A short writeup today for a long ride. We started this morning and soon passed the entrance to Denali National Park. While there was some climbing in the early stages of the ride, most of the day was either a downward trend or flat. The 1800 feet of climbing was offset (and then some) by 3500 feet of descending.
As we went north the scene changed from one of tall mountains and mainly fir trees, to lowering mountains, a mix of tree types, and eventually relatively flat terrain which was more reminiscent of the eastern half of the country than what we saw on Sunday. For much of the day we followed the Nenana River.
Today the wind was light until later in the afternoon when it kicked up as a headwind again. We ended our ride in the town of Nenana, about 50 miles south of Fairbanks, and were driven by the van to Fairbanks before going into town where we sat on an outside patio overlooking the river.
As I'm writing this it is 11:30 p.m. And the sun is still up! Welcome to the land of the midnight sun.
Here's a few pictures, followed by the ride data. Tomorrow we'll be driven out of town a short way before beginning our ride down the Richardson Highway to the town of Delta Junction. We'll follow the Richardson Highway for the next several days to our destination in Valdez.
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| Low clouds over the Alaska Range. It sprinkled a few drops, but I put on my rain jacket and that made it stop a few minutes later! |
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| Denali is the cause d'etre for this area. |
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| Tree changeover from all fir trees to a mix. |
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| A little while later you come to the park entrance road. |
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| A creek near the entrance road flowing fast down to the Nenana River in the background. |
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| The Parks highway will take you to either of these two cities. |
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| Our tour leader calls the section north of the park entrance "Glitter Gultch" because of all the hotels, gift shops, etc. Nobody will confuse the area with Fremont Street in Downtown Las Vegas but it certainly has its share of activity targeting Denali tourists. |
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| "Glitter Gulch" continued |
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| Enjoy the natural sites of Denali, or take a toke and see what you see! |
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| Parks Highway cut through a mountain north of the park entrance. |
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| The Alaska Railroad and the Nenana River cross under the highway below. Saw no trains all day. But even worse was the lack of Moose sightings! |
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| Tracy, one of our two Alaskabike guides. When she's not working on bike and adventure tours in the Alaska during the summer, she's a college professor! |
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| Two former Alaska Railroad cars offer rooms to guests who stay at the Denali Park Hotel. |
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| The end of today's ride is just a few miles away. |
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