Ottcrew Bucketlist Day 10, July 12, 2010
Monday, Monday…. We did not shower this morning because we were on our way to go river rafting. Our raft company was the Denali Outdoor Center (DOC) at Otto Lake. Skies were blue with some fluffy clouds and after listening to other people say it had been overcast for days, we were feeling great. Our gear for the run made us all look like we put on those Sumo wrestler suits. They are to be water tight, but I guess Becky’s had a good leak! We will have to scan our picture from our raft trip since none of wanted to risk ruining our cameras. The river was the Nenana. It runs through this part of the Park and the water level was med-low. I would say it was only class III rapids and no class IV rapids…which is what we were seeking. This was Amy’s “one thing”….The one thing she wanted to do on the trip. Shelley’s “one thing” was also accomplished. It was to laugh until she cried. Deb and Amy got out of the boat during a calm spot on the river. When they said to get them back in the boat, Harold and Shelley were trying to pull Amy back in. We got to laughing so hard, that we failed on several attempts due to the “laughing weakies”. The guide had to yell at us to “Get her in NOW!!!!” for us to get down to business before the next set of rapids. The 2 guides in our boat spend their off season in the Salt Lake area. After our 11 mile trip was completed, we were bused back to de-gear. Once we were back, we quickly drove back to our camp ground to eat some lunch and get ready for our afternoon in Denali National Park.
THE PARK EXPERIENCE
We purchased a bus shuttle pass to go 58 miles out in the Park to Tolkat. ($24/person) It is a 5 ½ hour round trip. The guys couldn’t keep their eyes open. We were told by our river guide, Buck Wheat that we would see all kinds of wild life, but we didn’t. (Please note here that I think our mother is praying that we are safe and don't have any wild animal experiences....boy are her prayers answered!)
We saw some caribou, a few doll sheep, a female and a male moose, and from a far distance, a grizzly with her 2 cubs. I believe that it has already been documented that Becky has amazing eye sight, and she saw a bear and its cubs. They looked like ants being miles away from our mountain perch. They are very visible on our magnified camera pictures. The buses we rode in were like old school buses. The roads were only paved for about 10 miles and then we were driving on graded dirt/gravel roads. When on the top of the mountain with switch backs, there was not enough room for 2 tour buses to pass each other and one had to pull over on a very narrow shoulder. Coming down was SCARY and looked like we would drive right off the mountain with each curve. We prayed for our 70 yo driver to have good health. Our goal of this trip was to get close enough to see Mt. McKinley. We are told that you can only see it 30% of the time due to cloud cover. Blue skies had been smiling on us, so we felt confident we would see the mountain that locals call Big Mac. We did not see it and Henry felt ripped off. The park is SOOOO huge (9,300 square miles) that there were only a couple of vantage points on our drive that we would have been able to see it. We would have had to go on the 8 hour trip out to Wonder Lake to have a good chance to see it. Tim would have needed medication if we would have gone that far. We ate at Prospector Pizza. It has wood fired stoves and our pizza came out burnt. Since we don't participate in the 58 types of beer you serve, we couldn't soak it down and think it tasted good.
Sorry Prospector Pizza, you do not rate a 2 ** on our food list. We were disappointed and you did not give us any comp us any off our bill. You are lame. PS, I don't know what I clicked to make it underlined...sorry... I need computer expert Beck.
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