Day 18 -- Denali State Park

One of the wonderful things about the Talkeetna Roadhouse is the dining room with games, puzzles, mountains of old National Geographic magazines, and long tables where guests sit down for family-style meals.

(As I type here at 10 p.m., there’s a group of five adults who just sat down to adorably play dominoes together. I think I am in love with them, and I kind of hope they will ask me to join in.)

By the time we made it over for breakfast this morning, the dining room was packed, so we wedged ourselves at a big table next to a young couple from Maryland, and another couple, coincidentally also from Maryland. Over mounds of scrambled eggs, thick slices of homemade bread and sourdough pancakes, we chatted about our Alaska vacations and found out that the young couple are former Marines who specialized in Russian linguistics. After serving overseas, she returned to become a criminal prosecutor and he is working on his masters in environmental pol—… Wait. Now that I type this, I consider the possibility that they were totally messing with us. I should have told them that I used to live on the International Space Station, but now I serve as the South America correspondent for NPR. Damn.

After breakfast, we headed down the street to the Walter Harper Talkeetna Ranger Station, the home-base for the mountaineering rangers of Denali National Park. All climbing expeditions to the Denali summit must stop at this station for registration and orientation. Then bush planes depart from Talkeetna and drop off climbers at the 7,000-ft base camp. This climbing season, which ran from about April through early July, about 1,100 people registered to climb Denali. Of those, 620 reached the summit. Currently there are only two climbers still on the mountain, and no one else will go up this year, since warmer temps (a relative term) mean the snow bridges over the crevasses are melting. 

From the ranger station, we got back on the George Parks Highway, driving north toward Denali. On this beautiful, sunny day, we had clear views of The Mountain looming ahead of us. Today, we set out to do a hike in Denali State Park, which hugs the southern border of the national park. Denali State Park doesn’t get as much attention as the national park — and it doesn’t get the big crowds, either — but it’s known for equally impressive views of the mountain.

Those are not clouds.

About 45 miles north of Talkeetna (90 miles south of the Denali National Park entrance), we pulled off the highway for a five-mile hike around Byers Lake. It’s a pretty lake, and there were some kayakers on it, and the hike was pleasant enough … until we got around to the other side and the jaw-dropping vistas of Denali opened up. What a way to end our trip!

Toward the end of the hike, the trail crossed a stream that flows out of the lake. Charlie, who had been swinging his beloved knot-tying rope — a three-foot length of cord that he picked up last summer at the Jacksonville REI — accidentally dropped the rope into the water, out of our reach, and, with tears in his eyes, he quietly lamented its loss. 

The five of us tried to reach it with branches, to no avail. Tall grass lined the banks of the stream, under the bridge, so there was no easy way to get to it. Finally, Keith, who had been yearning to take a dip in the cold, clear water and who was kicking himself for not packing along his swim trunks, stripped down to his boxers and entered the lake from a rocky spot along the shore. He hooted and howled in the chilly water, but he made his way to the stream, then under the bridge to retrieve Charlie’s rope. What a hero!

Tomorrow we will pack up and leave Talkeetna, drive to Anchorage and spend the night near the airport before catching a 5:30 a.m. (!) flight home. I think I will sign off here, then. It’s been a wonderful trip full of adventure and spectacular scenery. Thank you for coming along!

I’ll leave you with this one last view: