DAY THIRTEEN - July 7, 2017 - Denali

We got back to the hotel at 1 a.m. last night and after a CC celebration got to bed at 2 a.m.  Up after just four hours of sleep and heading for Denali.  The things you do to make a blog interesting!

The four hour trip is best described as "Scenic vistas cancelled due to rain and low clouds."

But we did get a shot of Hurricane Gulch.

And, today's Big Stupid Thing.

As we approached Denali the sun came out and it turned out to be a beautiful 20C day.

Park admission is $10 per person, which entitles you to all day use of the bus shuttles.  They have several routes from which to choose and you have on-off privileges for the day (actually for seven days if you stay that long).  We chose the 8 hour option.

The first 14 miles are paved.  The rest is gravel.  And the scenery was awesome.

Especially above the tree line when we reached the alpine tundra.

The picture at the bottom of this photo shows what Denali would look like if the weather permitted.  Unfortunately, Denali creates its own weather and today decided that would be clouds.  Apparently, the mountain can only be seen about a third of the time, and seldom the complete scene.

We had many wildlife sightings today, including our first Woodland Caribou of the trip.

We saw several today.

And a Willow Ptarmigan.  Now you see it, now you don't.

We also saw a large male Grizzly and a Dall Sheep, but both were about half a mile away and even 63X zoom wasn't enough to get a good picture.

The buses run until September 14.  Then, there is a five day period when they allow private automobiles to drive the 66 mile road.  A lottery is held and 400 cars each day can make the trek.  The fifth day is reserved for members of the military.

It is definitely not for the faint of heart!  If two buses meet, the one on the drop side moves over to the edge and stops.  The other inches by on the inside.  Sitting by the drop side window is a real experience!

At the last restroom stop we were allowed fifteen minutes.  Several of us decided to walk up the road and be picked up by the bus.  Our only exercise for the day.

We didn't see Mount Denali (over 20,000 feet, formerly called Mount McKinley, and the highest mountain in North America) but this day was awesome!  I've ticked off the bucket list item as a complete success.

Tomorrow we'll sleep in and then make the short trek to Fairbanks.

DAY TWELVE - July 6, 2017 - Part Two - The Midnight Sun

Our choices for golf were the municipal course, which has artificial turf for tees and greens, and the Anchorage Golf Club, which is a traditional championship course.  We chose the Anchorage, which gave us a non-resident "twilight" rate of $74.00 U.S. per person including cart.  Twilight here starts at 8 p.m.

The Alaska Senior Amateur Championship is to be played here starting tomorrow and the course is in excellent shape, albeit with tight fairways and few flat lies.

This is #9 looking back from the green, which will be our finishing hole.  We started on #10.

If the undulations remind you of the highway, there is a reason. The course is over permafrost too, and there are many "slumps" where the course has settled.  Weird bounces are the order of the day (but I avoided that issue on a few shots by aiming directly into the woods).

We teed off at 7:56 p.m.  The long days here provide some strange lighting experiences.  We had only played two holes before we had the feeling that there would be just enough light to play a couple more holes.  That feeling persisted until the 16th, when it would prove to be correct.

The views are stunning on several holes.

You can see the yellow streak of my ball heading for the green.

Mardi's always go straight.  No drama there.

The sun set as we played the 14th hole.

But not to worry - it wasn't until our last hole that the light became an issue.  We couldn't follow any of our shots on the par 5, but Mardi bogeyed and I parred.  Maybe we should play in the dark more often.

The final putt, at 12:11 a.m. on the 7th of July.  The camera picks up more light than really existed.

Another bucket list item checked off.  Golfing under the midnight sun.

Mardi won in match play - 2 up with 1 to play.  But my par on the last hole gave me a one shot victory on score.  So we both thought we won.  Doesn't get any better than that!  

Tomorrow, another bucket list item.  Denali Park.

DAY TWELVE - July 6, 2017 - Alaska Wildlife Conservation Centre

This morning, we bypassed Anchorage (just another city according to the lady at the last Visitor Centre we visited) and drove east along Turnagain Arm, on the Seward Highway.  A beautiful drive!

The tide was going out so we got to see a lot of tidal mud flats.

Between checking the cliffs to our left for Dall Sheep, and checking the Arm for Beluga Whales, Mardi has pretty well confiscated the Bushnell binoculars that my Tromper buddies gave me several years ago.

And she did locate some Dall Sheep.  But they had moved by the time the photographer had his viewfinder ready.

Our destination was the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Centre. 

They take in orphaned animals and rehabilitate ones that are injured.  Each of the large species is provided with several acres of habitat and a one and a half mile trail takes you past them.

Grizzlies.

Elk

Muskox.

Wolf

Reindeer.  I think this guy needs to be fitted with an antler crutch!  What a rack!

They also provided us with a Big Stupid (but classy) Thing.

We got some exercise and spent an enjoyable few hours at the Centre and then headed back to the hotel for a short rest.  
We have a 7:56 p.m. tee time at the Anchorage Golf Club, a beautiful, championship course with real grass on the tees and greens (the municipal course here has artificial turf on tees and greens).  We should hit the final hole right around the midnight hour - their curfew is 12:30 a.m.

