On June 11th, I flew to Alaska for a week long get away. I flew into Anchorage and then took the Alaska Railroad up to Denali National Park. It was about a 7 hour train ride up to the park where I was registered for a 3 day field course in native alpine wildflower identification with the Murie Science and Learning center in the park. The course had only 10 students, max. We had a quick orientation at the learning center near the park entrance, and met our instructor, Verna Pratt. We then loaded up our van and backpacks with our park interpreter, Clair. We then drove about half way into the park to our campgrounds where we called "home" for the next few days. It was a great course with a lot of good places in the back country to identify the native wildflowers that were all in full bloom! It was amazing!
Everyone was super interested in the course and we also had ample opportunity to view the wildlife as well. There is no shortage of that in Denali. We saw everything from mother Grizzlies with their cubs to the state bird, willow ptarmigan.
After the course was over I caught the train for a further ride up north to Fairbanks where I spent the remainder of my time in Alaska visiting the small town. It is large for Alaska Standards but small for the rest of the states. It is about 31 thousand in population and it reminded me a lot of Grand Forks North Dakota. It was fun to explore with some other great places to view wildflowers at Creamer's field wildlife sanctuary on the north side of town. I also went to the Botanic garden at the University of Fairbanks (UAF) as well as the great new natural history/art museum that just opened up on campus. It was much better than I ever expected!
I flew back to Anchorage from Fairbanks and then caught my flight back to Los Angeles, where it was a culture shock to be back in the thick of everything after spending a week in the far north beauty and silence of nature!
