- Aug 1-8 Berkeley, CA; Seattle, WA; Bainbridge Island, WA; Ketchikan, AK
- Aug 9-11 Ketchikan, Misty Fjords, Metalatka, Petersburg, Le Conte Bay, Tracy Arms
- Aug 12-13 Tracy Arms, Sawyer Glacier, Sitka, Neva and Olga Straits, Sturgis Narrows, Peril Straits
- Aug 14-15 Glacier Bay, Skagway, Whitehorse Pass (Canada), Chilkat, Haines
- Aug 16-17 Juneau, Mendenhall Glacier
- Aug 9-11 Ketchikan, Misty Fjords, Metalatka, Petersburg, Le Conte Bay, Tracy Arms
- Aug 18-19 Yakutat, Cordova, Anchorage, Fairbanks, Coldfoot, Barrow
- Aug 20-21 Fairbanks, Anchorage
- Aug 22-23 Anchorage, Denali, Backcountry Lodge
- Aug 24-25 Denali, Anchorage
- Aug 26-27 Anchorage, Turnagain Arm, Hope
- Aug 28-29 Turnagain Arm, Seward, Kenai Peninsula boat ride
- Aug 30-31 Seward, Anchorage, Seattle, WA, Berkeley, CA
- Aug 20-21 Fairbanks, Anchorage
Wednesday, Day 22, 8/22/2007
I woke up, had breakfast, and went on a 3 and 1/2 hr drive. Trevor was our driver. We drove to Denali park. We switched buses and went for a 6 hr. drive. We saw everything except McKinly, which was fine because we saw Dall Sheep, bears, magpies like non other, moose, beavers, caraboo, a snow hair, golden eagles, ground squirals, and a baby eagle. Dall sheep were really high. 59% die each year. A moose was walking down the road like a truck. We had dinner and went to bed.
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Anchorage, AK: exhausted Natan Luehrmann sleeps in the hotel lobby
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Martha & Natan Luehrmann
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Anchorage, AK: Arthur & Natan Luehrmann
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bus trip from Anchorage, AK, to Denali Park:
Wednesday, 8/22/2007
We took a Greyhound bus to Denali, driven by Trevor, who was sweet, but not the brightest light in the firmament. He left us out at the bus stop and didn't know where we should go, so we were late to get our bus tour.
"Denali" means the high one. The Alaska state bird is the willow ptarmigan. The Taiga Boreal forest is made up of spruce, aspen, and firs. Denali Park was established on February 26, 1917, and was increased massively in 1980. It now has 6 million acres.
We arrived at the Denali Backcountry Lodge pretty late because of all the things we saw on the way. We went to our cabin, #24, and after a quick potty break, went for a very good dinner, a talk by the manager, a short movie called A Year in the Heart of Denali, and to bed. Arthur set the alarm for me to wake up and see northern lights, but the alarm didn't work, so we missed them again.
 4-283AP1120772.JPG bus trip from Anchorage, AK, to Denali Park: |
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bus trip from Denali Park entrance to Backcountry Lodge:
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caribou
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Denali has: caribou, bear, moose, beaver, lynx, river otters, wood frogs (which freeze solid in winter), arctic tern, golden eagle, owls, sandhill cranes, ducks, gulls, bald eagles, trumpeter swan, ptarmigan, falcon, tundra swan, raven, kestrel, snow goose, grouse, Dall sheep, osprey, Canada goose, gray jay, goshawk, loon, robin.
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bus trip from Denali Park entrance to Backcountry Lodge: caribou
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bus trip from Denali Park entrance to Backcountry Lodge:
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Mt. McKinley (its local name is Denali) is in the Alaska Range. The outer range has fairly young mountains. In winter, it is where Dall sheep and caribou winter in. In summer, many animals migrate to the Alaska range, which includes Denali. The Alaska range keeps warm wet air south. On this side of the range, water runs to the Yukon river and from there to the Berring Sea. On the other side of the Alaska Range, water runs to the Pacific Ocean.
Denali Park is cold. In winter it runs from 30ª below zero to 60ª below zero, but it only gets 1.5-4 feet of snow cover.
Tundra is Lapp word meaning treeless land or barren land.
Here there are some willow, birches, and aspens, and the waters contain trout and greylings. Denali also has a little brown bat.
Denali Park is bigger than the state of Vermont, and the park is 245 miles south of the arctic circle.
85% of Alaska is covered with permafrost.
Above the Brooks Range (where we flew to Barrow) the permafrost is permanent.
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bus trip from Denali Park entrance to Backcountry Lodge:
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bus trip from Denali Park entrance to Backcountry Lodge: Dall sheep
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A drunken forest is one where the roots are shallow because they can't penetrate the permafrost, but they cause some melting, which unbalances the shallow-rooted trees.
Our tour guide is Barry Gray, who is from Colorado. We passed the Tekenika River, which means much gravel, little water. Glacier sediment gravel leads to wide, shallow, braided rivers.
