August 13 - 17: Anchorage and Denali

On Wednesday we headed north to Anchorage where we spent a day exploring the city (ok, we did also go to a movie... taking advantage of our only stop in a real city this month!). The Moose's Tooth lived up to Kent's recommendation, great microbrews and delicious pizzas.

Thursday it was Denali National Park take two, this time under perfect skies. The deliberateness with which Denali protects itself is truly amazing. Access into the park is only allowed on the park's system of buses. The 6 million acres of the park are broken up into 87 backcountry units -- each with a limit of just 2-12 people allowed to camp inside them for any given night. After watching the required safety video (which caused more bear anxiety for Allison!), we headed out into our private 9,000 acre slice of beauty. Most unique to Denali's approach is that there are no trails anywhere in the entire park. Hikers follow their own instincts and topographical maps to navigate and thereby preserve the wilderness. After some serious bushwacking, we ended up probably the most awe inspiring vista and camping site we'd ever experienced. We'll let the pictures speak for themselves.... McKinley was just faintly visible from behind our campsite. All this beauty for the price of exactly $0.



From Denali we officially began the journey home, starting out on the Trans-Alaska pipeline highway which was built for the sole purpose of supporting the pipeline from Deadhorse to Valdez.... A very real and visual reminder of where 45% of this state's revenue comes from.

Friday night we returned a favorite camping spot 15 miles outside of the booming metropolis of Delta Junction (population 800). Only this time we made it over to the adjacent bar we'd somehow missed on our way up. Clearly the only spot in "town", each newcomer was welcomed with hugs, high-fives and the type of small town intimacy that had Allison musing about whether they might be able to live somewhere like this. A young waitress (daughter of the bar's owner) struck up a conversation with us, thirsty for interaction with non-locals. When asked about the winter here she described a full week of -55 degree whether last year which was doubly rough because it was hockey week and the rink wasn't heated. Ok, fantasy of small Alaskan town living has been taken off the list.

We're now back in the Yukon continuing south.... possibly with some detours into Jasper and/or Glacier National Park if time allows. Oh yeah, and the subaru is humming along like a champ -- so we decided to hold onto her vs. making the sale :)