2 On the Road: Train to Denali

All aboard the Alaska Railroad Vista Dome car.

As we headed out of Anchorage, we were handed menus to look at. I suppose this cut down on the time people took to decide what to eat once they got to the dining area in the lower part of the car.

There was a brochure about the train in the seat pocket.

At least there was leg room for my tall guy. Good thing as we were on the train for about 10 hours.

As we left Anchorage, we passed by Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. They were joined in 2010. When I lived in Alaska, they were separate. Elmendorf Air Force Base and Fort Richardson Army Base.

Once we cleared the nearby trees, we caught our first glimpse of Denali, over 100 miles away.

Our view changed as the day went on as we first saw it from the south, then the east and finally from the north.

In this photo, from left to right, are Mt Foraker (17,400), Mt Hunter (14,573), and Mt Denali (20,308). Mt Denali is the highest mountain in North America. Mt Hunter is still higher than the tallest mountain in the lower 48, which is Mt Whitney in California. Interesting fact, the highest and lowest elevations in the lower 48 are only 84.6 miles apart - Mt Whitney and Death Valley.

It's said that only 30% of the travelers to Alaska get to see Mt Denali because it is usually covered in clouds. Even rarer are the views of it without clouds. We did that so that make us part of the 10% of people that see it without clouds. You know it is rare when even the staff on the train are taking photos.

We heard stories about homesteaders as we traveled. As you can see they have a shelter by the train tracks so they can flag down a train when they need supplies or help. Receiving free land from the federal government to have a homestead actually ended in 1986. In 2012, the State of Alaska made some state land available for private ownership through two types of programs: sealed-bid auctions and remote recreation cabin sites.

I didn't quite get a photo of it, but one guy lives in a shipping container.

But it seems he has a lady friend that wants a little more comfort, so he's building a cabin for her.

We're in the sixth and last car of this train.

Whoa!! A paved road. Yep it's the Parks Highway that goes from Anchorage to Fairbanks. More info on that in a later post.

The Hurricane Gulch Bridge is a 918-foot long steel arch railroad bridge that crosses Hurricane Gulch. It is located at milepost 284.2. At 296 feet (90 m) above the Hurricane creek, it is both the longest and tallest bridge on the entire Alaska Railroad. This is the closest I could get to getting a photo of the bridge with the train crossing over it