Denali and the Dry Cabin

Denali is about 2.5 hours away from Fairbanks. We ate waffles from the hotel breakfast and packed up all of our stuff because we were moving to a cabin that night. Somehow we managed to really make a mess in that hotel room. Packing our things turned out to be harder than we thought. But we made it happen and started our road trip.
The trip there is beautiful.
We were told that our last chance to eat or get gas before getting into the park was in a small town called Healey. There were literally 2 restaurants and 2 gas stations. I mean, if you didn't know it was a town, you never would've known. We chose a little cafe that was pretty good and then headed to the park. What we weren't expecting was the ghost town that is right before getting to the park entrance. There is an entire town that is boarded up during the winter. Cute stores, hotels, and swanky restaurants all closed and locked until the summer. And so we just kept driving.

Entrance to the park.

Denali still isn't completely open yet. You can only drive about 12 miles in. There is one visitors center open and we stopped there, asked some questions and spent some money. Then moved on to our real goal, seeing Mt. McKinley, originally called Denali. We drove to the end of the road and decided to walk the Mountain Vista Trail.

These were taken on the road inside the park.

"The mountains are calling and I must go." -John Muir

This is a terrible picture but the mountain top seen in the center of the photo is Denali. My phone could not do it justice, but it is huge. It's still 80 miles away, standing at 20,322 ft (Mt. Rainier stands at 14,409 ft. so you can imagine how overwhelming this mountain is). 

I know these pictures seem repetitive but standing there, on that trail with the mountains surrounding, was breathtaking. It was cold, there was a strong wind and I found myself kind of wishing to be back at the car. Stupid. I had to make myself stop and look. Really look. I found myself walking and being so thankful for creation and the opportunity to travel and see this beauty. 

We were so anxious to see wildlife here in Alaska. We felt sure that we would and found ourselves just searching fields and woods for something all day. While in the park we happened upon a ranger and stopped her to ask about seeing animals. She told us it was napping time but if we waited until around 7pm, we would see a herd of Caribou that lays in the sun in one of the fields near the entrance. It was like 3pm at that point and we just couldn't wait that long. So, our one place we thought we were sure to see a moose or a bear also turned out to be a total bust. 

When we left Denali we drove the 2.5 hours back, listening to the same top 40 pop songs that we heard on the way. We went straight to our new cabin and got settled. 

This place is darling. Like I said already, it is a dry cabin. Lucky for us, Jutta and Rainer (owners of the cabin) have installed a water tank under the sink that allows water to come into the cabin through the faucet. The tank has to be refilled everyday, though. 

Isn't it darling! 

That's me on the porch writing in the guestbook.

The downstairs area. 

A small kitchen, living room, and dining room. Thankfully there was wifi so Lonnie was able to talk to the outside world.

Upstairs loft. 

Lonnie's first words after going up and touching the beds were "...and the beds are hard as rocks." And they did seem that way. On our first night we crawled into these beds around 5:30am. I was freezing after being in the car watching the lights for so long, so I wore pants, a sweatshirt, wool socks and added 2 extra blankets to the bed. Also, as an extra precaution to keep the cold away, I continued to hold onto the hothands I had while in the car. At some point I woke up burning. Literally. 

A hothand was trapped between my back and the bed and I was on fire. But even after throwing the hothands out, my butt was so hot. Jutta later told us that the beds are made from some type of foam that's supposed to be super special. Who knows. But they were amazing. 

It was a cozy welcome place after being out so late in the cold. 

And of course, the thing most interesting thing about this cabin...the outhouse. 

There it is, just steps outside of the house. The door to the bathroom is on the left and the shower on the right. The thing about the shower, though, it's frozen in the winter. So, yeah, no shower. The outhouse was clean and nice. You do your business in a bag with a toilet seat over it. Once your business is done, you put 2 scoops of compost in over the business. It's supposed to stop any smells. Unbelievably (and thankfully!), Jutta and Rainer come and change that bag everyday... It makes sense to change it so often before it gets really gross or full, but still. 

Just think though, it's midnight and you have to pee... or you wake up at 3am and have to pee... or you wake up on the morning and the cabin is so cozy but you have to pee... and to do that, you have to put your shoes on and go outside. Go outside in temperatures that could be -40 degrees (though, it was only as low as like 30 at night while we were there). Think about how cold that seat is... bad. 

Taken from window of the cozy cabin. Nope.

But it made us feel so Alaskan. 

Overall, the cabin was great. Still no moose that day but we napped and prepared to go on our first northern lights hunting trip.