Denali – If the Hubbard glacier was the high point of the cruise, this is the pinnacle of the land portion of the trip. We were again fortunate to have spectacular weather. Usually Denali (which those of us over 50 knew as “Mt. McKinley” before it was renamed a few years ago) is shrouded in clouds and the top isn’t visible.
Sometimes, apparently the entire range is enveloped in clouds and it’s a lot like riding through fog. The Weather Gods smiled on us, though, and the vistas went on and on and on. Words cannot describe how beautiful it was.
As with most attractions, there was a Visitor’s Center that we stopped at first. Those 10 minute “Encyclopedia Britannica” films about “Zinc in our Daily Lives” and “How Public Transportation helps us All” are great. It gives an overview of who and what started the park and how it developed. In this case, they had also obtained tons of historical photos and movies so the history was truly understandable and came alive.
After the movie and a stop at the visitor center, we boarded “local” buses to go to various points on the park tour.
“Local Bus” in reality means “School Bus”. Those same busses that have seats designed for 10 year old butts (about 12 inches wide for each person) and assumes that knees and hips of passengers are original equipment and not in need of maintenance.
Grandeur diminishes somewhat with discomfort, the same way it’s difficult to truly appreciate the poetry of an outdoor wedding ceremony while sitting on a plastic chair in the August sun while wearing a dark suit.
Now add to that the fact that the school bus is making multiple stops, so we are getting off and on repeatedly. For the next 5 hours.
It was a sight we will likely never again see in our lifetime, and the experience was amazing. The fact that we had remarkable weather (the next day a front came in and everything was covered in fog, according to reports).
We stayed at the Denali Lodge, which has an emphasis on the “lodge” aspect in the rooms. Specifically, they are dark. Like “lighted by a couple of 40 watt bulbs” dark. They could have a cottage industry of harvesting any cords or chargers or anything else dark colored and selling it on E-bay since it is too dark in the rooms to find anything. Our flashlights were used to find things in the luggage, as if we were living in a tent.
It wasn’t terribly uncomfortable (although, again some common sense would have made things better – no instructions on how to work the heating system) but for what you know the cruise line was charging it wasn’t an especially good value. Think “Motel 6” with delusions of adequacy.
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