Denali

Life has finally settled into something resembling a routine.  I had two whole days of school before a holiday weekend.  So tough ;)  Most of them look to be promising.  My English class I cold do without, as my instructor happens to be this pompous hippie type who annoyed me upon opening her mouth.  It was an unpleasant first class that was spent writing an essay the whole time.  Blah.  My Friday was tons better, as my more interesting classes were then.  My principles of Ecology is taught by the most adorable middle-aged man on the planet.  Biggest science nerd, so excited about his topic, and so nervous in front of people.  He tried so hard to convey his enthusiasm for the topic without stuttering and umming too much.  Adorable.  I am very much looking forward to how this course will unfold.  The labs sound super intriguing, and 8 of the 12 are field trips to places of interest for ecology in Alaska.  And our professor promises that the labs will be brought indoors if it gets below -20 degrees, as that is the same temperature that they cancel recess for the elementary school kids.  Good grief!  How is that normal?  I went out and bought myself some Caribou booties that are good for forty below.  Can't wait to try them out tromping through the snow.

The class that looks the best though is my Wildlife 101.  There are no lectures, just guest speakers from various and assorted wildlife biologist professions come to talk about their jobs.  We've got activities to do every Saturday that include duck banding, telemetry, behind the scene tours of the large animal research facility, and study skins (the skinning of a bird and learning how to mount it properly for a museum).  I realized how much of a science nerd I was when I tried to show Artur how exciting it was, and he was just kinda grossed out by it.  

This past weekend was awesome fantastic.  Artur and I rented a car on Saturday, took care of the necessaries in town (I found the barnes and noble!) and went to Denali National Park on Sunday.  The picture above was taken there.  In the past week everything that can has started changing into its fall colors, which has just been utterly amazing to watch.  I've never seen the colors change before!  Daily my campus has been turning more golden and orange.  It looks beautiful mixed in with the still vibrant green of the evergreens.

On to the most exciting part of the whole trip!  I had my first Moose Sighting!!!!!  I have been eagerly awaiting a glimpse of these huge creatures, and had been disappointed thus far.  Lo and behold, as we made our two hour drive into Denali, there one was!  Right there on the side of the road!  And alive!  It was a cow just munching on some leafy things next to the black top, calm as can be with a car driving right next to her.  Way awesome.  We saw a few other critters while in Denali, what I think was a ground squirrel, a wild Dahl sheep, and one measly little fish that looked like a mix between a lion fish and a sucker fish in the river.

Once we got into Denali, we stopped by the visitors center, grabbed a few maps, and started the 15 mile drive out to the Savage River.  We were told it was a great place to hike through some more open country.  We were not disappointed.  The Savage River is located right at the end of the public road through Denali (they only allow a select number of tour/shuttle buses through after mile 15 for reasons they list as being "eco-friendly'.  What it really means is that they make you pay to be able to see Mt. McKinley since you cannot see it before mile 15. It happens to be the tallest peak in North America.  Bastards).  The hike we opted for was along the river.  There was a path the was maintained for the first mile.  It was nice and easy and pleasant.  The first thing I did was play in the water of course.  It was sooooo cold (outside was about 48).  My shivering in my light coat soon turned to being pleasantly warm from the non strenuous hike.  We reached the end of it in a short amount of time, and instead of crossing the bridge and coming back down the other side, Artur and I being the adventurous sort of people we are decided to see where the river went.  The was a trail (kind of) that went on for a bit, so we thought it would be easy-peasy.  Hah.  My pleasantly warm soon turned into hot n sweaty.

Parts of the hike made me feel more like a little mountain goat than a human.  This was the point at which our "trail" really just turned into game paths (when we could find them) and tromping through the landscape whichever way looked easiest.  The views we got along the way definitely made the hard trek worth it.  I just couldn't get enough of stopping and staring (which I suppose is the point of the whole hike.  you kinda forget sometimes to look up and not at your feet)

Now Mom...if you're reading this please do not take notice of how close to that precarious looking edge of rock I am.  The view from it (you can see it below) was wonderful!

After much poking from branches and unexpected scrambling down slippery rocks, we came to this.  The both of us just stopped and gaped at it for a good five minutes.  Breathtaking doesn't even begin to describe what the landscape was like.  Artur did what he could to take amazing pictures (which he does a truly Fabulous job of) but to be there in person is sooooo much better.  The hike down the slowly zigzagging river was somewhere two and a half miles, only one of which had a regular trail, another half mile had an ok trail, and another mile of just pushing our way though.  It took something like three hours to get to this point.  I was ever so grumpy and sore and dreading the trek back and so perfectly happy all at the same time.

No trail in sight!

We stayed on that last ridge overlooking the next valley for twenty minutes or so before heading back.  I was ever so thankful for the long days of light out here.  It was six when we turned around, and the hustle back to the car took two hours and we still had plenty of light left.  We were treated to an amazing sunset on our drive home, and three more moose!  A bull this time with two cows.

When at last we got home around eleven, I was pretty sure every single muscle in my body had been used during the hike, down to my fingers, as they all hurt.  The hot shower that followed was heaven, both for the amount of filth on me (it was sprinkling on and off all day, which made for much mud and slippery falls into said mud!) being washed away and the soothing effect it had on my poor abused body.  My bed, lumpy and small as it is, was bliss.  I slept for eleven hours and it was glory :)  Today I've done a whole lot of nothing, despite my best intentions.  I even managed to get a three hour nap in there too.  Hopefully tomorrow I will be fully recovered to start with the school routine again at 8:15 am with my ecology lab.  Want more pictures of Denali? Check out my facebook, the link below should take you directly to the album with all 33 pictures in there.  Its to bed for me, so good night!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=73966&id=1073527832&l=ad888cab61