Alaska: Denali National Park

John talks the whole time. He's not obliged to. In fact, he sought the permission from the bus passengers to share some of his observations and thoughts on the park as he shuttles us through it to Wonder Lake. I have no idea of his out-of-summer professional proclivities. Perhaps he's semi-retired. Maybe he's a teacher. Right now though, he's a bus driver, although you wouldn't know it. Naturalist adequately covers what he's doing. He talks to the geology, ecology, biology, cultural history and mountain climbing throughout the park.

Naturalist is probably the only word that could adequately cover it. His range of narration covers a breadth of topics, most of them immediately fascinating to me. He begins with the geology of the park and talks in an informed and academically correct manner. This doesn't feel like he's reading idly from a prompter or recalling some notes... he's explaining, making observations and discussing science. I want to call him a geologist, even if he's more like an amateur one from the 1800's; the types who crawled the hills in the British Isles crudely coming up with a sedimentary structure to further aid them finding coal. The type who viewed it as the eminent weekend hobby... regardless, he speaks knowingly and lovingly of his plot of land and the processes involved with it. He's at least getting a "B" for the park's geology so he's probably already more accomplished in the field than I am.

Given my tertiary education doesn't cover a lot of what follows, I have to trust that he's correct about the topics that moves on to... but he talks with a confidence and assurance that belies his comfort with the knowledge and ideas he's sharing. Plus, the earlier "B" makes it easier to accept his remarks about the different park species, their migratory patterns, eating habits and so on. Likewise for the Athabascan inhabitants. Then the history of mountaineering and climbing Denali.

Denali has one road. It's about a hundred miles long, is mostly gravel and generally one lane wide. This is obviously problematic with traffic going in both directions... and downright diabolical on the mountain passes.  No guarding. No windrow. Just a sheer drop. A long time ago - as a motorcyclist with only a small self preservation streak - I used to imagine the gruesome and bloody ways that I may meet my end if I were to make a mistake mid-bend. It was enough to stop me from twisting the throttle a little further or going in a little harder. Here, I caught myself doing a similar thing. How many times would the bus tumble before coming to a rest some three hundred metres down? How many times would I feel it? Would anyone actually survive? Is there really a point to wearing this seat belt up here?

Apparently, expressing these thoughts to the person next to me is not the right thing to do.

Moments later, John piped up with a few comments of his own about the precarious nature of the pass we were on, "there are three ways y'all can deal with it. You can look out at the horizon in the distance, you don't notice the height so much then, or you can keep your eyes in the bus."

Someone tells him that's only two things. I wish it was me.

"Or, y'can do what I do..." Dutifully, they ask him what it is that he does, seemingly because he's best placed to dealing with these sorts of things.

"... and just shut your eyes."

That nervous laughter that I have come to love travels the length of the bus. I'm grinning like an idiot.

The three days I'm there I have three different drivers. They are all more than adequate narrators, each with their own interests. No bus ride is the same, save for the ground we cover. Not that that is necessarily bad. It's spectacular country. The object of the drives is typically to find wildlife which is cool - make no mistake - but asking to stop to admire a landscape, something I am more prone to do, wins you some pretty weird looks.

Apparently foxes are less frequently sighted, being a bit skittish by nature... this guy was pretty unfussed.

... and just generally pretty cool.

Luckily, the wildlife roam around and so over the three days we stopped in a variety of places that often quite accidentally have amazing backdrops.

No animals. Apparently that makes this less interesting.

I didn't accomplish as much hiking as I'd have liked. Still being unreasonably sick - I spent most of my time in Fairbanks lying on the couch wondering what I did to deserve it - I milled around at and around the rest stops without getting too far away. On the third day though I mustered the energy and resolve for a few miles of a valley, mostly to stalk some caribou I'd seen earlier in the day. Luckily, they were still there and were reasonably happy to put up with my company for a while before they made off in a direction I wasn't too interested in heading. I followed a river for a while to meet up with the road somewhere in the mid distance and hailed a shuttle returning to the campsites.

An obliging caribou.

Taking a seat on the bus, the passenger next to me asks how my walk was, how far I'd walked and from what direction. It seemed like a pretty pointed inquisition, but whatever, sometimes that's how people prefer to go about the business of conversation. Dutifully, I answer all questions.

"So how close did you get to the bear and her cubs back up the valley?"

... what fucking bear?