Fairbanks Adventure - Day 1

I am the proud auntie of twin nephews. This year they turned 8 - it's hard to imagine that they are already this old, the day they were born seems like yesterday. This year for their birthday I decided that I didn't want to give them more "stuff". I have been thinking a lot about my sweet Aunt Frances, who passed away in February. When my sis and I were kids she was always really good about taking us places and doing things with us. Following in the precedent of Frances I decided that this year for their birthday we would go on an adventure!


Their birthday is in April, so they had to wait until Memorial Weekend to get their adventure gift. First, we headed down to the Train Depot to board the Alaska Railroad. Our destination: Denali National Park and then Fairbanks, Alaska. But, they boys were not so much about the destination at this point, they were about the journey - they were really excited to go on their first train ride!
Here we are, the Four Fearless Adventurers! In the back: myself and my sister Laura. In the front: Alastar and Kieran.
We rode in the Gold Star Car, which is the domed rail car. It afforded us some amazing views along the way, like this view of the Susitna River with Mt. McKinley in the background.The train journey from Anchorage to Denali is 8 hours. I was a little worried that it was going to be too long a time on the train and that the guys would get bored. That proved to not be the case at all. The train did have one stop where we could get out and stretch our legs for a couple of minutes, in Terrific Talkeetna! Talkeetna is the staging ground for all climbers of Mt. McKinley. It is also where most Mt. McKinley flight seeing trips depart from. It is close to the southern border of the park and closer to the mountain itself than the park entrance. You may recall I talked about Talkeetna when I went on a flight seeing trip a couple of years ago.
The train traveled over Hurricane Gulch. This is the deepest ravine that the train travels over and building the bridge for the train was quite the undertaking. The boys were excited to go over the gulch. Alastar kept saying, "it's like a big bowl, we're going into the big bowl!" Pretty cute!
I'm not exactly sure how many cars there were on our train. Somewhere between 8 and 16. We had access to the first four cars, those operated by the Alaska Railroad. There were also cars that were operated by the major tourist companies like Princess, Greyline, and others.
Kieran and Alastar really, really liked the train!
When we got to Denali we spent the night here. We were at the Denali Alaska Salmon Bake. It is the only operation outside Denali that is still owned by Alaskans and not by one of the big tourist outfitters. At the Salmon Bake they have cabins for rent. Some are more like tents and share restroom facilities. Others, like this one, are true structures with a private bath. It was a cozy space, two double beds, but it was only for one night and it did what we needed just fine!