Train to Denali NP

 

The dome of Denali, the tallest moutain in North America in the distance.

Dead black spruce trees, above and below.

The Holland America McKinley Chalet Resort.

Arrival at Denali.

My sitting room.

Tuesday, August 15^th.

I was up by 5:30 to organize my luggage for pickup and to go to the Captain Cook Hotel for breakfast. I got talking to a couple from Ontario on the walk and they invited me to have breakfast with them. After that I sat in the Cook lobby uploading photos and writing the blog. Back to the Westmark to catch the coach to the train station. We boarded the Alaska McKinley Express for our 8-hour trip. The train is two levels with all the seating on the second bubble deck and the dining on the lower deck. It was a long slow trip and several times we had to pull over to let other southbound trains pass. The views out the window changed from the large city of Anchorage to smaller suburbs and then smaller towns and abandoned sites of villages as we headed north. The scenery became more and more wilderness as we passed by mountains and innumerable rivers and lakes and boreal forests of mostly black and white spruce. There was plenty of evidence that in the last few years they have had a major infestation of the spruce bark beetle. It apparently is native but probably with climate change and warmer winters it has not been kept in check by nature. There were thousands of dead black spruce trees that are in effect just standing kindling waiting for a fire. We arrived at the Holland America McKinley Chalet Resort about 5:30 and were assigned our rooms. Mine is very nice with a sitting room in front of the bedroom. I went up to the lobby (a 300-metre walk and a climb of 75 stairs) and used their internet (as there is none in the rooms) and then went back to my room and found my key didn’t work. I had to scramble to find where I could get a new one because I had a dinner theatre to go to in 30 minutes. Anyway, got it sorted and then enjoyed the show sitting with two couples from Iowa. The show was a funny musical reenacting the history of the first settlers and mountain climbers who summited Denali, (formerly Mt McKinley). Denali in the native language means The Great One. After the show I returned to my chalet and read before bed.