…my introduction to Seward’s folly…
My beloved does not pillion, at
least for very long. Therefore,
our vacations involve her using a car as a chase vehicle or relegate us to a
plane, a train or an automobile. So our exploratory trip to the Last Frontier would not
involve the bike. As it turns out,
this was not such a bad idea.
We accessed the Alaska Railroad website, perusing several
tour plans there offered. Alaska’s National Parks by Rail seemed to fit the time slot we had in mind, but I held
some trepidation about hanging with twenty-five or fifty folks whom I would
meet, greet and not particularly care about for the period of the tour. The first of the really good news is
that by booking through the rail company, all one is receiving is transit,
lodging and a few activities. There
is no tour guide hustling folk through this cathedral or that museum with an
eye toward the watch that dictates when the tour bus is going to depart. Nope. Passengers ride the train from Anchorage to Denali or to
Seward and hook into activities that no one else aboard may have decided to
partake.
Here is a little photo gallery of thing seen and enjoyed
that I might have missed had I been astride the “Horse.”
Day 1: Traveling from Anchorage to Denali
by train is a six-hour excursion into among the least populated geography on
the continent.
Two husky GP 40s
pull about 13 rail cars from Alaska’s largest city into a rugged and beautiful
landscape fed by rivers fueled from melting glaciers.
The trek northward becomes more and more dramatic…
…and we are told that we might be among the few who are
afforded an unobstructed view of Denali – the continent’s highest point.
Luck, and a string of eleven days of record-breaking heat
winks, and, indeed, we do.
Laying over at near the administrative center of the National Park for a day, we engage in a 94-mile bus ride into the interior of
the park. Critters abound.
Like this foraging Grizzly…
…a bachelor moose…
… a pair of cows wondering what the hell to do about all the
tourists…
… a red fox wearing black stockings…
 |
| Photo: Courtesy of fellow traveler Annette Reimer |
… and this little fella who felt we’d wandered to close to
the nest.
But the mountain dominated from tens of miles away to close
up.
Just as on a bike, the return trip
was as enticing as the trip out as the views changes with each sinewy turn of
the rails.
Day four found us heading south from Anchorage
to Seward. Sweeping turns…
and views of glaciers dominated the route over the pass and
toward the Gulf of Alaska
Our objective was to do “the tourist thing” catching a ride
on a launch that promised an up-close view of a remnant of the latest ice age.
Along the way, the captain nosed into rookeries…
… and sea lion habitat…
…before high-tailing it out to the gulf for a view of a living-breathing
chunk of history.
A frolicking male Orca decides to accompany us.
The Kenai Fjord Glacier proves to be a mile across where it
breaks apart into the brine.
The captain skillfully steers us past a tiny iceberg, not
likely big enough to harm our craft.
Still I could help thinking of the Titanic – which is likely why he
piloted us so close.
Then, pausing to drift for the better part of a half-hour,
the 80 of us on board listened to what sounded like cannon-fire or
thunder. This was the fracturing
sound of the ice, the magnification of what we hear when we drop and ice cube
into a tumbler of water.
Drifting, our collective reverie was broken when the skipper
intoned that we were experiencing the tail end of the last ice age adding,
“Welcome to Chicago 10,000 years ago.”
Days five and six found us again on the rails,
this time on the local between Anchorage and Seward.
The Alaska Railroad is the only rail operation in the
country serving both passengers and freight. Thus, if the engineer sees something the customer might
enjoy - unlike the UP - he slows down so that we all might get a good look.
Today’s mission would be to visit the Spencer glacier and
her attendant icebergs.
A lupine informs us that in late June, spring is only just
arriving to the north country.
A guide explains to the gathered what to do when – not if –
the raft capsizes into the 34 degree water.
Then we launch to drift among ice that was formed sometime
during one of the seven migrations from Asia of the folks who would come to be
known as “Native Americans.”
We did not approach the glacier to the extent we may have
wished.
Soon we were tumbling down the gray waters of the silt-laden
river.
With impeccable timing, we arrive at our portage point, just
as the Local pulls up to carry us to whatever our next destination might be.
So: Alaska by bike or by rail? Next time, I’d certainly want to travel
north on the bike. But for an
introduction to this rugged wonderland, it’s tough to beat a few days riding
the Alaska Railroad.
o0o
Resource:
© 2013
Church of the Open Road Press
