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.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Fairbanks

From what I had read about Fairbanks, it's much more typical of Alaskan frontier cities than Anchorage, so I thought I'd spend a few days there.  With a population of only 35,000 people, it's the second largest city in the state, and believe it or not, it's named after a Hoosier!  Turns out there was a Senator Fairbanks from Indiana, who was also the Vice President during Teddy Roosevelt's second term.  Like McKinley, Vice-President Fairbanks never stepped a single foot in Alaska.  These naming honors were done simply to curry favor from the politicians.


The city was founded in 1901 by a guy named E.T. Barnette.  He wanted to establish a trading post in the Northern part of Alaska to take advantage of the gold-rush, and hired a paddle-wheeler to take him and his supplies as far North as the boat could go.  Well, they ran aground here, 125 miles from the Arctic Circle (about 1,800 miles from the North Pole), and there you have it.  The average high temperature in January is 0 degrees, and they get about 3 1/2 hours of sunlight per day in the winter.  Maybe that's why they have a tendancy to drink!


Of course, it's the opposite in the summer, and I was happy to have a hotel with black-out curtains.  There happened to be a BBQ joint next to my hotel that had been featured on "Diners, Drive-Inns, and Dives".  I had some excellent ribs and a few beers while listening to a pretty good local band.  The weird part was that when I left at 12:30 am, it wasn't just light, I could still SEE the Sun.

Pioneer Park

I went to Pioneer Park the next day, where they have re-located a large number of original buildings from the city's earliest days (most appeared to be whorehouses at one time or another).  One of the best meals I had was at a "restaurant" here called the Salmon Bake.  It is essentially, an outdoor section of the park with tables and chairs surrounded by old mining equipment.  It's all-you-can-eat salmon, crab legs, prime rib, and fried fish.  They also offered things like salad and vegetables, but I skipped all that stuff and just focused on high-value items.  And dessert.

Mt. McKinley

On the flight back to Anchorage, I was fortunate to have a right-side window-seat, and this allowed for one final look at Denali.  From this view, I believe that that is Ruth Glacier near the bottom.  The balck lines in the middle are called a medial moraine.  As two glaciers come together further up the mountian, the rock and debris that each edge scours off the mountain piles up in the middle of the new glacier as the two become one.  Ruth Glacier is a mile wide, 10 miles long, and 3,800 feet thick.  It drops 2,000 feet from top to bottom and is said to flow down-hill at a rate of 3 feet per day.  Imagine the force behind that!

All in all, this was fabulous trip - if I said once in a lifetime, I'd hope that I'd be wrong about that.  The pictures here, as one might expect, can't begin to do justice to the scenic bueauty of this place, or in any way give you a feel for the vastness of the area.  If you ever have a chance to come here, don't miss it!

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