There are about 2,000 Dall sheep in the park. They found a dinosaur (the therapod) footprint in the park in igloo canyon. Dall sheep rams will occasionally butt heads, and the loud sound can be heard a mile away. Down their backs from their skulls to their tails is a strong ligament. When they butt heads, that ligament stiffens. It is their ram-rod.
Ground squirrels are called "lunch" because a bear will eat about 200 in a summer.
Bikers are called "meals on wheels", and joggers are called "fast food".
There are 1 million caribou in 25 distinct herds in the state of Alaska, and only 700,000 people.
We saw a black-billed magpie.
In the park there are about 16 wolf packs with a total of about 90 wolves. A good book to read about the wolves is Wolves of Mount McKinley by the biologist Adolphe Murie.
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bus trip from Denali Park entrance to Backcountry Lodge: Dall sheep
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Dall sheep
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bus trip from Denali Park entrance to Backcountry Lodge: Dall sheep
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Kettle ponds form where a big chunk of ice from a glacier broke off and formed a depression in the ground, melted, and formed a pool. Glacial erratics are boulders left by the glaciers. Plutons are where lighter magma has oozed to the surface and soil and rock have been eroded around it, leaving the harder lava rock.
We saw a moose, a ground squirrel, some Dall's sheep, a mama grizzly and 2 cubs, and some caribou.
Glacial surges take place at regular, periodic intervals, with the much longer period in-between two surges called the quiescent phase. During this period the velocities of the glacier are significantly lower, and the glaciers retreat substantially.
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bus trip from Denali Park entrance to Backcountry Lodge:
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ground squirrel
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bus trip from Denali Park entrance to Backcountry Lodge: ground squirrel
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caribou
There have been many theories of why glacial surges occur. One accepted theory, proposed by Meier & Post in 1069 suggests when the accumulation of mass reaches a critical level on the upper glacier - above normal amounts of water stored within the glacier trigger a surge. It does this by increasing the buoyancy for basal sliding.
It has also been suggested that the geology of the country rock, which the glaciers are on, might play some part in surges. The rock type can affect balance and velocity of glacial ice. It is thought that surging glaciers are most likely to be situated on sedimentary country rock. This explains why surging glaciers tend to cluster in certain areas. In 1956-57, Glacier Muldrow in the Alaska range surged 4-5 miles, or 200 feet per day! In 1987 Hubbard Glacier surged 3.5 miles.
One idea about glacier surges is that they occur when there is a layer of melted water under the glacier that oils the skids.
A major earthquake fault runs through Denali. Approximately 700 earthquakes occur in Denali every year, most of them tiny. The Alaska Range used to be the coast of Alaska, but as the Pacific Plate went under the _ plate, material was scraped off the Pacific Plate and that created all the lands west of the Alaskan Range.
Our tour guide said that Torrentia was a land in the Pleistocene age that consisted of the Northern part of Denali, Alaska north of the Brooks Range, and much of Siberia. It had too little precipitation for glaciers, and was a cold northern steppe. The ocean was 50-200 feet lower because so much of the water was locked up in ice and glaciers. Animals and people came over the land bridge that formed between Siberia and North America.
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bus trip from Denali Park entrance to Backcountry Lodge: caribou
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bus trip from Denali Park entrance to Backcountry Lodge:
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wild ride for Ben
There were 11 major Athabaskan tribes. Navahos and other Indian tribes have languages similar to Athabaskan. The Athabaskans formed in bands of 20-30, and in the spring and fall would form into super hunting groups of about 200. In late fall they would return to their permanent dwellings for the winter. Children took on the clan of their mothers.
There are several major Nations in Alaska: the Aleut, Eskimo, Tlingit, Athabaskan, Iñupiak, Haida, Yupik, Tsimshian, and the Eyak. Of those, the Iñupiak, Yupik, and Aleut came from the oldest crossing of the land bridge, and the others came from other groups in North America.
We saw another moose and some snowshoe hares.
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bus trip from Denali Park entrance to Backcountry Lodge: wild ride for Ben
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The Pleistocene ice age ended about 9,000 years ago. Some of the animals died off, like the wooly mammoths, saber-toothed tigers, and mastodons. But grizzly bears, moose, and Dall's sheep lived on.
We passed Wonder Lake, which is 250 feet deep and 2 miles long. It is a kettle pond.
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bus trip from Denali Park entrance to Backcountry Lodge: wild ride for Ben
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our bus
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bus trip from Denali Park entrance to Backcountry Lodge: wild ride for Ben
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bus trip from Denali Park entrance to Backcountry Lodge:
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golden eagle
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bus trip from Denali Park entrance to Backcountry Lodge: wild ride for Ben
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moose
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moose
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caribou
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bus trip from Denali Park entrance to Backcountry Lodge:
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bus trip from Denali Park entrance to Backcountry Lodge:
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bus trip from Denali Park entrance to Backcountry Lodge:
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brown (grizzly) bear mother
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cubs
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bus trip from Denali Park entrance to Backcountry Lodge: wild ride for Ben
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moose
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moose
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caribou
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bus trip from Denali Park entrance to Backcountry Lodge: caribou
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Mt. McKinley (Denali) is behind the clouds (as usual)
Thursday, Day 23, 8/23/2007
I woke up, had breakfast, played with Peter, and set off on a hiking tour. We saw the largest mountain, McKinly. It looked huge on a high cloud! Everous, on the same ground level as McKinly, Everous is smaller by 1,000 feet. Next, we went to the reflection pool. We saw the reflection. I got my shoes very wet because I wanted a close up. We went on a 1 mile hike. I fell in a stream. I washed off in freezing water. We had lunch, and went gold panning. It was awesome. The current was real strong. I ran across a rocking bridge, heard a talk about wolves, and slept.