This is the description of the course on their website.

"Anchorage Golf Course overlooks the Anchorage bowl with breathtaking views of Cook Inlet and Mount McKinley.

Visitors have a chance to see some of Alaska's wildlife including moose, fox, waterfowl, and the occasional bear. The layout of the Anchorage Golf Course is as challenging as it is beautiful; 6,600 yards of rolling, tree-lined fairways lead to well-guarded, undulating greens."

But that will be news for tomorrow.  To be continued - stay tuned.

DAY ELEVEN - July 5, 2017 - A WOW Day!

Took this picture from our bedroom window at 4 a.m.  It just doesn't seem to get totally dark!

We left Tok and headed down the Glenn Highway toward Anchorage.  We have about 100 miles of the Alaska Highway left to travel and will cover that on a circle route from Fairbanks east in about 4 days.

The sun was shining and we had a wonderful day.  What we thought were beautiful scenes on the trip so far were put to shame by what we saw today.

Our first WOW.

In between the trees in this picture you can see a couple of white dots.  

They turned out to be a family of Trumpeter Swans.  Mom, Dad and five cygnets.  They were our only wildlife sighting today.

Our second WOW was Mount Sanford.  Beautiful, but still 1,000 metres (3,300 feet) lower than Mount Logan.  If only we had been able to see Logan yesterday!

Our third WOW was the Matanuska Glacier.

And it finally peters out in the valley, where it becomes the Matanuska River.

The slopes below are covered in Gypsum, created by volcanic activity.  It gets its rusty colour from iron oxide. The Dall Sheep like to lick the Gypsum (but not today).

This is a muskeg area where the permafrost highway damage occurs.

And this is one of the ways they resurface the highway.  Never seen this before!  Looks like tar/rubber cloth.  It is the closest thing we have to a Big Stupid Thing.

Tonight we are in Eagle River.  We will spend tomorrow in Anchorage, which is just a few minutes to the south.

DAY TEN - July 4, 2017 - Alaska At Last

Unfortunately, the Mooseberry Inn B & B in Tok, Alaska had only enough band width for emails and browsing.  Couldn't upload pictures.  So, a day late, here are all our exciting details.

When we left Whitehorse it was 8C with a steady, light rain which diminished to a drizzle as the morning went along. The temperature didn't reach double digits until the afternoon, but this Bald Eagle didn't seem to mind.

We passed by Kluane Park and some lovely views (well they would have been except for the rain and clouds).

You'll have to believe me that Mount Logan is the highest mountain in Canada.

Next up was Kluane Lake.

You will see tomorrow how much better these pictures could have been with a bit of weather cooperation!

But we did have cooperation from this Grizzly sow and her two cubs.  Our catch of the day!

We visited the Kluane Museum of History.  Not big, but well done - both animal and native presentations.  A recommended stop for future visitors.

As we travelled the Alaska Highway we often came upon sections that were being resurfaced.  In the Canadian sections of the highway this was tar and chip.  The end result was just fine, but initially you had to deal with scenes like this, or worse.  At times, you couldn't see the vehicles ahead of you.

And for the last two hours in the Yukon, and sporadically through Alaska,  we dealt with "frost heaves" or, more accurately, "frost collapses".  Check out the painted lines on the road.

The problem wasn't just the dips.  They occurred at various places across the lane, more like moguls, so the van would dip and dive and almost got hurled off the road a few times.

The road in these areas is built on permafrost where, several feet under the ground, the soil is always frozen.  The problem is that when the road is built it acts as an insulator, and the dark surface retains heat, and the permafrost below starts to melt.  When this happens the soil collapses.  Global warming is accelerating this phenomenon and Alaska, in particular, is worried that this puts their land escape routes in jeopardy.

We were stopped at one point when a transport that was carrying a helicopter carcass bounced so badly that the fuel tank on the helicopter was fractured.  A spill crew had been working for seven hours on cleanup (don't ask me why a helicopter carcass would still have fuel in the tank!).  The single open lane was being controlled by an R.C.M.P. constable who was also checking driver's licences as a way to deal with his boredom.  He was originally from Waterdown and worked for the Argonauts, so when I said that I only "sometimes" cheered for the Ti-Cats he let me go.

We finally reached Alaska (my 50th, their 49th state) on this, our tenth day.  One bucket list item looked after!  

We didn't see any Donald Trump billboards yet, so today's Big Stupid Thing winner is this.

Definitely stupid!  The nearest polar bear is over 1,000 kilometres away!

And finally, a shout-out to my grandson Yancy, who is celebrating his last birthday as a free man on July 5.  He and Kayt will be married on August 12.

This is Yancy (the eldest) at his birthday celebration three years ago, with Sarah-Jean and Ewen (the youngest, by a few minutes). It's always on a grandpa's bucket list to be able to dance at the weddings of his grandchildren.  In August this bucket list item will be one-seventh complete.
Happy Birthday Yancy!

Tomorrow is a WOW day!  Tune in.