On the road with Jim – Page 98 – An Old Photographer's Journal

Palmer – Alaska

We’ve been forced to modify our plans. Anne and I had to leave the gang behind and go on to Palmer, a town north of Anchorage. That means skipping over a stop where we could have spent more time near the park. We will be here for a week, and Fred, Deb and Sally will catch up with us in a couple of days.

Fritz has been acting up ever since Montana. Whenever we would turn the key to start the engine, it didn’t react quite right. It has gotten worse. Now, we have to say a prayer, then perform yoga and hold our tongue just right to get him to start in the morning. That’s when the problem is the worse.

Since we carried some tools, and the internet, we narrowed the problem to either the lock that prevents the truck from starting when it isn’t in park or the ignition switch. There are only two qualified shops in Alaska that could fix it. An independent shop here in Palmer, or the only dealer in Anchorage, or the state for that matter.

When we got to town and set The Ritz up, we drove to the independent shop, where they confirmed it was the ignition switch/steering lock-out mechanism. They can’t fix it, because the part has to be programmed specifically for Fritz, and they don’t have the electronics to do that, I have to take it to the dealer tomorrow. Cha ching! Even the electronic key needs re-programming. We don’t have a choice, either we drive it in tomorrow or drag it in on a hook from who knows where.

Fox in the Field. — A red fox on the hunt, makes his way through an open field.

There is some good news however. Most things that come into Alaska, come in through Anchorage, and most of Alaska’s fresh produce is grown here in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley. At the store today, tomatoes were 2.49 a pound instead of the five bucks apiece we’ve paid since we left the states. Even better, there is a variety of produce in Freddy Meyers, so we can save our canned goods for on the road.

Dall Sheep On Igloo Canyon — To capture mountain sheep you need an extreme lens, or be a big horn sheep. i neither have an exotic lens or am I a sheep. My lens makes little white specks into bigger white specks. That will have to do for this trip.

Once I get car things settled, I may get to try some salmon fishing. The rivers run clear here and salmon are in the streams. That’s quite different from the park where the glacial rivers are sterile because of the silt runoff. I’ll have to keep my eye out for bald eagles. If they’re around, there is fish near.

Black Wolf — There’s a competition among the bus drivers in Denali. The primary score is the mountain as I’ve already explained. The other triumph is to see the big five: Grizzly, Dall Sheep, Moose, Caribou, and a Wolf. Hunters have decimated Denali’s wolf pack because of recent law changes that govern area adjacent to the park. Here is the last of our ‘Big Five’. A beautiful black wolf we found in a part of the park where he had never been spotted before.

I’ve processed a couple of photos from yesterday’s bus trip, and I want to share them with you. I hope you like them, I’m sure that you don’t want to see the inside of a garage (OK, I know a couple of you might), so I will be away from my camera for a day or so when we’ll get to check out Anchorage (and the Costco store).

Success – Alaska

It’s been a long and successful day on the bus. After yesterday’s post I thought I’d share with you a shot from the Eielson Visitor’s Center and relieve the suspense. The shot is of the Denali complex, from The Wedge to Peter’s Dome all surrounding Denali like jewels in a diamond ring.

As I explained in a earlier post, only 30% of the Denali National Park visitors actually see the mountain. What we learned today is that only 10% of those visitors ever see a cloudless mountain. They sell the 30% T-shirts here, but not one for ten per-centers. At the end of our trip, the first thing that the Queen and I did was to march into the gift shop, and buy our tee-shirts. I can die now.

The Denali Chain — This is the great mountain, Denali and the lesser peaks surrounding it. They are visible and cloudless. A very rare sight for park visitors.

I can’t begin to explain how massive this mountain is. The photo included was not taken with a telephoto lens. It was a normal lens from thirty-two miles away. There are two peaks on Denali, the north, which is pyramid shape, and the south which looks like a scoop of ice cream. The south peak is over twenty thousand feet making it the tallest mountain on the North American Continent. The distance between the two peaks is two miles. Another bit of trivia that sells tee-shirts here is that Denali’s base plateau is under three thousand feet, while Mt. Everest sits on a plateau of sixteen thousand feet. So, with pride, the Alaskan’s boast that Denali is taller from base to peak than Mt. Everest. I’m not going to join that argument, I’ll just say there are windows in the visitor center two stories high, and this mountain fills the center panel. ‘nuf-said.

Nenana Canyon – Alaska

A high pressure front was supposed to move in today bringing warmer temperatures tomorrow. That means the weather should clear giving us the best chance to photograph The Mountain. So, we extended our stay another day here in Nenana Canyon (the real name of the community the ranger calls Glitter Gulch).

Eielson View — The view from the Eielson Visitor’s Center

We’ve already purchased tickets for tomorrow’s shuttle bus. We’re betting on the conditions being right. It’s been cold, windy and cloudy all day with the temperature never breaking into the sixties. We will be moving to Cantwell on Wednesday regardless, so we all have our fingers and toes crossed.

The Teklanika River has a glacial source so it’s water runs the color of wet cement.

I wanted to get in this short post so that I could give you that update, but it’s also an excuse to show more of the photos from Saturday’s bus ride. Even if we don’t get a good shot, there are some scenes that I didn’t get the first time. We have a 7:00am departure, so the Queen is already preparing for her beauty sleep. Wish us luck.

