Alaska diary: Denali National Park (The camper bus)

Six-thirty a.m. Friday morning.  We take the advice of the young woman who confirmed our camping reservation yesterday afternoon and "follow the dinosaur prints" from long-term parking to the Murie Science and Nature Center.  A group of campers is already assembling.

We have stuffed most of our gear into my duffel and our two day packs.  The exception:  a cardboard box of food and the wheeled cooler that carries our open jelly jar and a gallon of iced tea.

"Now that's some old time camping gear," says an older bearded man, who is also waiting for the bus.  "A cardboard box and an ice chest."

Frank, the bus driver, shows up on time, and directs loading of backpacks, boxes, and a bicycle.  He drones through the bus regulations once everyone is onboard.  Seat belts fastened while the bus is moving.  If we see an animal that needs photographing, don't call out the name of the animal ("You'll almost always be wrong").  Just yell, "Stop."  Hands and cameras inside the windows.  Bathroom breaks along the way.

To reduce impact on the park, Denali has only one 92-mile-long main road in two million acres.  The first 15 miles are paved and open to private vehicles.  Beyond that all vehicular travel is by shuttle bus only.  We are headed to Wonder Lake at mile 83.

Back on the bus, we strike up a conversation with the young couple in front of us, who are from Palmer.  He owns the trail bike lodged in the luggage section.  The plan, he says, is to ride back out to the park entrance from Wonder Lake.  Having checked an elevation diagram of the park road, I know that he will be traversing passes that total several thousand feet in elevation gains and losses.  He looks lean and fit, dressed in shorts while most of the rest of us still have on a second layer against the morning chill.

"How long will the ride take?"  I ask.

I'm hoping to average around 10 miles an hour," he says.  That means he will finish by 10:00 p.m. if all goes well.  Daylight persists for over an hour beyond that.  We wish him good luck.

Two twenty-something women, who have summer jobs in the park, sit across the aisle.  We find out that one woman, Rachel, a PhD. candidate from the University of Pennsylvania, is studying treeline changes in the park.  She tells my brother that Alaskan spruce now grow 200 feet above their former treeline of only 10 years ago.  Global climate change accounts for the difference.  Her degree is in applied geosciences, a field she picked to guarantee a career involving international travel.  So far she has done field work in Scotland and Alaska.

At our first rest stop at the Teklanika River, Frank gives us 10 minutes for pictures and potty.  True to his word he shuts the door and pulls back onto the main road close to that mark.  The two young women across from us are not on the bus, and someone yells at Frank to let him know.  He slows down -- reluctantly -- when the dread-locked guy behind us volunteers to go back and get them.  They come jogging up the road quickly and we take off.  Frank seems bent on the business of delivering his load.  It's probably been a long summer.

From Teklanika on, the gravel road gains and loses elevation in 1000 foot increments, over Sable and Polychrome Pass.   I am in the aisle  seat on the downhill side of the bus, and from where I sit, all I can see out of the window is open air and precipitous drop-offs.   Frank navigates the narrow road on the edge of these steep inclines for many miles, skillfully maneuvering around curves.  I begin to understand why he seems determined to be among the first vehicles into the park.  The dust from the few buses in front of us lingers in hazy puffs we pass quickly through for miles.

We pull into the Eilson Visitor Center at mile 66.  Despite the obvious wilderness that stretches out in all directions from the road up to this point, it is not until we arrive at Eilson that the Alaska Range and Mt. McKinley are finally visible -- a view so stunning it looks contrived, a Thomas Cole or Albert Bierstadt painting come to life.  The landscape stretches off into the distance from our vantage on the observation deck.  We can see McKinley above the gathering clouds, which appear to be rushing towards it, as if late for an afternoon weather conference.

What most impresses is the vastness of the view, the sense of looking out across a wild and unspoiled place.  Despite the buses, the air itself seems untainted, clear and sweet.  Even milling about among the dozens of park visitors, I feel a sense of calm order.  The scale of the natural world and my place in it are in balance.

Once more on the bus, the final seventeen miles pass quickly.  Frank has been bearing down, all business, for most of the ride.  He only has to stop 3 or 4 times for picture taking, once to watch the tail end of a single bear disappearing over the hillside above us, a couple of times for other wildlife -- Dall sheep and caribou.  He pulls off the main road and coasts downhill for a mile and a half to Wonder Lake.

We have arrived in a little over 5 hours, an hour less than advertised, which really seems to have buoyed Frank's mood.  The camp hosts greet us, and seeing our cardboard box and wheeled cooler, steer Dale and me to the nearest campsite, less than 50 feet up the trail.  Before we have deposited our gear, I hear the bus gears grinding and picture Frank heading off for Kantishna, the final stop 10 miles up the road.   We have had enough of the camper bus, and Frank has no doubt had enough of us, so it is overall a happy parting.