Tuesday 30 July
We slept late and woke to a car coming into the Church car park so we got up and headed to Denali. On our way to Denali, we stopped to see the bus that was used in the movie “Into the Wild”. It is a movie based Chris McCandles who hiked the Stampede Trail just out of Healy, but got stranded due to the fluctuating levels of the Teklanika River and being unable to cross, the book and movie tells of his quest for survival living in the abandoned Fairbanks bus he termed “The Magic Bus” for 4 months, giving insight into his journals and photography. People are intrigued by his story and many tramp (or do tours) out to the abandoned Fair a still tramp out to the bus today, many repeating his mistakes. A couple spent two nights at the bus last week, and the rising river level made the river crossing challenging and a 24 year old woman died on Thursday returning from the bus. The bus we saw was in Healy and what was used in the movie.
We then drove to Denali and saw a moose and caribou on the way. We went to the Denali Visitors Centre and decided on the Savage Alpine Trail which was described as ‘strenuous’. We drove to the trailhead and then walked the trail which had lots of variety and was beautiful. It was 6.4kms with an elevation of 1500 ft and we did in 3 hours stopping to eat our marmite and chippie buns and nectarine (pretty regular lunch for us).
We went and stayed at Grizzly Denali Campground (Mum and Dad stayed there in 1996) where we enjoyed a hot shower! We had left over steak, potatoes and salad for dinner.
