Denali Park and Highway

After much appreciated R&R, i.e. hot tub and more good food and wine, it has been onto Denali National Park a vast and imposing bit of wilderness straddling the Alaska Mountain Range, home of Mt. McKinley (largest rock in North America) and much brown bear. Camping next to Marge and Michael from Missouri (and Chucky the poodle) in their RV the size of any self-respecting bus we felt a tad self-righteous about our carbon footprint and our authentic wilderness experience as we froze away our nights in never abdicating rain. But we filled our days with trips into the wilds after the obligatory school bus trips into the park. One of us got to experience of Alaskan scree slope running for the first time, and after landing at the bottom, the other wasn’t too sure if he was being castigated or lauded for his remarkable (“weird”) sense of fun. All of activity in this beautiful autumnal land was accompanied by snow and sleet to the point of looking about of looking about for my rugby shorts and slops as yet another squall signalled the North’s intentions to wrap us in it’s icy embrace. But the colours. Great swathes to the horizon of all shades of ochre, red and yellow. And all about us again, space and sky of all shades. Mountains with glaciers snaking down to their shrouded feet in far off valleys- who goes there? Who is witness to this land- I catch myself asking a similar question when I look out at a clear night sky- all that lonely space- unnerving, exhilarating. These cavernous valleys riven by thousands years of glaciers and many ages of stone, and then we pass by in our car- a brief flicker of two souls travelling by in a car filled with good vibrations.