Fairbanks (08/07/2005)

We spent this week in Fairbanks and Denali Park. The first day in Fairbanks several of us (Bob, my sisters: Sandy and Chris, and I) drove to the to the Arctic circle on the Dalton Highway (which used to be called the Haul Road as everything needed for oil development was ‘hauled ‘ up on Tractor Trailer Rigs). The Haul Road was commercial use only until 1981, in 1994 public access to Deadhorse was granted. We drove Bob's truck (he let all of us drive) as far as the Arctic Circle. It was an awesome trip. The Russian name for this forest area is ‘Taiga’ meaning land of little sticks. This is a great description of the stunted black spruce we saw. We saw lots of views of the Pipeline. On the way we drove thru 5 burn areas from the past and 1 current burn area. The older burn areas were awesome, black burned trees and bright purple fireweed. In the current burn area we stopped to take pictures of the Alaska Pipeline and heard crackling, saw flames, and watched a tree go down. We were wondering if we should be there but when we asked the volunteers at the BLM Yukon Crossing Visitor Contact Station, they said it is policy is to let fires burn unless buildings are at risk, as fire is part of the life cycle of the area (burn -> fireweed -> grasses -> shrubs -> birch -> willow -> spruce).
While we were in Fairbanks we also saw the University of Alaska Museum, Santa House at the North Pole, (Where adults sit with Santa & Mrs Claus to discuss their hearts desire), and took a boat ride (Discovery III) on the Chena and Tanana Rivers. On the boat we saw an Athabascan fish camp with a fish wheel, Susan Butchers home and dog sled team, and a bush pilot take off and land on the river.
While we were in Denali we saw the Visitor center, went on 2 hikes: Savage River (a flat 3 mile walk along the Savage River where we saw Willow Ptarmagan), and Horseshoe Lake (also 3 miles but with more elevation gain), and took the 5:30am bus to Fish Creek (an 8 hour trip). On the bus we saw: several small groups of caribou, 6 bears (a sow and 2 cubs {playing quite nicely}, a sibling pair, and a lone bear munching on berries less than 100 feet from the bus), several moose, hares, squirrels, and several big families of Ptarmigans but not the mountain. The bus trip was awesome (long but with lots to see).