Alaska 2018

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Wednesday August 8, 2018
Anchorage

Thursday August 9, 2018
Booze train to Denali

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Friday August 10, 2018
Busride in Denali

05:52 Alaska time 06:52 California time
Dusty: You get home Kent?

07:42 Alaska time 08:42 California time
Kent: Last night at about 2am
Kent: Just got out of bed
Kent: My neighbors took good care of my house/cat
Kent: Get the kids back tomorrow and school begins
Kent: Back to having two different schools
Kent: I'm going to miss drop off/pick up at just one school for the next couple years.

07:45 Alaska time 08:45 California time
Paul: Reagan starts Kindergarten one year from now
Paul: We get two years where all 3 are at the same school, then never again!

07:55
We didn't realize until we tried to sleep how loud the room was.
It seemed like every car in Anchorage raced up and down the street next to our room all night long....
We rode the bus for the 7 minute walk down to the train station.
7 minutes for a healthy adult, or an average of 30+ minutes for the average cruise ship passanger.
That's why we took the bus.

08:37

08:38

08:39 Alaska time
Kathy's pic

08:49 Alaska time
Kathy's pic

08:49 Alaska time
Karin's pic

08:51 Alaska time 09:51 California time
Dusty: Just boarded train to Denali
Dusty: All passengers are on 2nd story with full dome top
Dusty: Full bar up front of 2nd story
Dusty: Entire first floor is dining car
Dusty: Same arrangement for each of the 6 cars on the train
Dusty: I'm impressed it appears much more decadant than even the Swiss panoramic trains that we tried in 2005
Dusty: Partly sunny today, forecast for tomorrow's bus trip into Denali park is pretty good

09:00 Alaska time 10:00 California time
Kent: Dusty- glad you weren't on that sightseeing plane crash in Alaska! So terrible to survive crash and then the elements finish the job
Kent: I can't believe I came home with some clean clothes, unworn!
Kent: I only used my rope one time to rap an especially steep slushy (because warm) snow ridge
Kent: About 50 feet
Kent: There was webbing already in place
Kent: When I pulled the rope it created a pretty big mud slide off to the side

Kent recovering his memory stick in Switzerland after his camera fell 200' and exploded on the rocks!

09:08 Alaska time 10:08 California time
Kent: The moment of discovery

Kent: Ibex was like wtf?

09:12 Alaska time 10:12 California time
Paul: Ibex: That lucky $%#$ found his memory card? Unreal
Paul: Baaa

Kent: Probably most lucky thing ever was locating my camera memory card after it exploded from the camera body in its 200+ ft fall
Kent: Somehow, my camera got pulled out of its holder while I was climbing the via Ferrara up to mischabel hut
Kent: I think strap got caught on a piece of the vf and just pulled out of its holder
Kent: 1st time in years
Kent: It was a fairly heavy camera, and it bounced down a steep gully blowing apart at each impact
Kent: The body stopped on a ledge above a lower switchback of trail
Kent: The memory card had most of my trip Picts and mountain climbing stuff
Kent: I went down and tricky steep traverse to body
Kent: No card or battery in it! I decided to look around for card for as long as I could
Kent: Amazingly after only about 10 minutes I found it about 50 feet fm the body!!! I couldn't believe my eyes! Where I found it

09:55 Alaska time 10:55 California time
Dusty: [Replying to Kent's comment about the tourist plane deaths] Yeah freezing to death and or bleeding out in zero vis on top of a cliff would suck..
Dusty: can't believe the sightseeing planes fly in that kinda weather sounds like they care more about their summer income than safety...
Dusty: I'd consider the $450 they want for a Denali flight if i knew I'd get clear skies like Ray got.
Dusty: train has left station, we spend the rest of the day looking for wildlife at an average of 35mph...

09:59 Alaska time 10:59 California time
Dusty: Got a distant glimpse of Denali shortly after leaving Anchorage

10:01 Alaska time 11:01 California time
Kent: Very cool train Dusty!

10:16 Alaska time 11:16 California time
Dusty: Apparently these cars were built for Holland America...

10:17 Alaska time 11:17 California time
Dusty: Now in 'I can see Russia from my house!' Wasilla

Each car had a bartender and a 'guide'.
Our guide sang poorly and told bad jokes, while keeping us much less informed about what we were seeing than the guides in the others cars...
They hard sold all kinds of trinkets and especially booze, the idea being to drink heavily and watch moose all day.
We saw almost no animals at all - a single bald eagle.
Apparently we saw fewer animals than almost every train...