July 22 - Day 17

Hello! It is Saturday, July 22, and we are in a campground in North Pole, Alaska just outside Fairbanks. We have Wi-Fi, but it seems to be somewhat restricted. It takes forever to upload images, so I will only post one or two for Thursday and Friday. It is very hard to choose which pix to post, because I have so many -- yesterday alone, I took over 900!

Alaska is so big, so magnificent and so beautiful, there are no words to describe it, and no photos can truly do it justice. Even if I posted every picture I have taken since I got here (probably about 5,000 so far), you would only see a tiny fragment of this magnificent state.

Here is the post for July 22; I will do July 23 and July 24 separately.

Thursday, July 22 - Day 17

Today we made our third attempt to cross the 130 mile-long Denali Highway from Cantewell to Paxson. Glad we did! The road had been recently graded, so it wasn't as rough as the first time. Also, my back spasms have subsided, so I can sit for a few hours with only a little discomfort.

It was partly cloudy when we began, and it got gradually clearer. We saw one moose just as we set out this morning, and one rabbit a while later. We got some nice views of the West Fork Glacier and Mt. Hayes, and saw some nesting swans at various spots along the road. Also found a pair of Arctic terns, a Bald eagle and some Barrow's goldeneyes.

We stopped for lunch near the Susitna River Bridge, and after a 2-hour break we continued toward Paxson. The scenery became more and more beautiful as we progressed, with higher mountains, wider valleys, more tundra and fewer trees. We saw 3 caribou grazing in a marshy area. Gradually the weather worsened and it began to rain, so we found a spot to camp for the night at a pull off that overlooked a wide valley. During a walk after a quick supper, we spotted another caribou and calf, then a bit later saw a herd of about 15.

The clouds began to break up, so we decided to continue in hopes of seeing more wildlife, since it was only 8:00 p.m. and there would be another 2-3 hours before sunset.

The scenery was absolutely gorgeous, especially with the low angle of the sun behind us as we drove eastward. The road was built on top of a winding gravel esker left by an ancient melting glacier, so we had views on both sides of expansive tundra valleys surrounded by distant mountains. We saw lots more caribou, including a group of bulls with impressive antlers. Just before dark, I got a great shot of a pair of nesting trumpeter swans and their cygnets. Also found several new wildflowers.

We finally stopped for the night on a bluff overlooking the serpentine McClaren River. We also had a great view of the McClaren Glacier, although it was somewhat getting dark and cloudy.

Tomorrow we will finish the Denali Highway and had south down the Richardson Highway toward Valdez.

More tomorrow