Today is the last day of our guided tour, aboard an Alaska Railroad dining/observation car. This is a nine hour ride from the station in Denali National Park to Anchorage.
Like yesterday’s views, the landscape is peppered with head-scratching out-of-place outcroppings.
Starting in essentially the same area as yesterday’s tundra tour,
we were hopeful for a Denali sighting as the route would pass about 30 miles to the east.
Alas, not today. For something so massive, Denali is quite shy. Still, the views never disappoint.
Like the sign says.
Switchgear in remote areas are manual, not electric. Sometimes in the winter months, the conductor has to use a sledgehammer to clear ice from a switch so it can be flipped.
View from the 918’ long Hurricane Gulch Bridge, constructed in 1921 over a mere 90 days. Where our train stopped. For ten minutes. 296 feet above Hurricane Creek.
Did I mention that all 7 cars plus locomotive stopped on this 103 year old bridge 296 feet above the gulch floor for ten minutes? I overheard several pleas of “okay, we need to move now.”
Big Lake. No, really, that’s the lake’s name.
About 20 miles north of Anchorage, looking across the Knik Arm of Cook Inlet. The mile or so swath of grass and sand between the trees in the foreground and water way out there seems like a nice beach.
Except, that’s not sand. It’s all silt from glacier runoff, at least 600 feet deep. This silt is finer than talcum powder and more dangerous than quicksand when wet. It can be walked on when the tide is out and it’s dry.
Head for the hills when the water rises, though, because that beach becomes a trap. The advice is, if you’re in up to your ankles, get help fast, because there’s no way you’ll get out by yourself. Do it fast because the average tides are 26 feet.
Fauna spotted today: one moose, about a half dozen trumpeter swans, and an osprey with a flying fish heading out for dinner.
Clouds pulling a curtain down on the mountains. Sunset is an hour earlier, at 11:36pm. What a difference three degrees of latitude makes. G’night, Anchorage!
June 11th travel: 230 miles by rail from Denali NP to Anchorage.