Last Day in Denali

We brought the computer up to the coffee place today so we could have Internet access. We arrived in Denali on the evening of July 4th. The train ride was really neat from Anchorage to Denali. We ate at the hotel restaurant when we arrived in Denali and had a very delicious salmon pizza and cobb salad.

July 5th we went on an ATV tour of an area just outside of Denali Park. It was a lot of fun! We got to cross streams, drive down streams, climb up hills, and cover a lot of terrain. We ended up a little wet and quite dusty. We were told you either end up dusty or muddy, depending on what the weather has been like. After the ATV tour we took a shuttle to Denali Park. We stopped at the Wilderness Access Center to find a place to take a small hike. We ended up taking the Savage River shuttle to, interestingly enough, Savage River. They had a nice 2 mile hike and we saw a Marmot, a ground squirrel, and a bunch of Ptarmigan. Then we took the shuttle back to the hotel and ate at Salmon Bake, one of the only locally owned Denali Restaurants (the main part of Denali is quite touristy).

July 6th We awoke early and went on a horseback riding tour through the tundra (WET!) and through some other areas. It lasted about 2 hours and, by the end, our knees and legs were very sore. Our horses were named River and Yukon and both were great horses. River (Josh's horse) did not like the tundra and would not listen to any of his requests. Yukon kept his nose to the butt of the horse ahead and followed wherever that horse went. He really liked munching on whatever he could find along the way. After the horseback tour we needed a rest. After the rest we went to the Denali Park visitor center and Kelsey bought two plant books (nerd!) Then we went to a dogsled demo in Denali Park (Lisa, the puppies were SOOO cute!) and it started to rain at the end so we hurried back to the bus. That evening we went to the Cabin Night Dinner Theater and had a "family style" meal of ribs, fresh salmon, potatoes, corn, salad, and blueberry cobbler. They also put on a musical depicting the lives of the first Alaskans.

July 7th (today) We dropped off our bags to be shipped to Fairbanks and will probably walk around the shops because we are so stiff and sore from all of our adventures. We will then get on the train at 4pm and take a 4 hour ride to Fairbanks.