Day Ten Cheyenne to Alaska and Return

[dlennox]

Day ten was a great day for playing tourist and resting a little; only thing we used the bikes for today was for dinner. This morning we went on the Discovery III river boat tour of the Chena River. The tour of the river started at 8:30 and lasted until about 12:30. We got to see a demonstration of a bush pilot taking off and landing a piper cub right along side the boat; this was especially exciting for me since I have flown that type of plane and could almost feel what the pilot was doing throughout his maneuvers, good stuff. We then went to the mouth of the where it emptied into theTanana River, the Chena was a clear fresh water and the Tanana was a milky brown so it made for an interesting sight. The tour covered a lot of history of the Fairbanks area as well as the Athabascan Natives and their way of life for the past several hundreds of years. We got to see a fish camp where the Salmon were caught, skinned and hung up to dry or be smoked; interesting thing is the process has remain unchanged except for the use of some more modern equipment. Next it was on to see a dog sled demonstration where a team of dogs pulled an atv (no snow for a sled); again very interesting and informative. Most of the dogs that pull the sleds including the ones that are in the Iditerod Race between Anchorage and Nome are not the "Huskies" like we see in the movies but rather a mixture of "hienz 57" dogs that are slight of build and trained to run. This afternoon we spent time in the Morris Thompson Cultural Center watching movies about the Alaskan Pipeline,Gold Fields, Backcountry living,Athabascan culture, and much more. I picked up a helmet camera (Contourgps) but have not been able to get it to work right yet( I'm begining to get frustrated with all this high tech stuff); maybe tomorrow? Speaking about tomorrow we're back on the bikes heading for Denali Natl Park and more adventures.

[ARtraveler]

Thanks for posting your daily adventures. You are going to like Denali Park--it is one of those wonders of the world type of places.

[oldgoat]

Great stuff.

I think you will have to park the bikes & take a school bus to get into the park. We saw so many grizzlies in there we stopped counting.

We also took a plane ride around Mt McKinley - that was awesome as there wasn't a cloud in the sky.

Hope the skies stay clear for you.

[ARtraveler]

You can drive 15 miles or so into the park (Savage Creek). If you want the whole tour, you have to take the park approved busses to go beyond that point.