The night before, I figured that I'd just work on that Michener novel until it got dark. It's a great book, so I got caught-up in it, and before I knew it, it was 1:30 am and I was still reading by daylight. So, when the alarm on my watch went off at 4:30 am, I knew that this was going to be a long day. It was still light outside, and to top if off, it was raining.
The mountain is only even partially visible on about 1 out of every 4 or 5 days - so, 75% of the visitors never even get a chance to see it. It's so massive, that it creates its own weather system, and it's generally shrouded in clouds. There are only a handful of "post card" days each year when you get a cloudless view of the mountain. Given the rain, I was pretty sure that today was going to be one of those cloudy days when you couldn't see the mountain, so I came pretty close to just blowing this one off. Ultimately, however, I decided that if I'm only goint to be here once, sleep or no sleep, I'd better make the best of evey opportunity that I had, so at 5:30 am, I sucked it up and started hiking off to the WAC.
One on the bus, the first 35 miles was a rather boring repeat of yesterday, but then it got interesting. We started to see lots of caribu, moose and Dall Sheep. I can see them all up-close and personal with my binoculars, but they're pretty far away, and won't make very good wildlife pictures. The bus driver said that a lot of visitors are really disappointed in the wildlife views. They expect there to be big herds of animals right next to the road, and it's just not like that. Then, we came upon these grizzly bears - a mother and her two cubs, about 100 yards from the road.
I mentioned earlier that nobody has ever been killed by a grizzly in Denali. By tightly controlling public access, and by requiring the use of bear-proof food storage devices in both the campgrounds and the backcountry units, they have managed to kept the bears from associating humans with food. The bears certainly know that we humans are there - they can smell us from miles away. But we don't smell like food to them, or at least what they know is food, and we don't leave behind anything that turns out to be food for them. So, the bears are just not that interested in us. And they'd rather be alone anyway, so when we make enough noise that they can hear us coming, they generally leave the area. Compare that to someone at Yellowstone that throws a ham sandwich to a bear from their car. Once that happens a couple of times, the bear starts to beleive that all cars dispense ham sandwiches, and you get the picture. Of course, if you're out on a hike and startle a mother with a couple of small cubs, you've got a whole different situation on your hands. That's why we say "hey bear" every 15 or 20 seconds when we're in the brush.
View from Polychrome Pass
Polychrome takes its name from all of the bright colors of the minerals that make up the mountains in this area. It's about 45 miles into the park.
Eielson Visitors Center
The picture above was taken at the Eielson visitors center, which is a little more than 60 miles into the park and about 30 miles from Mt. McKinley. We're looking right at the mountain. Or, at least where the mountian should be. This is the typical cloud covered view that most visitors get. The peaks of the mountains that you can see here top-out at around 5,000 feet, and the big guy is behind this range.
Wonder Lake
Wonder Lake is about 4 miles long, and very remote and beautiful. There's campground here that has 28 tent-only sites, flush toilets, and running water. I considered trying to staying at this campground, but, you're 85 miles from the main entrance of the park, the convenience store, and the showers, and the only way to get here is by the shuttle bus.
Mt. McKinley
Though it stopped raining pretty early, it remained overcast most of the day. Right as we started back from Wonder Lake, however, the clouds lifted for about 5 minutes, and there was Mt. McKinley. Not a full-on view, but a pretty amazing site nonetheless. McKinely has the largest relief on any point on Earth. With the peak at an elevation of 20,320 feet and it's base at 1,000 to 3,000 feet, it has a relief of 17,000 to 19,000 feet. In contrast, Everest tops out at 29,029 feet, but its base ranges from 14,000 to 17,000 feet, so it has a relief that is only about 3/4 of McKinely's.
Mt. McKinley
Mt. McKinley was named after the 25th president of the United States in the 1890's, even thoug he never stepped foot in the state. McKinley was assassinated in Buffalo in 1901. For thousands of years before that, the mountian was known to the Athabaskan Indians as Denali, or "the high one". That's what the locals still call it, and I think it makes more sense. Several attempts to officially change the name back to Denali have been blocked by congressmen from Ohio, McKinley's home state.
The mountain was first climbed in 1913, and about 100 people have died trying to climb it - most have died on their way back down after reaching the top. They say that it's not particularly hard to climb (a 74-year-old lady has done it), but that since it's so close to the Arctic Circle, you can quickly find yourself in 100 to 150 mph winds, and temperatures can drop to -75 to -100 degrees. Yikes!
