Dunfey Alaska Journey

In the morning of August 1oth, we decided to stay another night in Denali National Park. We moved from Teklanika campground at 30 miles mark to Riley Creek campground near the park entrance.  On our way back to beginning of park, we went on two hikes off the road.

We climbed a small dome or mountain near primrose ridge between Sanctuary River and Savage river. The tundra we climbed upon felt like walking on a real soft mattress or set of pillows. You sank quite a bit. We had to work to get to the top. We stopped to rest several times. Once, Fred laid down and enjoyed the tundra softness. Once we got to the top, we sat down and looked for wildlife in the valleys below.  We didn’t spot anything. We also waited for the McKinley cloud cover to disappear or lesson so we could get a clear view.  The McKinley clouds almost lifted a couple of times but we finally gave up as more clouds appeared. We did get some partial photos of McKinley.

When we got to Savage River, we hiked up a gravel tourist trail along the river for about a mile. We saw many, many ptarmigans, the Alaskan State bird. They walk most of the time but show pretty white wings when they fly. We could never get a photo of  them in flight as much as we tried.

On our final night in Denali, we attended Cabin Night dinner theater. It was great! We had already seen the cabins and read the stories of the people that were portrayed in the theater musical. The songs of Alaska were heartwarming. We had now seen so much of Alaska and Denali, we were feeling much more apart of it. The food was served family style with all the Ribs, salmon, beans and corn that you could eat. We had blackberry cobbler for dessert. No one left hungry.

On the morning of August 11th, we left Denali and headed for Fairbanks. We checked into the full service Riverside RV Park for 3 days. We both took long long, hot showers. It felt so good!  Our campsite is very nice for an RV Park. We are about 100 feet from a boat put in on the Chena River. We plan of kayaking the Chena and Tanana Rivers for our campsite. We are resting and taking it easy for now.