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Denali (Mt. Mckinley), AK:
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Denali (Mt. Mckinley)
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Denali (Mt. Mckinley), AK:
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Denali (Mt. Mckinley) and Natan Luehrmann
Thursday, 8/23/2007
After breakfast we drove to Wonder Lake and to Reflection Lake to see Denali (Mt. McKinley) in all its glory. The clouds lifted, and the peak, with fresh snow on it, gleamed in the sun. It was gorgeous. We were told that about 600 people try to climb Denali every year, but only about 42% actually make it to the top. People are only allowed to climb between February and early July, because after mid July the threat of avalanches is too high. So, right now, the mountain is closed to climbers. Denali is 20,000, versus Mt. Everest's 29,000 feet, but Denali rises abruptly from its 2,000 feet high surroundings, versus Mt. Everest's 12,000 feet surroundings, so the climb up Denali is 18,000 feet, versus only 17,000 feet for Mt. Everest. We were lucky to see Denali. Apparently it is usually smothered in clouds, and only 1 in 10 visitors to the park ever actually see the mountain.
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Denali (Mt. Mckinley), AK
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Denali (Mt. Mckinley), AK, and Natan Luehrmann
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Denali (Mt. Mckinley), AK, and Natan Luehrmann
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Denali (Mt. Mckinley), AK:
Afterwards, we went on :the casual hike" criss-crossing a stream. We saw blue berries, cranberries, bushberries, and lots of other berries. We saw fresh wolf prints in the mud, but we didn't see any animals.
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Backcountry Lodge, Denali, AK: berries
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Denali (Mt. Mckinley), AK
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Denali (Mt. Mckinley), AK, reflected in Reflection Lake
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Denali (Mt. Mckinley), AK:
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stones and grasses at Reflection Lake
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Denali (Mt. Mckinley)
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Denali (Mt. Mckinley), reflected in Reflection Lake
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Denali (Mt. Mckinley)
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Denali (Mt. Mckinley) reflected in Reflection Lake
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reeds and grasses in Reflection Lake
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Denali (Mt. Mckinley), AK, reflected in Reflection Lake
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Denali (Mt. Mckinley) reflected in Reflection Lake
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Natan Luehrmann about to fall down a deep river gorge on the nature walk
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fireweed going to seed
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nature walk, Backcountry Lodge, Denali, AK: Amanita mushrooms
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Amanita mushrooms
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fireweed gone to seed
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nature walk, Backcountry Lodge, Denali, AK: berries
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mushrooms
On the walk, Natan wanted to skip around on the rocks of the stream, so of course he got wet and muddy. His shoes and socks were completely muddy, as were the sleeves of his sweatshirt. When we got back to the cabin, we had him wash off his shoes and socks in the stream, and rinse out his sweatshirt sleeves. The water, of course, was very very cold. I don't think he wants to experience that again. I squeezed out his pant legs and sweatshirt sleeves, and Arthur put all the items into the "drying room" to dry. it is a warm room with blowers, so I expect they'll dry out before too long.
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Backcountry Lodge, Denali, AK: Natan Luehrmann on the suspension bridge... is he Billy Goat Gruff or the troll??
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Backcountry Lodge, Denali, AK: Natan & Arthur Luehrmann
Lunch at the Lodge, and then time to do our journals. After the journals, Natan and I did some panning for gold. Natan found two flecks that we thought might be gold, but the guy at the service desk said there was an acid test -- you try to break the fleck in two with your fingernail. If it breaks, it isn't gold, which is so ductile that it will bend. Alas, both our flecks broke in two. Sigh.
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Backcountry Lodge, Denali, AK: Natan Luehrmann pans for gold
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Natan & Martha Luehrmann
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Backcountry Lodge, Denali, AK
After that we watched a DVD called Perilous Ascent, which was a Nova movie about the deadly problems of altitude sickness in an ascent of Denali by a husband and wife mountaineering couple and an ex-astronaut.
After dinner we went to hear a fairly non-interesting lecture about wolves:
The gray wolf is 80-130 pounds, up to 31 inches at the shoulders, and has a lifespan in the wild of 6-14 years (in captivity its lifespan is 18-20 years). There are 92 gray wolves in Denali, and are considered a keystone predator -- at the top of the food chain. Packs range in size from just a couple to about 20 individuals. In a pack, only the dominant pair breeds. they have litters of up to 8 pups (the average in Denali is 4 pups). Books to read are Adolphe Murie's Wolves of Mt. McKinley and David Mech's The Way of the Wolf .