Sept 9-11
This is part 2 of our adventures exploring Alaska by rail. To catch up, click here for our post about the first four days on the iconic Alaska Railroad. This segment of our journey was on the Denali Star, Alaska Railroad’s flagship train. The trip began early in the morning from the historic Anchorage Depot, heading to Denali on an 8 hour run. It may sound long, but it is one of the best slow travel experiences in Alaska.
For this segment of the trip we couldn’t get Gold Star Class seats, so we chose the last spots in Adventure Class. Although gourmet meals and drinks aren’t included like in Gold Star, the seats are comfortable, and we could access the old-style dome car where I took all of my pictures. In the end, it didn’t matter; both classes offered the same incredible views with commentary about what we were seeing along the way.
When the conductor yelled “All aboard!”, we were excited to get going.
As the city faded away, we passed smaller towns and continued on to a wilder, more remote stretch of the rail system. This is where the line moves beyond the main highway corridor into backcountry landscapes of river valleys, forests, mountain views and open northern sky:
Our train chugged through a number of small isolated Alaskan communities:
This is a roadless area with a few small communities dating back to Alaska’s homesteading days. These communities are home to Alaskans who prefer to live off the grid and can only be accessed by the Alaska Railroad. The railroad’s flagstop service allows passengers to get on or off the train at any point with the wave of a flag. The Hurricane Turn Train is an essential lifeline for these folks.
We passed by what we thought looked like a typical town center – Sherman. But it’s not a town at all. It’s a remote, off-grid wilderness homestead located at Milepost 258 along the tracks. According to the narrator this bright turquoise cabin belongs to the Lovel family, who famously moved here from Missouri to homestead in 1964.
The train made a stop at Talkeetna to load and unload passengers:
North of Talkeetna, the tracks veered away from the road system and into the Hurricane backcountry area; this region offers views of the snaking Indian River, an occasional remote cabin and the expansive views of Hurricane Gulch from the top of a 296′ bridge:
Our train crept slowly across the Hurricane Gulch Bridge in the early morning light. The conductor informed us that this was both the longest and tallest bridge on the entire railroad, a breathtaking 254′ above Hurricane Creek:
As we passed Summit Lake where high elevation and winter storms determine the ecology, we were informed that Broad Pass between the Talkeetna Mountains and the Alaska Range was also the top of the watershed. From here on, all waters would be flowing northward to join the mighty Yukon River:
And now our jaws really started to drop. The views toward the Alaska Range were simply incredible. These pictures won’t do justice. From both sides of the train, my iPhone was busy snapping pictures from behind glass windows, which thankfully were clean 🙂
Fair warning, the rest of the post is loaded with pictures (I just can’t help myself):
Somewhere just after Broad Pass we met up with the southbound Denali Star train. Here, the trains stop side-by-side on the tracks while the conductors switch trains, with ours heading to Denali and theirs back to Anchorage:
Just south of Denali National Park, Broad Pass offers majestic views of the Alaska Range in all directions. The entire Alaska range on both sides of the tracks had turned hues of red, maroon, purple, orange, and gold – giving us a kaleidoscope of colors. We were blown away!
The train passed through several types of ecological zones during the course of our journey. Changes in elevation and eventually latitude were noted by changing plant and animal groups. Slightly less obvious were plant cover variations that had been caused by fire (pyro-diversity) Click on each photo for better image.
As we got closer to the Denali Train Depot, the aspens were displaying their bright fall shimmering gold colors.
We rolled into Denali in the late afternoon after about eight hours on the train, a little tired but not complaining – the trip was incredible. We stayed at the Denali Bluffs Hotel, just a stone’s throw from the entrance to Denali National Park and Preserve, and our room looked out over a wide stretch of the area:
Denali National Park and Preserve
The following morning was our Wilderness Tundra tour inside the park, and pickup was at 05:30. The tour buses feature a certified driver/naturalist who both drives the bus and narrates during the trip. It was so early that for the first hour we saw only darkness and simply listened to the commentary from our driver. At first light we started noticing that the weather was not exactly on our side. It was showering with low-hanging clouds and a bit chilly.
Our driver told us that fall in Denali is short (mid-August to the second week of September) and that we’d hit it at its peak. We were also on the last wilderness tour bus of the season, right at the height of this magical time in the park. The only downside was that, because of a landslide at Pretty Rocks, our tour could only go up to Mile 43 instead of all the way to Mile 92 at the end of the park road – bummer (here is an interesting NPS site covering the rock slide and recovery progress). We had gone all the way to Mile 92 on our last trip in 2012 and were hoping to do it again. But we still had a great day with several cool sightings:
For the next five hours of the tour, we were confined to the bus to take pictures from behind the glass windows as we listened to her narration. The driver shared the history of Park Road and stopped at every opportunity to show us wildlife. We had plenty of time to take photos and watch them in their natural habitat. Even with my long lens, the Grizzly bear was very small on a hillside, and the Dall sheep were white dots way up on the mountains:
What is so impressive is that because of their trained eyes the guides can spot wildlife way out there – while driving the bus! The buses are now equipped with high-resulution cameras which can be super-zoomed to display on screens within the bus. This is one of the advancements we have noticed since our last visit in July 2012, when we had to rely only on our binoculars and their word for it.
Our guide pointed out how quickly autumn passes here and said that for a short time the taiga and tundra light up in gold, red, and amber. She described to us how the low-lying blueberry and bearberry bushes turn deep shades of crimson, copper, and brilliant gold, contrasting sharply against the gray rock and the new snow dusting on the peaks. I tried my best to capture the fiery mountainsides which were muted by low-lying clouds and grey skies:
While Mt. Denali was behind all those clouds, other entire mountainsides that turn hues of red, maroon, purple, orange, and gold made up for her being enshrouded. Bearberry, blueberry, dwarf dogwood, dwarf birch – all came together to create an insane portfolio of autumn color. Despite the gloomy day we had never seen colors like this. It was simply breathtaking!
Back at the hotel we had time to explore tiny downtown Denali in the rain and enjoyed some pretty good pizza. All businesses here as well as the hotels lock up and close for the season by the end of September. They even shut off the traffic lights!
The following morning we had enough time to explore the park near the visitor center before boarding the train, the depot being just a minute’s walk from the VC. We followed the Triple Lakes Trail up to the first wooden bridge and made a loop back:
When I looked closely, I saw how these little plants turn the ground into a bright patchwork of deep burgundy, orange, and fiery red. With the sun still hiding behind the clouds, the colors somehow seemed even richer, more intense and saturated:
We took a peek inside the visitor center to read the exhibits and learn more about the park’s six million acres of untamed wilderness:
Finally it was time to go, the choo-choo was here:
As you can see the clouds hung low and rain showers were dominant during parts of our visit. But the stunning landscape of Denali country gave my iPhone and camera a good work out. And yes, I did finally sit down to soak up the gorgeous dramatic scenery on the long ride back to Anchorage:
Here’s a few more vibrant pictures as the train headed back to Anchorage. People with cameras were running over each other to get shots like these:
We were resigned to the fact that we would miss seeing Mt. Denali on this visit, but on a final turn of the train, there she was right in front of us, standing majestically and cloudless for us to be awed.
If you ask us which is the best time to visit Denali National Park, we can say both summer and fall. Summer for long days, wildlife and wildflowers – while fall paints the tundra in an amazing kaleidoscope of colors.
Curious what Denali is like in summer? Revisit our July 2012 trip in Denali: Wild and Shy and It’s All About the Hiking. And for a real thrill, read about our Glacier Landing on Mt. McKinley/Denali.
Next Up: French Canada by Rail
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