If you’re anything like me, then you grew up fascinated my maps, globes, and other things that depicted far-away places. The typical globe when I was growing up showed a few geographic features. Invariably, if mountains were included, then they’d have to include the highest peak in North America – Mount McKinley. At 20,310 feet, it’s over a mile taller than the highest peak in any other state in the U.S. Powerhouse glaciers, classic cragginess, and even a new name when Obama officialized the renaming to Denali in 2015 – this mountain had everything you could ever want and then some.
Denali National Park is a little over two hours from Fairbanks, so it was obviously a top priority with my summer 2024 work trip. For a long time Elizabeth, my family, and myself delayed on figuring out the exact details because we didn’t know my exact work schedule. Once we had the details a little better sorted out, I got the five of us tickets on a Denali bus tour on Saturday, September 1st (the first college football Saturday of the year. Sad!). Then on August 1st, when I was leaving in a week, a thunderclap from the gods of good fortune – the MIC at WFO Fairbanks e-mailed me to let me know the office was planning a partner visit to a Co-Op station – within Denali National Park. On August 23 when I was there! And I was invited! I have never replied “yes” to an e-mail more enthusiastically.
With those visits lined up for the second half of my visit, there was no pressing rush to get a view of the mountain. Apparently Denali is pretty frequently visible from spots in town despite being 150 miles away. Everyone in the office showed me exactly where the mountain was supposed to be “visible” out the window – potentially a faint smudge just barely peaking over the Chena Ridge on the west side of town. Sure, whatever. The views due south toward the Eastern Alaska Range and Mt Healy were way more interesting anyway.
For similar reasons, when I finally got a single day off on August 17, instead of heading toward the national park I spent the day driving down the Richardson Highway through the only other gap in the Alaska Range. There was going to be more time to explore the other way.
My rough plan for the first visit was to participate in the festivities of the partner visit on Friday the 23rd. But, since the 23rd was actually a day off for me, and so was the 24th, I planned to stay down in the area that night and do a little hiking the next morning. For that, my buddy Matt (a storm chaser I know) booked us a cabin through the tour company he works for. The cabin was just north of the park and would let us do a little bit of hiking the next day. Sometimes it’s good to have connections!
I got started down the Parks Highway (named after former governor George Parks, NOT because it goes right past Denali Park) a little bit late on Friday morning. This is where I can acknowledge that I was stupid in reading the NWS-Denali joint event flier:
In my mind, the sled dog demonstrations would occur multiple times between 10:00 and 12:30 to those who were interested. No, that was not the case. So being on pace to get to the park exactly at 10:00 am was not the move, although a slow-moving Nolan (coming off of an evening shift the day before, to be fair!) didn’t realize it yet.
The drive down there was enjoyable, though nowhere near the same jaw-dropping, truly stunning view that the Richardson Highway had offered the weekend prior. Part of that was the weather – while the Richardson had been enjoyed on the last day of a sunny first week in town, my second week was gloomy, wet at times, and generally very fall-like. This day was no exception, and low clouds hung over the Nenana River Valley on the way into the park.
Immediately upon turning into the national park, I realized I was in trouble. Where to go? Maybe this is the sort of thing that shouldn’t have just been winged. At least I had a bar of LTE if needed. The flier did say that the initial celebration would be down by the dogsled kennels. So to the kennels it was! Fortunately, it didn’t take too long to find a sign showing that the park HQ/the kennels were NOT in the sprawling entrance complex.
So I drove on over to the park headquarters – only to discover that basically all of the parking was taken. I circled, and circled again, and then one more time. Nothing. Now the panic was starting to well up. I had to do something, and was already super late. Desperation being the mother of invention, I made up my own parking spot. And it only halfway hung down over a ditch that would absolutely eat up my rental car if the parking brake stopped. But at least I could go see the demonstration!
Except – and this was worst nightmare sort of stuff – there was a barricade up over the path leading down to the kennels, warning of a “demonstration in progress”. Visitors were supposed to wait out of sight until the sign was taken down. An entire morning of poor planning seemed to be coming home to roost until, to my infinite embarrassment, a few NPS rangers at the far end of the path saw me and beckoned me forward. I slunk toward the back of the crowd gathered around the demonstration, praying no one from the office would see me (they did).
What transpired was unfortunately only the very end of the sled dog demonstration, but it was still cool to see. The ranger had a dog up front with him that was providing the main entertainment for the day.
He and his friends took a sled quickly around the compound while the ranger talked about the challenges that both the NPS and the dogs face. Most of the winter, they’re the only method of transportation in those parts, snowmobiles being rejected for being too disruptive to wildlife. It was funny to see how the dogs acted; rather than being the little soulless running machines I expected, these dogs were only behaving if they felt like it. Really, you could just tell they wanted to run.
