Alaska Day Three: Fall and Scenic Drives

The day started off at 4:30 when Frances woke up later than planned to look for the Northern Lights.  Turns out she set her alarm for 12:30 p.m. instead of a.m.  She did not see them.  She did get to see the sky starting to get light.  After logging our names in the Aspen Haus guest book, we headed back to Denali National Park.

We parked at the Science Center and headed out the Horseshoe Lake Trail.  On the trail, we saw what we decided are moose tracks.  We also noticed lots of trees starting to turn yellow, and we both agreed they seemed even more yellow than the day before.  At one point the trail crossed the Alaska Railroad tracks so we paused for a photo op.  The sky was overcast but did not rain on us during the hike.

Near the beginning of the trail was an overlook with a view of the lake, and the Subway and other shops outside the park.  From there, it is a steep walk down to the lake itself.  There was a sign that beavers live here and we saw their dam, but none made an appearance.  Other than rabbits, we did not see any wildlife.  Unfortunately the return trip was back up the hill we came down. Again we felt like we were in the Twilight Zone because there were no people or animals, just stumps that look like bears.

After our hike, we headed out of the park to do some souvenir shopping and partake of free fudge samples.  We stopped at the Mt. McKinley Chalet Resort to check it out and partake of their restrooms before heading out on the return drive to Anchorage.  About 15 miles outside the park, we met up with the intermittent rain which followed us most of the way.  We visited the same Subway near Talkeetna where we ate lunch the day before.

We stopped at the South Viewing Point overlook and checked for Mt. McKinley.  Of course we did not see it.  For those counting, this is the third time we did not see it.  You can see in the center of the photo where they claim it should be.  We got back in the car, convinced it was just a ruse to get tourists to drive out looking for it.

A little north of Wasilla, we encountered one lane traffic and were halted for about 20 minutes, of which Frances slept the first 19.  She woke up just as we were moving again.  There were more than 100 cars waiting for their turn to drive on the road.  Traffic continued to be heavy until we were through Wasilla. 

After Wasilla, we noticed all the mountains that we weren't able to see the day before because of rain and clouds.  Back in Anchorage, we stopped at the race expo to pick up our packets for Sunday.  We took a quick look around the expo but it was not very interesting.

At this point it was about 4:00 and we figured we needed another activity before we made a repeat visit to the Qupqugiag Inn, so opted for a scenic drive along the Seward Highway.  We stopped at Walmart and picked up snacks for the remainder of the trip, something we should have done the day before.  There was rush hour traffic as we were trying to get out of Anchorage but not too bad once we left the city limits.

Our first stop was Potter Marsh, offering views of birds from the boardwalk.  It was a little scenic but not being too interested in birds, we headed on to the south.  One thing of note - Potter Marsh is located directly across from the Rabbit Creek Rifle Range, so while you are chilling on the boardwalk checking out birds, rifle fire makes up the background noise.

We drove as far as Beluga Point, taking advantage of many photo ops.  We stopped at McHugh Creek and went for a walk along the Turnagain Arm trail towards Potter, hoping for some scenic vistas.  We followed signs to Boy Scout Rocks, which proved not to be very scenic.  We did find one spot where we could see out and used the camera self-timer to get a photo of ourselves.  No wildlife here, except a trail runner who came racing out of the brush ahead of us and scared us half to death.  On our return trip, he was coming back at us, startling us again. 

Here the sun was stuck in the sky again at the same spot we noticed it on Thursday night.  It looks like if you hang out for 30 minutes, you should get to see an impressive sunset, but it never moves.

We checked into the Qupqugiaq Inn for the second time, this time with a room on the noisy front side.  After checking in, we headed to downtown in search of food.  We ended up at Rumrunners for a quick dinner and were back at the hotel at 9:00 p.m., still sunny, and made it a little longer before going to bed.  Frances made sure to set her alarm correctly this time.