15% Club!

Did I get your attention?  We just came out of Denali National Park after spending 4 nights inside the park, dry camping at the Teklanika River Campground (no electric, water or sewer, so basically boondocking in the park).  Denali is massive.  There is one road in it that is 92 miles long.  Our reservations allowed us to drive the RV (had to leave the Honda in the parking lot) to mile marker 29 (the campground) which is the furthest you can take an RV in the park.  They do not allow any vehicles past mile 15 unless you have a camping reservation. Once you reach your site you are no longer allowed to use your own vehicle.  There is a bus system that allows you to travel to different points along that 92 miles. I really liked this system.  No crazy people causing a traffic accident to look at a squirrel.  We were told that many of the large national parks will be going to this system.  The further you go in the closer you get to Denali, formerly known as Mt. McKinley.  The park is kept very much in its natural state.  There are some designated trails, but unlike many of the other parks, they encourage you to forge your own trail.  That was totally new to us, but of course we tried it.  We hiked down a river bed and over some bluffs when Hannah said, "this seems like a bad idea but I really think we should do it".  That meant we were going in to the dense woods.  We were walking on moss that felt like it was over a foot thick in some places.  Chris manned the compass...why, I'm not sure.  We estimated that we would come out about a mile east of our campground on the main road.  We hiked for 1 1/2 hours and ended up on the back side of our campground, safe and sound but not even close to where we thought we were going.  It was very funny.  We saw lots of wildlife while here, which is always my favorite.  The wildlife was very difficult to photograph because it was further away.  We saw many bears, moose...but usually thru the binoculars. As for the 15% reference, only 15% of visitors get to see the entire mountain, meaning no cloud cover at all.  Lucky for us we got to on our very last day.  We went on multiple hikes that gave us some spectacular views.  We have met a great couple (Lisa and Jeff) from California that surprised us and showed up at our campsite.  They were staying outside the park and jumped off the park bus to see if they could connect with us at the campground and they did.  We ended up meeting them to hike the following day and are currently with them in Anchorage.   It has been really great having Hannah with us.  We are back in Anchorage for two days for RV repairs and to drop her at the airport.  We will be headed to Homer later this week.  We are having lots of fun but I am really missing my family and friends.

This was taken at The Eielson Center where we got our closest view of Denali.   Pictures just don't capture the size and beauty.  It takes your breath away the first time you see it.  We hiked a trail to the top of the mountain above the buses in the background.

 Pictures from the hike by Denali.  Top of our mountain

 Falcons hanging out.

 This is the Savage River.  We hiked up and over the second peak.  This is my favorite hike since we left.  Beautiful views.

 Grandma Dot's ashes being put in a beautiful clear steam we came across on our no trail hike.

 15% club... pictures of Denali don't get much better than this.

 Written in the silt in the river bed

After we left Denali, we went 10 miles up the road to Healy, AK.  There is a micro-brewery there (49th State Brewery) that has a spot in the courtyard where they pay homage to Chris McCandless, the young man who the book/movie Into The Wild was about.

Chris's best effort to recreate the "Into The Wild" photo.  Google Into The Wild, Magic Bus if you want to see the real photo.