Stampede

Saturday, September 10^th

The day was the second worst day for weather of the trip to this point (Wednesday at the Arctic Ocean was the worst). It was cloudy, rainy, chilly, and windy. This would persist the whole day and prevent the northern lights from being visible that night. The main attraction for the day was a backcountry jeep tour that lasted about 4 hours and 28 miles from start to finish. I was picked up at the hotel and taken along the Park Highway to the start of the jeep tour. I was paired with couple from Wichita who had recently celebrated their 44^th anniversary. The husband started driving, but I took over after one of the stops and drove the rest of the way. The couple had rented a car and was driving through Alaska. In the words of Wilda, she was glad for someone else to drive and just sit back and enjoy the scenery.

I had overheard a gentleman state this tour was anticlimactic, but I was presently surprised and enjoyed the trip and meeting the couple from Wichita. The jeep tour followed the Stampede Road which will be familiar to you if you have read the book Into the Wild by Jack McCandless or seen the movie of the same name. The road was originally built by a miner to get to an antimony mine. This miner had largely built the road by himself. McCandless was dropped off at the end of the road and hiked back to a bus that was left following additional roads being built by the state department of transportation. He would later die in the bus from alkaloid poisoning due to eating wild potatoes. Many hikers still make their way back to the bus (which is still back in the woods, about 28 miles from where Stampede Rd meets the Park Highway.) However, it’s a very treacherous route and we didn’t make our way that far back as we only traveled about 12 miles down the Stampede Rd. The picture above was taken shortly after the tour leader pulled a couple from Texas out of the mud who had got stuck the previous evening. Part of the treacherousness is due to crossing a river which can change from low to high tide quickly, leaving individuals stranded in the middle on gravel deposited by glaciers. Also along the road was a campsite of a homesteader that had been mauled by a bear in the early 1980s. His campsite was still present after all these years. Many hikers had left shoes near the campsite in honor of the homesteader. His boots had been found 30 feet from the rest of his body.

The company that operates the jeep tour has a campsite where we stopped for a brief lunch and hot beverages before coming back. One of the company’s employees spends six days a week at the campsite cooking for tourists making the trip. While he has a satellite phone and radio, I was surprised he stayed alone due to the dangers present in the wilds of Alaska. He relayed the story of being chased up a tree by a moose earlier in the season, but so far had no bear encounters. Once done at the campsite, we turned around and went back the way we came. There was a “neighborhood” dog where we left the jeeps. Its owner had been after the tour guide to let the dog go for a ride on the tour, but the guide didn’t want to clean up after the dog. After boarding the shuttle to head back to the lodge, the dog jumped on the shuttle and claimed the passenger seat. The dog was soon curled up in the passenger seat as opposed to sitting upright and watching traffic.

I laid low the rest of the day and prepared to say farewell to Denali (with many of the employees in the area also leaving for the year) and head south to Talkeetna on the morrow. However, I did venture out long enough for supper. This allowed me to see a red fox and take some pictures of Glitter Gulch (downtown area around Denali) from the bluffs surrounding the area.