Denali National Park, Second visit

July 13, we reluctantly gave up our campsite at Savage River and headed south to Anchorage to pick up our son John who was flying in for a visit. The Parks Highway from Denali to Anchorage passed through spectacular scenery of rapidly flowing rivers, tall mountains (some with glaciers visible), colorful wildflowers, and spruce and birch forests.
Our plan was to leave the motorhome in Talkeetna (150 mi south of Denali) and drive the car to Anchorage. All the CG in Talkeetna were full because of the Moose Dropping Festival, so we picked one of the CG outside of town-Mat-Su CG. They let us store the rig there while we were in Anchorage, and we made a reservation for our first night back in the area.
On to Anchorage, check into the hotel and do some shopping. One minor problem, however, we heard strange clunking sounds coming out of the engine. A quick call was made to the Honda dealer (the only one in the state), and we were fixed and on our way in an hour. Talk about lucky. We had visions of renting a car and delaying our trip to Denali with our son John. We have now learned another valuable lesson about driving on gravel roads; rocks collect in the suspension and cause clunking sounds.
We had a wonderful seafood dinner at Simon and Seaforts with a table that had a view of Cook’s Inlet. John had king crab legs and Pris had halibut. The dinner was just as delicious as 8 yrs ago. (Thanks Debbie K. for the rec., then and now).
We picked John up at the airport at midnight, had an early morning breakfast, and then to the hotel for some much needed sleep. The restaurant was busy at 1:00 AM when we left. When do these people sleep? They are certainly taking advantage of all this light.
We slept in and then headed north 113 mi to Talkeetna.. We moved the motorhome to a full hookup site, and we were off to the Moose Dropping Festival. What a kick-a real small town (pop-900) happening. This 2-3 block town consisted of log cabin stores and restaurants with a funky Alaska ambience to it. It has been described as the model for the TV program “Northern Exposure”. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen so much tye dye.
We moved from one extreme to the other and celebrated Pris’s birthday at the posh Alaskan Resort a few miles outside Talkeetna. No expense was spared in the construction of this rock and wood beamed resort with large glass windows facing a view of Mt McKinley.
Early the next morning, Pris celebrated the best birthday EVER with a flight and glacier landing on Mt. McKinley. It was approximately an hour’s flight to the mountain, where we flew in and out of glacier covered valleys and snow caped peaks. But the most spectacular part was that we landed on a glacier close to the mountain climber’s base camp (7,500 ft elevation). The 4th photo here is on approach to the landing, about 2 miles up the glacier. Denali is in the background. It was a sunny, clear day and we were surrounded on all sides by jagged, snow covered peaks. The cool crisp air (28 degrees) and ankle deep snow was a long ways from the 115 degree temperature that son John left in Phoenix.
We flew back to Talkeetna and headed 150 mi north to Denali. This time we stayed in the Riley Creek CG because it was closer to all the facilities. Since John only had several days to spend here, we didn’t waste a moment and headed to the park headquarters and the dog sled demonstration. (John and Sandra have 2 Siberian Huskies.)
Denali NP is the only park that has working dog sled teams. They are used in the winter for patrolling the park.
The next day, we were up at 5:30 AM so as to catch an early bus tour of the park. The animals are usually more active in the morning and evenings. The bus trip took 7 hrs, and we saw a blond grizzle bear with her cub, a wolf, caribou, and birds such as ptarmigans, eagles, and a falcon.
The rest of the day was some kickback time, and that evening Johnny built a “one match fire”. It was nice to have some relaxing time for visiting.
Tuesday, June 16, we enjoyed a blueberry pancake breakfast and then off to Anchorage again, for a hotel stay and to drop Johnny off at the airport for a flight home.
During our earlier stay at Denali, John noticed abnormal tire wear on the front tires and scheduled an alignment at an RV service place in Anchorage on the Wednesday that son John flew out. The RV was in early at the shop on Wednesday. At 9:30AM we got a call from them. The reason for the tire wear was not alignment, but the ball joints in the front suspension were worn. This allows the tires “flop” around. They could fix it, but it was an all day job and we were scheduled for only 1 hour. We only had to wait two days and they were able to complete the front end repair by late Friday afternoon. The spare time allowed us to clean up everything; RV, clothes and our towed CRV.