It was a special day, though. The dog in the picture above was celebrating his retirement. The other two people were taking Venture back to their place to live out the rest of his days receiving pets, attention, and probably a lot of food. Venture, you’re a good boy. Those emotions were tempered by the dedication of the plaque celebrating 100 years of Denali observations, presented to the park by the Alaska Region Director himself. A few individuals gave speeches praising the importance of keeping a climactic record, and praising the dedication of the park rangers who go out and take a reading every day. And then the shindig broke up, with the public welcome to take buses back to the visitor’s center, while the NWS employees and the park rangers had a picnic lunch.
There was a little bit of time prior to the gathering for lunch for people to go see the sled dogs in their enclosures. Many of them were sleeping and not at all interested in the humans that must stream past their kennels at all hours of the day during the summer. But a few of them, Venture included, seemed to revel in the attention of the people walking by. I waited my turn, and after the tourists were all done with their photo opps there was a chance to squat down and tell Venture what a good boy he was, and that I hoped he enjoyed retirement.
Then it was time to wander over toward the Co-Op station, which was maybe 100 yards east of the demonstration pavilion. Rangers had set up a tent outside of it where they had a veritable picnic of hot dogs and hamburgers, potato salad and chips, and even some cupcakes. The meal would have been a lot more enjoyable if it wasn’t 40 degrees and breezy, which meant that the hot dogs were cold before we could possibly hope to get them onto plates, much less eat them. In fact, that was a great way to characterize the weather – kind of gloomy, kind of chilly, kind of misty. Every time I started to shiver, or to wish that it was warmer, I remembered what it must be like to be back in Norman. (In case you were wondering, the high in Norman that day was 97). And then I mentally stopped complaining.
This part of the program was a great chance to mingle and to listen to some interesting conversations. First of all, there were my coworkers to greet. Yes, they had seen my mad dash in super late, but fortunately I escaped with only a little bit of teasing. Honestly, I was happy to sit there and absorb from the traveling Fairbanks delegation – Lindsay, the MIC; Jason, the brand-new WCM; Heather, the brand-new Service Hydrologist; Craig, the longtime OPL and official office Old Guy Yelling at a Cloud; Matthew, the young forecaster; and Sonya, the brand-new forecaster fresh out of college, who was giving one of the talks later. I’m sure many of them felt as much of an outsider as I did, and yet the mood was congenial and comfortable. And then there were the conversations involving Denali Park rangers, which were interesting in their own right. I heard them talking among themselves about various park issues, including the “problem bear” that had been frequenting the kennel area. They hoped (and I joined them in this wish!) that the bear wouldn’t be drawn in by the smell of hot dogs. On the other extreme, a ranger showed Sonya and me a spot behind the kennels where wild raspberries were growing in abundance, just ready to be picked. “Just pick the ones a little higher up that the dogs can’t get to.” Good advice.
And of course, as befits a celebration of a historic partnership between the National Weather Service and National Park Service, there were photo ops. Many of them were at the end of the sled dog demonstration, but the NWS employees also were herded in front of the Co-Op Station with Alaska climate expert/legend Rick Thoman for a picture in front of the Co-Op site.
I clearly didn’t have a good sense of what to expect next, so it was a good thing there were other, more knowledgeable people around to direct me. The next phase of the Denali 100 Year celebration was at the Denali Visitor’s Center a couple of miles back down the park road. We had a little bit of time, so Heather suggested walking the Roadside Trail, a 2-mile downhill jaunt back into the visitor’s center area. I had the time and the ground seemed just firm enough to not get mud everywhere – why not?
Along the way, I discovered that Heather knows every single thing there is to know about hiking in Alaska. She’s been everywhere – trails you’ve heard of, trails you haven’t heard of, rafting, walking, anything. One of my obsessions in August 2024 was Alaskan berries – hence the excitement at getting to eat raspberries at the sled dog kennels. It turns out that Heather knows everything about berries, as well. While we walked, she showed Matthew and myself the low bush cranberries (lingonberries) that were growing alongside the trail, while pointing out where they may have been raspberries, blueberries, or other edible things that had already been picked cleaned by tourists. She also pointed out giant boulders left in the hillsides along trails, left behind my ancient glaciers. I don’t think the conversation would resonate with someone else who doesn’t have my absurd love of details, but I was fascinated the whole way to our destination. It was with some regret that I noticed the trail opening up into “national park civilization”.
The Denali Visitor Center is kind of a sprawling complex – there are rows upon rows of parking spots, RV spots, a Science and Learning Center, the actual Visitor’s Center, a Bookstore, and even the Denali Park Airport. I was glad to be able to follow Heather, who is a true-blue Alaskan and knew her way around. Thanks to her, everyone safely got into the Visitor’s Center well ahead of the opening of the talks. I got my map of the park:
And I got the chance to wander among the exhibits. They were mostly wildlife-based, extolling the virtues of a Dall’s Sheep or a caribou or an Arctic mouse. It wasn’t the largest or the fanciest exhibit area in the world, but that was fine, because soon it was 1:30 – time for the talks. I filed into the back of the theatre (yeah, Denali has a full theatre in their Visitor’s Center) to enjoy the show. Rick Thoman led off the show – I’ve long admired him, and it was an absolute treat to get to listen to him talk about his twin passions of Alaska and climate data.