Carabou Antlers — Caribou antlers decorate the grounds of the Eielson Visitor’s Center. If Mt. Denali wasn’t socked in, it would be where the dark cloud is.

Denali National Park – Alaska

When we first talked about this adventure, my destination goal was Denali National Park. Everything up to this point and everything we do on the way home was icing on the cake. We’ve made it, and today is our third of five days camped in the community outside of the park, or as a ranger called it; Glitter Gulch.

I wanted to see the Great Mountain for myself and possibly photograph it. That’s an elusive task because as the Park Service explains, only a third of the visitors get to actually see the mountain. Normally the moist air coming up from the Alaska Gulf rises over the Alaska Range and the mountains squeeze the water vapor out of the air so it condenses into beautiful clouds. But Denali cloaks itself in those clouds most of the time.

Mountain from 70 miles — On our first attempt the only view of the mountain we got, was from seventy miles away.

The park is different from any other National Park that I’ve visited. Besides the visitor center on the east side, there are very few concessions within the park boundaries. The intentions for The park was to be more of a wilderness experience. The park service limits traffic to fifteen miles on the single park road. Imagine, the state of Massachusetts having one road and you will get a sense of the space set aside for preservation.

Grizzly Sow — We spotted this female grizzly escorting two cubs across the meadows. Unfortunately, the cubs were shorter than the grass in this photo.

You can’t drive your car into the heart of the park, but you can walk anywhere you like, you can ride a bike along the road, but over three-hundred thousand people use the shuttle or tour buses each year. The tours offer guides and video screens, so you don’t even have to leave your seat to view the wildlife (you can even buy a DVD recording of your tour when you get back).

White Mountain in the Rain — Thunder clouds gather over this white mountain before breaking into afternoon showers.

The shuttle buses take you to various stops along the road and the cost is proportional to the distance. The guide is the driver and there aren’t any video cameras, so you have to spot the animals yourself. Anyone on the bus can yell stop, and the driver will stop, spot the object, move the bus so people can get a better photograph, and explain about what you’ve stopped for. There are only two rules: 1. No body parts can hang out of the windows (lenses are not body parts, so they can protrude). 2. You must stay quiet while the animal is near the bus.

Fox With Tonight's Dinner — A red fox on his way back to the den with three ground squirrels.
This will be food for his hungry kits.

So, that really sucks, right? I want to hang out and try to pet the bears! It’s actually a pretty good system. Because of the rules, the animals don’t associate the buses with humans. They’re just big inedible cows moving back and forth across the landscape. Like being in an observation blind, the passengers get to see the animals act naturally. The ‘Stop!’ thing? Believe me when you have a bus load of people staring intently out the window, you stop more often than if you were by yourself.

You may have guessed by now that we took one of the shuttle buses yesterday out to Wonder Lake and back. We did get to see Denali, but only at the first overlook, seventy miles away. That qualifies us for the “I saw the Mountain” tee-shirt. I didn’t get a good shot however. It’s raining today, but Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s forecast is for drier skies, so we’re going to take another bus. I still want my picture.

Chena River Crossing – Alaska She Cast No Shadow and Left No Mud—Just Questions

Last night, Anne and I drove to a river crossing our map claimed was “good for fishing.” It was around six—plenty of daylight left in an Alaskan summer—and Anne stayed in the car, deep into a Kindle novel, while I rigged up my fly rod.

I started casting along the right bank. No luck. So I moved upstream to the left of the parking area and made a few more casts. That’s when I heard a car door thud shut behind me. I turned, assuming Anne had gotten bored.

She hadn’t.

Instead, striding toward me was a slender woman of Asian descent, most likely Japanese. She had long legs, glossy black boots that somehow reflected the sky, black skinny jeans tucked in without a wrinkle, and a smoke-blue silk blouse that looked straight out of a travel fashion shoot and utterly out of place in bush country.

Her clothes whispered “high-end.” Her walk said “not in a hurry.” Her eyes—dark brown and direct—locked on mine as she smiled. She looked familiar, somehow. Like Janet Lee, the pool player, not the one from Psycho.

She carried a fly rod case, the good kind—big enough for a two-piece rod and reel combo, likely carbon fiber. When she stopped beside me, I forgot which hand my rod was in and managed to snap my fly line into the back of my head like a seaweed wreath.

“Do you mind if I fish the bank below you?” she asked, in a voice smooth enough to sell jazz records.

I meant to say, “Please, be my guest.” What came out was, “Why sointley.” Full Curly Howard. I winced.

She didn’t laugh. That was somehow worse.

She descended the muddy slope as if it were hardwood, said she’d caught two graylings here the other night, then squinted upstream. “Wait—this isn’t my spot. I was closer to that downed log.” And just like that, she turned and headed back up the bank.

I offered a hand. She declined, ascending as if by gondola. Her boots were still gleaming. No mud, no effort, no explanation.

She looked for a path through the aspens, found one, slipped around the last tree…

And vanished.

Gone. Not a sound. No footprints. Not even a branch was disturbed.

I stood there for a solid minute, trying to decide if I’d seen a spirit, an outdoor gear commercial, or an interdimensional guide sponsored by Orvis.

After exhaling and reeling in my limp fly line, I strolled back to the Mercedes.

I put away my gear, shut the door, and slumped into the driver’s seat.

Anne looked up from her Kindle. “What was that all about?”

I turned to her, wide-eyed. “Oh, thank God you saw her. I thought I was hallucinating.”

— jw