Chapter 6: Further Up and Deeper In

~After a two and a half-day stay in Watson Lake we were ready to be on the move again. We left Watson Lake just before 11 PM and drove the 16 hours to Fairbanks, stopping just to fill up with gas as everybody took 1 ½ to 2 hour driving shifts.

~The drive was mostly uneventful, couple moose lumbering across the road and an occasional elk along with one bear sighting. Being that it never quite gets completely dark this far north at this time of year so just a few hours of twilight driving is all we had to deal with.

~Fairbanks brings us to the end of the Alaska Highway, passing through the North Pole just before we reached it (totally serious). The Walmart parking lot in Fairbanks looked like its own campground as a smorgasbord of RVs and motor homes dotted the parking lot. We picked up a few more groceries and were on our way again, headed south towards Anchorage in search of a place to stay for the evening.

~We found a place to stay at the Grizzly Bear Campground. After dinner, Nathan and Matthew decided to head out in search of animal sheds. It was already after 11, but they took a flashlight and some bear spray and were off in search of adventure. They climbed to the top of Flat Top Mountain not needing the flashlight at all because of the altitude.

After finding it too cold to sleep out on the mountain they hiked back to Ole Hezzie at five in the morning with a couple nice caribou sheds in hand.

~Tuesday, the 12^th, we booked an eight-hour bus tour of Denali National Park starting at eight AM. About 30 percent of visitors get a glimpse of Denali Mountain, the tallest free-standing mountain in the world, because it is often covered by clouds. But on this day, God gave us an almost completely cloudless day and clear views of the snow-covered mountain all day.

~The tour starts us about 80 miles from the mountain and winds its way through the park to roughly 35 miles from the mountain. Passengers on the bus keep their faces plastered to the windows in search of wildlife in the park. We see plenty of caribou loping through wide-open valleys or taking a siesta in the warm afternoon sun. We see several grizzlies during the trip, including a mother and three cubs, sadly there were no close-ups to get the heart rate going. We didn't get to see any moose in the park but did play chicken with a lone black wolf till he went off-road and trotted into the forest. There are supposedly 40 some wolves who make their home in the six million acre park, roughly the size of Massachusetts, so a wolf sighting is very rare.

~A short night of rest and long bus ride made for some sleepy tourists and we slept quite a bit on the way back out of the park. After exiting the park we topped off our brake fluid in Ole Hezzie, which was acting up that morning, and headed south again towards Anchorage in search of food and a place to park for the night. After some thick, juicy burgers at a roadside hole in the wall, we found a free spot to rest for the evening, nestled between the highway and a rippling creek.

OFFICIAL GRADE FOR THIS SEGMENT

A-