Our day heading from Fairbanks to Denali is a day that we won’t soon forget. The morning started off calmly enough, we loaded a coach headed for a stop at a riverboat cruise on the way to Denali. We met our driver Tyler, who seemed a little bit edgy but fine. There were 3 guests who were late for the bus, and he wanted to leave them behind but the organizer made him wait and they did arrive a few minutes later. We knew that it would be these 3 ladies who we had encountered the day before. They were southern, very loud and had spent the last day and a half trying to fly into Fairbanks. One of then was quite sick and they missed a flight along the way because their second plane was scheduled to land after their third plane was set to take off. They never checked their flights after they were booked and so they had quite the adventure getting there. When they got out to the bus 15 minutes late, they claimed that they were told 8:15 – clearly they had never read the welcome packet which HAL gives you each day telling you exactly where to be and when.
We were dropped at the riverboat landing and Tyler said that he’d be back at 12:30, and that if we didn’t see him by 12:45 to come looking for him. More on this later.
We boarded the riverboat cruise and the first stop was in front of a home that was built by Susan Bucher a famous female Iditarod winner. She is no longer living but her daughter runs a sled dog training facility and kenner there. She had the new baby dogs out for us to see and then did a demonstration of her sled team pulling an ATV on a training run. it was quite interesting.
We also saw a demonstration of a float plan taking off and landing several times next to the riverboat.
Most of the kids working on the ship were from Native tribes in the area and while they mostly go to college in the winter, they come home in the summers to help tell the stories of their native tribes. We stopped and got off the boat at the Chena Indian village and museum, they had some interesting exhibits and presentations about the way of life for their tribes both before and after they met with western culture.
Some very well trained reindeer – both make and female of this species develop horns so I’m not sure which this was.
This is a gorgeous women’s coat sewn from many different kinds of fur that the tribes would have caught trapping as part of their way of life.
A model of 2 moose who locked horns as part of a fight and couldn’t get them unlocked and died this way
The story of the moose
We returned to the riverboat landing and had lunch in a large hall with long picnic tables and hundreds of people seated very close together sharing large post of beef stew and salad. It seemed an odd choice for lunch given that all of the people there need to test negative in order to get on their cruises in a few days but it was what they gave us. After lunch we went out to the parking lot to meet the bus. An hour passed with no bus and the HAL people manning the parking area just kept saying it’s on the way but wouldn’t tell us anything more. Eventually 2 busses arrived, our old bus, being driven by a supervisor, and a new bus that was driven by someone else. They wouldn’t allow us to enter the old bus but handed out our belongings which had been left on the bus. It took forever but they refused to allow us to enter the bus. Our original bus driver was nowhere to be seen, and we overheard them say – we don’t say his name here anymore so something happened. We were loaded on a new bus, no explanation by a supervisor and the bus driver they provided was an adorable 20 something young girl who you just couldn’t be upset with. We headed out towards Denali. About 10 minutes into the trip the mirror on the bus just fell off – literally as we were driving down the street. Because the mirror fell off she had to pull the bus off the road and wait for a new bus. Eventually a new bus followed by a mechanic in a truck arrived. They decided that it would take longer to un-board and re-board and the mechanic pretty quickly replace the mirror and we were off. We skipped the scheduled stop between fairbanks and Denali and pulled into Denali about 2 hours late around 5pm. Some folks on the bus had excursions scheduled tonight but we did not. Because of all of the delays we were given a 40.00 voucher each to spend on the property. We checked into our hotel room at the McKinley Chalet Resort and headed across the street to the Prospector Grill and Pizza place that we remembered from the last time we were here. It was as good as we remembered and the views were spectacular. Since the day had been so crazy
This is the view from the Prospector Grill
After we finished dinner we headed back over to the lodge and took a few pictures along the way.
Tomorrow we have a tour into Denali and then later in the day – if the weather cooperates we will take a plane to land on Denali. That’s an excursion that was cancelled the last time we were here and Conrad has been looking foreward to it for a long time so hopefully the weather works out this time.