The thing I hear people say a lot about Alaska is; “you just have to see it.” As I sit here, newly returned from my second trip to “The Last Frontier” I have to agree. It’s hard to describe, it’s so vast, so empty and so different from anywhere else I’ve ever been. Maybe if you’ve been there you can relate; it’s hard to do it justice in words.
This was my second trip to see my sister. I flew into Fairbanks, which is actually a city very similar to Butte in culture. It’s an old mining town, kind of dirty; the people are rough around the edges but have a lot of character. The University is also known for its engineering degrees in addition to its cold weather research facilities, and, my personal favorite, its musk ox farm. The difference is there’s a lot more art, tourism, foreign food (including great Thai) and amazing coffee shops with the best bagels ever. I found the citizens of Fairbanks to be very friendly but as wild as the country they inhabit.
Despite all this, I think the thing that makes Alaska so unique is the vast areas of open land, the bazaar periods of light and dark, the wildlife and the stillness of the woods. When I was there, the fall was coming to a close and many restaurants and businesses were closing down for the winter when their tourist season dies. I travelled South of Fairbanks to visit Denali National Park for a hiking trip, which only had about a week left before they too, would close down the roads for the season.
Denali is definitely something to see in Alaska. You have to take buses into the park; ours was a 5.5 hour bus ride to Wonder Lake, about 30 miles from Mount McKinley. The park rangers joke that Denali is full of newlyweds, overfeds and nearly deads. There was definitely some truth to that. Since our bus was full of people who would be camping out it was more newlyweds and the occasional middle-aged adventurer, including some guy from Butte who knew about half the same people I do; small world. As we travelled into the park, we saw caribou, Dall sheep, moose and grizzlies. There were two yearling grizzlies rolling around in a puddle beside the road. We passed areas that were full of golden leaved quaking aspen, pine, and low-lying tundra bushes. Then, for long stretches of road the landscape became barren, the hilltops were covered in gravel, the ground barely grew grass; it was desolate.
When we got off at the campsite, it was cold, but it was one of the rare days that summer McKinley had been visible, and it looked amazing in the dusk. It was somewhat odd to be in the camping area, surrounded by people staying in tents, a little village in the middle of nowhere, far from cell reception, internet and the rest of the world. The night was cold, really cold and having three girls in a two-person tent didn’t really allow much sleep for anyone. The next day we set off hiking and saw a glacier, the soapy-looking glacier runoff, a gigantic bull moose and picked a lot of wild cranberries. In order to get back before I had to catch my flight we flagged down a bus leaving the park and headed back to Fairbanks. It was sad to leave, having to do it again; I’d go about the same time of year but spend more time in Denali. Still, it’s something you just have to see for yourself; a bazaar empty and amazing country, more wild than anywhere else I’ve ever been.
No comments:
Post a Comment