June 29th, 2012: From Fairbanks to Denali National Park

June 29th 2012: Fairbanks to Denali National Park

The guidebooks all say that the drive from Fairbanks to Denali National Park is about two hours at sixty miles an hour. After all its only about one hundred and twenty miles of the newest highway in Alaska, the Parks Highway. So we left later then normal and hoped for an easy drive.
For the first eighty miles or so it was an easy drive amd then came the frost heaves. Dips and bounces and holes that were as bad as anything we have seen so far. Of course I was going slower then everyone else and it wouldn't have been bad in a small car but not towing a thitry seven foot fifth wheel. I couldn't imagine the damage I could cause to our rig if I went as fast as most of the traffic was driving. I mean I could imagine as I have seen the damage and that was from driving on Louisianna and Minnesota roads!

The scenry made up for the bad roads. While we couldn't see the central core of the Alaskan Range, clouds clouds and more clouds, the panaromic views of the tioga and the beautiful Nenana River made up for it.
The wildlife seemed to all be in hiding but that was ok as I didn't want any Bullwinkels plodding out in front of me. Hitting a moose anywhere is bad and here the moose are huge. Its a fact that large animals have a smaller surface area, compared to their total mass and so they are able to retain heat better. That's why the deer down south are so small, they have to be to get rid of the heat in the summer.

Arriving at our rv park we ate lunch and then went to the Visitor Center. Here you really need to do some planning as you can't drive more then thirteen miles into the park and you must buy a bus ticket for a round trip ride that can take as much as fourteen hours.
So we talked with the rangers and then took a short hike on the Spruce and Monroe Trails. They really are simple hikes next to the Center. The Center itself did have a really nice display of the different types of Grizzly bear scat. They also had something we hadn't seen before, life size plastic animals. Most parks rely on real full body mounts and I don't know why they don't here. After all they do have anumber of fur pelts for all to touch.

We did talk with a ranger who told us where to go to see Willow Ptarmagens and more Harlequin ducks so thats on our agenda for tomorrow, along with a drive to Savage River. We are both excited about the morning and looking out our windows at steep mountians doesn't help to calm us down. Clear skies