Denali National Park
September 16 2005

Every year Denali National park in Alaska has 4 days where they allow 1600 winners of a lottery to drive the full 90 miles in to the park. Normally you have to ride on a park bus (old school bus) crammed in with 40 other people and all their stuff. This didn't really appeal to me when I was there last year so I did drive the 14 miles that you can and then headed on to other parts of Alaska. The lottery works like this, each year in July you send in an envelope with your return address and $10.00 fee along with your preferred dates (2005's were September 16,17,18,19,  400 winners per day) and then about the first of September you are notified by mail if you won. In 2004 during my Alaska trip I talked to allot of people about the lottery and they all said they had never won and one guy had been trying for almost 20 years. this year almost 19,000 people entered and I was lucky enough to get one. Now comes the hard part. Making it happen logistically without causing problems at work.

How I got there
This tale starts in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada in the Atlantic time zone (one hour later than the eastern time zone) The demo we were doing on the 13th didn't end until 5:00pm, it takes 3 hours to break down if everything goes perfect, this time we were ready to pull out at 9:45 after grabbing a quick dinner and fueling the pickup truck. My first leg is a 1200 mile, 26hour drive. I left Saint John and over heard some news on the CB about the truckers strike that had been going on the week before where the New Brunswick logging trucks had been blockading the highways in and out of the province to protest the high cost of fuel. evidently phase two of the strike was to begin this night between midnight and 6am. Luckily I made it through the border and in to Quebec about two hours before they blocked the road. I drove until 5am and grabbed a quick 3 hour nap somewhere east of Montreal. I managed to miss Montreal rush hour (makes NY and LA look like nothing) and then ran right in to Toronto rush hour (only slightly less nasty than Montreal) but I finally managed to cross in to Michigan in Port Huron at about 11:30 pm on the 14th. I got home and to bed about 3:30 am on the 15th. I got up at 7:00 am and packed my gear and checked out my camera kit before racing to the airport to get my flight. I was cutting it so close that I didn't have time to check my bag and ended up gate checking it. I did make my flight and after a plane change in Minneapolis I arrived in Anchorage at 9:00pm (Alaska time) 2 am back in Saint John five time zones away. I stocked up on supplies, had some dinner, set a 5am wake up call and got to bed just past midnight. Not a bad way to spend ones birthday but tomorrow will be even better.

At 5am in Anchorage it was pitch black and pouring rain. But I'm here and going to the park rain or shine so I hit the road I actually got caught in some early rush hour in Anchorage even though its raining the Alaska scenery is still impressive.
 

Even the rain cant dull fall colors this vivid, I would love to see them in the sun.

And it keeps getting better and better, some times it was hard to keep my eyes on the road.

The reds and yellows and greens, all so bright. Amazing!

 

 

 
 
 

 

The pass through the Alaska range leading to the park and beyond to Fairbanks
 

Uh Oh Moose in love ahead

 

My first wild life sighting, I think its called a Pica, and it liked to pose next to the road

Now that I am on the back side of the Alaska range the weather is much nicer and I can see all the snow that is coming down on the mountains

Lichens on a rock
 
 

Another Pica, my second wild life sighting

Lots of snow coming down in the distance

The nice wide mountain road with no guard rails, FUN!

Its not too far of a drop over the edge, feeling Dizzy?

The vistas are just unreal

 

 

Lots of fresh Snow
 
 

The snow caped mountains contrast with the red and orange Tundra plants

Some times the ground almost looked like burning coals

A Large Glacial river valley, Glacial valleys don't get deeper with age they actually fill up with silt and rock from the glacier

At times its hard to believe how beautiful a place can be, and that around the next bend it gets even better

See even more amazing color and snow capped mountains, made all the more impressive when you think about the amazing amount of energy and force that is enveloping the tops of those mountains. The wind and snow up there is beyond imagination.

This is what the end of the road looked like, Not to exciting

Heading Back the perspective has changed and offers new views

A Huge bull moose hidden in the brush, at last a real animal sighting look at the size of his rack. This picture is actually a crop and zoom of the one below. The shot below is as close as I could get with my new 400mm wide zoom.
 

Below is how the scene looked from the road, kind of hard to see when he is laying down, believe it or not there are two females just up the hill from the male.

 

I was hoping the clouds would break and let me glimpse the summit of Denali (Athabascan for "The High One") I am almost positive this is the top of the mountain but it is hard to tell without more reference points.
 

The sun is starting to go down and the light is getting really good

The light was turning the landscape even brighter shades of Orange and red and producing some incredible shadows too

 

 

The sun is making a rainbow from a passing squall almost in the center of the picture
 
 

Look at the way the land is glowing
 
Sometimes it really frustrates me that a photograph cant convey the scene as I was seeing it, I know its possible but I haven't learned quite how to get it right yet. This scene it looked like the whole place was blazing on fire and the Energy! I could feel it all around me, this place was pulsing it seemed like I cold feel the earth breathing here, A deep warm contented sigh
 

 

 

 

A large group of Dahl sheep high up in a ridge.
 
 

 

Another Rainbow!
 
 

This might be my favorite shot of the day

The sun is behind the mountains and night is falling quickly! Look at the blues in the top of this picture

 

Night has come and I made it to the main highway just as full dark came on. Now I only have a 5 hour drive back to Anchorage on like 14 hours sleep in the last 4 days. I actually had to stop and sleep for an hour 3 times to make it back and then only got 4 hours in the hotel before I had to run to get my flight home. Next time I will probably fly in to Fairbanks as it is only half a far away from the park.