alaska v1.1 – anchorage and the trip north

after two short days in anchorage just hanging out and waiting for time to pass, we met up with ren at our hostel and packed up for our trip.  once he was there we had all of our gear, clothes, and food for the trip, so now it was time to pack.  we did our fair share of packing and repacking back home just to be sure it would work out when we were ready to go, so this went fairly smoothly.  when that was ready we packed all the things that were staying in a suitcase and got a few hours of sleep before we had to get up and to the bus stop in morning.

joe, our host at the hostel, said he would drive us to the bus stop in the morning which was very nice of him.  we packed all our stuff in his truck and just as our luck would have it, his truck wouldn’t start.  so we quickly call a cab, which got us there in no time.  it dropped us off at a bus stop where shuttles of all sorts line-up to bring people to and from denali.  our shuttle company was alaska yukon trails.  this portion of our trip could very well have been the most frightening time during our stay in alaska.  we through our gear in their trailer and hop in the 15-passenger van.  knowing that the trip to denali was around 4-5 hour drive, we hunker down for the long-haul.  our driver jumps in and tells us that he is a fill-in for the normal guy and that we should bear with him.  ok, how bad could it be.  we proceed to drive through the streets of anchorage for the next hour-and-a-half looking for certain people at certain hostels and hotels.  now the 4-5 hour trip is looking more like a 5-6 hour trip.  ok, fine.  just get us there.  well, about two hours into our trip it starts raining and the conditions driving on a mountain highway get kind of tense.  to add to the tension in the vehicle, deeann, ren and i watch in the rear-view mirror as our driver doses in and out of sleep.  clutching our seats and hoping for the best we almost make it to denali.  we reach the park entrance at the same time as the driver receives a phone call.  he argues for a short minute and proceeds to turn the van around and starts heading in the direction we came from.  he says we have to pick up one more person!  we were 5 minutes from finally being there and the man turns the van around.  thankfully he only drives about 15-20 minutes back on the road and picks someone up.

as soon as we can get out of this van, the three of us jump out, grab our gear and get as far away from this loony as possible.

more stories to come. check out pictures here.