THURSDAY 18TH – DENALI

Exploration day today. This morning we headed out into the Denali National Park, a cold, remote, desolate but beautiful place. It is true wilderness stretching off into the mountains.

Our transport was this luxury coach.

Our Lodge is excellent and very much alive but the village of Denali itself, on the other side of the highway looks very forlorn. Many of the businesses have closed for the season and have their windows boarded up. When we leave town, everybody else will shortly follow. The lodge closes for winter on Saturday. The temperature is about 10 degrees and winter is rapidly approaching.

We have maintained our perfect record of no bears and no glacier flights. We had a flight booked for this afternoon on a plane equipped with skis for a glacier landing but guess what, the weather in the mountains was such that they couldn’t fly. The mountain in the photo is just one of the foothills. Mt. McKinley itself is 20,000 feet in height and is shrouded in cloud for most of the year. The glacier landing happens at 7000 feet which today, is above the cloud layer.

Tomorrow, we spend three hours in a coach transferring to Mt. McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge. I'm not sure what its attraction will be but you'll know when I know. On Saturday, we're back into the aviation system for a flight from Anchorage to Honolulu via Seattle where it will be 20 degrees warmer!!