Park rangers presented talks that were sometimes fun (sled dogs!), sometimes alarming (climate change!), and sometimes downright depressing (sled dogs dealing with climate change!). Then towards the end, Jason and Sonya gave their talk. Jason gave a brief, engaging overview of the NWS’s role in keeping Denali-goers safe; I could see why he’d been hired to be the WCM. Sonya told some jokes and then gave a forecast for the national park – to nobody’s surprise, with drizzle falling outside, the forecast was pretty gloomy. Sonya seemed a little nervous but really delivered her points; I think she has a bright future in the NWS.
After several hours worth of talks, I will admit that my attention was beginning to wander. It’s not that they weren’t interesting (mostly), just that I’m an internet-attention-span-ruined Gen Z’er to the core. Fortunately, Craig had had about enough around that time too. He offered to drive me back up to my totally real parking spot at the sled dog kennels, which saved an hour-long walk back uphill. I was able to get into the car and back up without going into the ditch, which is probably a good thing with a rental. And from there, I was free to enjoy the Denali area until Matt drove down from Fairbanks to meet me for dinner.
With that said, it was becoming an exceptionally gloomy afternoon. The low cloud cover had somehow become even more pronounced, and Mount Healy (the eastern extension of a long mountainous ridge that dominates the first dozen or so miles of the Denali Park Road) was entirely shrouded in mist.
It didn’t seem particularly fun to hike above the tree-line on a windy, cold, rainy day on my own in grizzly country just to say I’d been hiking. So instead, I drove back to the village of Denali Park (despite its name, Denali Park is just outside the national park boundary) to find a place to read a book. Coming in that morning, I was enthralled by the beautiful gorge carved out by the Nenana River. If there was somewhere along the river to sit out for a little bit, enjoy an Alaskan afternoon, and make a quiet memory, I’d take it.
And there was. The Parks Highway crosses the Nenana for the final time just south of the town, no more than a couple of minutes away from the park Visitor’s Center. Right next to the vehicle bridge is a small pedestrian bridge. With the gloom, it doesn’t make for the most in-your-face-gorgeous photo, but I personally can’t get enough of raging glacier rivers. They always hit the spot.
It was a little too chilly, wet and exposed to want to sit up on the cement of the bridge. But underneath the vehicle bridge, there were some rocks that could be used as a reasonable facsimile of a chair. Of one thing I was sure: John Muir, who I was reading about, would have approved of the spot.
Surprisingly, there were some things to see under the bridge. At one point, a whitewater rafting group went by. I’ve been whitewater rafting before just a few times, but enough that I think I can authoritatively say that this was a wild ride for them. There was a photographer just on the other side of the pedestrian bridge – I heard the thrilled roars of the rafters as they want floating by. On the upstream side of the bridge, too, were helicopters. Parked right by the water! My parents and Alex were going to take a helicopter tour of Denali in a week, but this was the closest I would get to them.
After a while, Matt texted me that he was on his way down from Fairbanks. He had suggested we meet up at 49th State Brewery in Healy, maybe 10 minutes back to the north of where I was sitting. It’s one of the only true-blue sitdown options for miles around, so on a Friday night in tourist season he thought it might get busy. I got up there ahead of him to check out the scene and – yup – it was packed. Fortunately, there was a small spot at the bar that I could wedge in at and hold a spot for him.
Matt got in a while later. This was my second time meeting him in person; we’d gotten dinner with his friends at Latitude 60 Brewery in Fairbanks the week prior. I will say that I feel like conversation at bars and breweries is normally easier when you have sports on to talk about instead of TVs playing Alaskan nature videos (very on-point with the vibe of 49th State). But it didn’t matter, because Matt’s a nice guy and I enjoyed hearing about his job and his life up in Alaska. Plus the beer was good:
And the yak burger was also excellent.
There are worse ways to spend your day than petting dogs in a national park, then reading a book along a glacial river, then eating some grilled yak. I hadn’t spent much time doing any of those three before this day, but each one gets a “would do this again” from me.
Matt had booked us a cabin through his company, just outside of the town of Healy. I’m not one to say no to a free cabin usage, although he did tell me we needed to be very careful to keep the room clean. That was simple enough to manage; all I wanted to do was get into bed, read about Muir for a while, and then get some sleep before we hiked Mount Healy the next morning. The most difficult thing about the cabin was honestly the road up to it; the cabin was among a small group up on top of a long lateral moraine at the top of the Nenana Valley, and the road up to it was winding and rock-strewn. Every time I jolted over a bump, the rental agent’s warning to me to “not go off of paved roads” ran through my head. Fortunately, we made it without incident, and the cabin was small, warm, and clean. The rest of the night passed almost exactly how I outlined it above.
Much like my whole month in Alaska, this day was equal parts go-go-go busy-ness, seat-of-the-pants improvising, and memorable fun. More than anything else, it was the people I spent the day with that made my first Denali day one to appreciate.
