibit and research center. Although the glacier is not particularly
impressive compared to the others we saw, the information center gave us a much
better understanding of the formation of Harding Ice Field and the glaciers it
feeds. Climate change is causing the
glaciers to shrink more rapidly each year.
It is part of the earth’s cycle of ice ages and warm climate, known as
the Milankovitch cycles, caused by the change in the tilt of the earth’s axis. There are five known ice ages, with the most
recent ending about 10,000 years ago. Now
we are in the middle of the cycle. But
the new factor of man-made carbon is dramatically increasing
the warming trend. Will it prevent the
next ice age that would naturally occur about 14,000 years from now?
Or will another asteroid, like the one that created the Chicxulub crater
and the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs, hit the earth first? 
The next day we took a six hour whale watching and glacier cruise. It was
a clear, warm, and calm day.
The cruise
guide said it was the best day they had all year … karma. We saw orcas, gray whales, porpoises, sea
lions, puffins, and Holgate Glacier.
It was a
fantastic day on the water and made us thankful to be able to experience the
beauty of nature.
We drove to Homer, the halibut capital of the world, where we had planned
to kayak at Kachemak Park, across the bay from the Homer Spit. But it was too windy and rough for the water
taxi to take us across the bay. At the
time, I thought that I had used all my good karma for this trip. But a few days later I learned that while we
were prevented from kayaking because of wind and roughs seas, Denali Park was
having the first blizzard of the season and the park was essentially closed. It was incredible that we were in Denali the
last days before winter arrived.
So my
good karma was holding and we saw some Bald Eagles
and took a hike through a preserve north of Homer.
We did not see much wildlife on the hikes, but we saw thousands of mushrooms.
On our drive back to Anchorage we stopped at
Kenai Lake and kayaked for a few hours.
We saw loon and several salmon jumping, and a pair of swans on another lake.
It was another beautiful clear day.
On our last day in Alaska took a guided historical tour of Anchorage
in a trolley car. The tour guide was
excellent and we learned about the history of Anchorage and the effect of the
1964 earth quake. It started to rain while we we were waiting for our flight ... karma.Alaska is described as the last frontier.
We saw only a small section of the state, but it was enough for me
to appreciate its vastness, splendor and wilderness. Next on my bucket list are the
Galapagos, New Zealand, and Tahiti/Bora Bora.
