Denali

The mountain is always present, but sometimes it hides.  Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and clear, but yesterday it snowed and today clouds hang low.  Only these few fuzzy shots give some idea of what this majestic peak must be like on a sunny day in winter.  

Many hotels flank the entrance to the park, and they stay full in summer.  Only the Totem Inn and one other are open in winter, and the Totem is less than half full.  For me, it’s the beast time to come. 

The Princess Hotel serves Princess Cruise passengers coming up the inside passage in summer, as part of a package, but it is closed for the winter.  

Creatures of the snow—who are they?  Do they understand impermanence?   

The crow fluffs his feathers and settles in on a limb. Tomorrow, I’ll fluff mine for a hike to Mount Healy Overlook.  Moderately steep, through forest, which gives way to tundra.  Trees turn to shrubs, and the landscape opens wide. Three to four hours round trip, they say.  

The Nenana River is crusted with ice all winter, but in the spring, the ice will suddenly break up.  

You can submit a date and time for when you think the breakup will happen.  It costs $2.50 to enter, and last year the winner got $225,000. The deadline to mail your guesses is April 5th, 2019    https://www.nenanaakiceclassic.com/      

Here they are setting up a tripod out on the river.  It will collapse when the ice breaks up, and the time will be marked to the nearest minute.  No, this huge tripod will not be lost in the river; they have cables attached with which to haul it ashore.    

Michael Angerman has kept a map during this long trip, showing all of the places where I spent the night.  Please view his map at:     Michael's Map  You can pan zoom to see more detail or more area as you choose.

Quest Accomplished

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On the last night before the final push to Fairbanks, I was the only guest at a small motel in Tok, Alaska,.  It is one of several little, small-town establishments where I was the only, or almost only, guest.  I met one tourist since Dawson Creek; the rest were truck drivers, local residents, or traveling merchants and the like.  

A frozen lake under a blanket of snow, upon which mountains appear to float, illuminated with light from the sun, which never rises far above the horizon. 

Trees up here seem to know that to grow wide is to break under inevitable load.  Tall and slender are traits learned through many generations of trial and error; and yow to dress for the cold is a trait being learned by this nomad. 

The Road, and it is the only through road, goes on and on, day after day, seldom giving up its beauty, seldom its ice, always a long way between human habitations.  Relaxed driving is for fools and the unaware.  The trick is to respect the road with its devious hazards and still be in awe of the beauty all around.  

I will spend a few days in Fairbanks with my niece, Lynno, and the children she cares for in her home, along with her three teenage sons. 

Michael Angerman has kept a map during this long trip, showing all of the places where I spent the night.  Please view his map at:     Michael's Map  You can pan zoom to see more detail or more area as you choose.   

The Far North

Maybe there is only one Road, like a great river, and every path a tributary.  All places lived, men loved, things enjoyed and stolen, built and left behind, pleasures found by accident,; they all merge into this horrendously long Alaskan Highway.  I live these days on the road as though they are my last, for they very well could be. 

The road is gray with morning light, which strikes the tops of clouds, giving only what light the clouds do not absorb—gray twilight lasts a major part of the day.  

Sometimes a break from the cold, given to northern travelers by some hot furnace within the earth, melts a path of ice and snow.  Laird Hot Springs is a public place, a short hike from the highway.  There’s a stairway into the water, where you can soak as if in the tropics.  

Animals on the highway don’t understand fast cars and trucks.  These friendly bison just stood there for the camera.  

Were it not for diligence of Canadian show-plow drivers and drivers of trucks that spread sand, I could not be here.  They come plowing and spreading even when the road seems clear.  But they cannot remove snow that has been packed into hard ice; this remains for me to decide whether it is sanded and relatively safe, or maybe black ice.  

I took two days off in Whitehorse, a respite from the tension of driving to a goal, and transmuted myself into a tourist. The Dirty Northern is an excellent pub and restaurant, though you’d never suspect it from the sidewalk.  And the Miner’s Daughter boarding house next might be a good, long-term residence.   

The Yukon River runs alongside Whitehorse, some of it with visible flowing water, and some covered with snow.  

They’ve built a fancy condo by the river, called River’s Reach, with views of the River and the mountains beyond.  The project must be a success, because beside it, River’s Reach II is going up.  These workers seem quite happy to build it in windy air well below zero. 

On this hill in the city park, sledders enjoy a Saturday afternoon, and skaters cruise along the flooded and groomed pathway.  

I have driven into a world of discovery.  Not the glamour I had thought it would be—skiing in the woods, snowy ventures into the realm of moose and elk.  I predicted my daily schedule on the long drive—daylight for the work of driving, the long dark hours for whatever attracts me and weather permits.  I have had to change my expectations.

Michael Angerman is keeping a map showing all the places where I spend the night on this long drive.  Please view his map at:     Michael's Map  You can pan zoom to see more detail or more area as you choose. 

Hypnotic Highway

I drove 2600 miles to Muncho Lake in British Columbia, near Yukon Territory, with about 1100 miles remaining to Fairbanks.  

The road has been smooth and paved, with snow plows and sand spreaders coming often to keep it open.  They can’t use salt to melt the ice and packed snow because salt is not effective below twenty degrees, and its not been above zero in the last two days.  

These wild goats were easy to photograph, but most of the large beasts—elk, moose, deer—run away too fast.  I saw several dead moose, hit by vehicles, probably in the night.  More big rigs drive this road than cars, and maybe they drive at night.  I don’t.  

It may be easier to see the ancient northern Rocky Mountain geology in winter than in summer.  Snow outlines the layers of metamorphic rock, uplifted long ago and eroded down from Himalaya-size mountains that once stood here.

  

I hope to write more and include more pictures in the days ahead, but internet is slow and often not available.  Cell phone service is almost nonexistent.  

Tetsa River Lodge

Michael Angerman is keeping a map showing all the places where I spend the night on this long drive.  Please view his map at:     Michael's Map  You can pan zoom to see more detail or more area as you choose.  

Canada’s January

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The Canada border came with rumors of drag-out searches of American’s cars in retaliation for Trump’s insults of their Prime Minister.  But the crossing was easy, with only a few simple questions. 

In Cache Creek, 200 miles north of the border, it was just me and one other traveler at the motel.  Winter is not a favorite vacation time for some reason.  With the air above freezing, the use of my engine heater seemed unnecessary.  But the other tenant had his plugged in, so I did the same, just as a first all-night test.  See the electric wire running  from his car to an outlet on a post.

At the restaurant across the highway, I was the only customer, and the baked lasagna was good.  Notice the barren hills behind the Pub; they call this area the Arizona of Canada.

About the same number of big rigs as cars and pickups accompanied me on the road form Cache Creek to Prince George, and not many of either.  Cars increase near towns, but on the long stretches between towns the road is pretty vacant.  

Idyllic villages sometimes dot the shores of frozen lakes, now partly melted from warm weather.  Seeing them while driving on pavement, not covered in ice or snow, seems undeserved.

“I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently?  And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, "Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again." And when they wake up in the summer, they dress themselves all in green, and dance about.” —Through the Looking Glass, Lewis  Carroll 

Michael Angerman is keeping a map showing all the places where I spend the night on this long drive.  Please view his map at:  Michael's Map  You can pan and zoom to see more detail or more area as you choose.