I've had a lot of people ask me for pictures and comments from my trip to Denali. Since it's hard to pick out only a few pictures, and because I don't want to send around e-mails with 50 mega-bites of attachments, I thought it would be easier to just put it all into this blog so that everyone can look through it at their leisure.

I've also just returned from a few days in Yosemite (by way of Sonoma), so I added some pictures and comments from that little excursion as well.

Pay no attention to the dates here. It appears that blogs only post entries from the most recent to the oldest (who knew?). I wanted this to read from the start of my trip to the end, so I just assigned dates to each post to accoplish that. Also, please read the side-bar on how to enlarge the pictures.

Now that it's done, it looks like I've written quite a bit. Please don't feel like you have to read any of it, just enjoy the pictures if you want. And, of course, if you want any additional information on either of these ventures, please feel free to send me an e-mail at ctorrence1@cox.net.

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Mt. Healy

On my last day in the park, I climbed Mt. Healy. It's near the entrance, so no need for the shuttle-bus, and it has a maintained trail, so it can't be that hard. Right? Of course not. This one was brutal.

I packed all my gear early in the morning and checked it into the train station, but still had about 5 hours before my departure. For some reason, I had it in my mind that the base of Healy was at about the same elevation as the base of Cathedral Mt. So, I thought I'd be doing about the same elevation gain (+/-), but over a shorter distance.  All I was really concerned with, however, was just making it down in time catch my train.  I'd be pretty screwed if I missed it and the train took off with all my stuff.

Half-way up Mt. Healy

 
About half way up the mountian, I start watching the clock, and it doesn't seem like I'm making much as much progress as  I should. 

3/4ths of the way up Mt. Healy


The views just keep getting better.  Almost to the top, and I figure that I'll have to descend about twice as fast as it took me to get up.  Two hours to get to the top, and one hour to get down.

From top of Mt. Healy


From the top of Mt. Healy (above), we're looking south towards the Alaskan Range, which runs East-West, and most of the peaks are +/- 5,000 feet. The views are stunning, but these pictures are a bit hazy because they were taken in the morning, and into the sun. If I had know better, I'd have come up here at the end of the day. 

 
Turns out that the peak of Mt. Healy is at 5,400 feet and the valley is about 1,600 feet. So that's almost 4,000 feet of elevation gain - nearly twice the elevation gain of Cathedral Mtn.  With the clock ticking, I had to essentially jog the whole way down to make the train in time. I was lucky to have gravity on my side and a maintained trial most of the way.

First-Class cars


As mentioned, I did buy a first-class ticket from Denali to Fairbanks.  The seating is up in the top of the car, and the first-class dining is on the bottom.  There is an open-air deck at the back of the seating area.  The first-class seating is a bit nicer than excursion-class, you have a cute bar-tender in the car and you're sitting higher, which improves the views, but I don't think that it's worth twice the price of the excursion-class.

Mama moose and he baby in lake


As the train left the park, we passed this lake (above), which has a mother moose and her baby taking a swim (top-center of the lake).  The picture below shows the Nenana River, which runs North, up the Eastern side of the park.  It's a popular for white-water rafting, but it's really cold (there's a raft near the middle of the picture).  Only a few days ago, this river water was part of a glacier, and is only a couple of degrees above freezing.