This morning after having waffles for breakfast, we decided to get our lawn chairs out and sit outside to enjoy the view. Since the skies were a little less cloudy than yesterday, we hoped we would get to see Denali. So as we sat in our lawn chairs, we began the waiting game. Anyway, the temperature was around 51 degrees and it was sunny so that in itself was promising!
As we watched, and other visitors came and went, nothing much seemed to change.
After sitting and waiting patiently for almost 4-1/2 hours, Mel and I decided to move on. So we packed up and got ready to continue on our journey. We still had one more day to spend somewhere before we could go into Denali National Park on our reservation, which started on Saturday, July 1, 2023.
We ate lunch and then were on our way at 12:20 p.m. We traveled along the Denali Parks Highway (Alaska Hwy 3 North).
And soon we were in Denali Borough, a borough located in Alaska with a population of 1,619. The borough seat and most populated community is Healy.
The Parks Highway was rather curvy, with gorgeous mountain views along the drive.
We went across Pass Creek. Pass Creek originates at Summit Lake in Chulitna Pass and flows westward to join the Chulitna River, located 42 miles northeast of Talkeetna in the Talkeetna Mountains.
Just past Cantwell, we drove on the Hurricane Gulch Bridge. It is a steel arch bridge that spans the Hurricane Gulch, which is a deep gorge that runs through the Alaska Range. The bridge was completed in 1971 and is 918 feet long and 296 feet high. It is the longest and tallest bridge in Alaska and is considered an engineering marvel. The bridge was built to replace an older bridge that was unable to handle the increasing traffic on the George Parks Highway. The construction of the Hurricane Gulch Bridge was a challenging task due to the remote location and harsh weather conditions.
Next we drove by Igloo City (see pictures above), which is in almost ruins. It was supposed to be a giant igloo-shaped hotel, that was an architectural dream that was never realized or completed. The three-story wood frame building is covered with a foam-coated dome. It has been abandoned and graffiti has been drawn all over it. Interesting indeed and rather frightening at the same time!
We passed by the Jack River. Near Cantwell, the Jack River provides access into the hills to the east of the Alaska Range.
We also had magnificent views of rivers and lakes along the way.
We drove passed Carlo Creek, which flows northwest to the Nenana River, 20 miles south of Healy.
Then we passed by Crabbie's Crossing at milepost 231. This area has two major resorts and is a popular starting point for rafters and hikers alike. The area surrounding Crabbie's Crossing including the Nenana River, the Triple Lakes trail, and the Yanert Fork are the traditional homelands of the Ahtna and Lower Tanana peoples.
The land immediately south of the Yanert Crossing was first homesteaded by Forest Hills, Inc. in 1957 and then by Gary Crabb in 1959. In 1967, Gary and his wife Linda opened Toklat Village to accommodate the growing number of visitors entering the park via motor vehicle as well as providing a place to stay for guests still arriving on train. The Crabb's changed the name of their property from Toklat Village to Mount McKinley Village shortly after. For the first couple of seasons there was only a campground, a restaurant and a Chevron gas station. By 1969, the Crabb's had added mobile motel units for guests to stay in.
The number of visitors to the area increased a few years later when the Parks Highway was completed in 1971. With this increase of visitors, Mount McKinley Village upgraded its operation to include a full-service hotel, a coffee shop, a cocktail lounge, a gift shop and even a conference space. The Crabb family operated Mount McKinley Village for two decades and it was in this time that the Yanert Crossing became known as Crabbie's Crossing. In 1989, there was a formal dedication making Crabbie's Crossing the official name of the bridge. Linda Crabb sold Mount McKinley Village in 1987 to Aramark, a major service provider in the Denali area, who continue to operate the hotel now named Denali Park Village.
We kept on driving as we're in pursuit of a pull out big enough to dry camp for the night that is far enough off the road too.
We then went by the Nenana River.
And then drove through the canyon. Basically, when you drive north from the Denali National Park entrance, you will come upon a beautiful canyon on the Parks Highway. On either side of the road, there are mountains! It is just beautiful!
And the only bad thing about this beautiful mountain canyon road was that we had to follow a garbage truck around all the curves -- all the way through the canyon.
We continued following the dump truck on the highway past Iceworm Gulch (which is a valley in the Denali Borough with an elevation of 1,650 feet above sea level) and Hornet Creek (a gentle stream near Healy).
We passed Fox Creek, which is another stream located just a little over 5 miles from Healy in the Denali Borough.
And then by Dragonfly Creek, which was another stream not too far from Healy.
We then passed the Nenana River again, and then drove by Bison Gulch (which is a valley located in Healy, Alaska).
We then passed by Antler Creek (another stream near Healy).
And then we arrived in Healy, Alaska. Healy has a population of 1,027 and an elevation of 1,294 feet. It is a supply town to Denali. Originally established as a coal mining town in the early 1900s, and many of Healy's residents still earn their living from the nearby Usibelli Coal Mine.
To the north of Healy on the highway's western side is the historic Stampede Trail, originally built in the 1930s as a route to the Stampede Mine. The Stampede Mine was once Alaska's prime producer of antimony. The mine ceased operations in 1970, and since 1980 its abandoned mill and other buildings have been located within Denali National Park and the Preserve's expanded borders. Healy is still the location of Alaska's largest open-pit coal mine.
When we first got to Healy, we stopped and got gas at the Three Bears Alaska gas station. While we were there we also got groceries.
After that, Mel wanted to go to 49th State Brewing, which I eagerly agreed to because I wanted to see the historically-based replica of "Magic Bus 142," that was used in the movie, "Into the Wild."
So in the 49th State Brewery's beer garden sits the old rusty green-and-white "Magic Bus." The iconic Alaskan bus had many other names attached to it including, "Bus 142," "The Stampede Trail Bus," and "The Into the Wild Bus." The bus had exerted a dangerous and almost magical power over hikers for nearly a quarter century - especially since the book, "Into the Wild" had immortalized Christopher McCandless's solitary odyssey and lonely death in the Alaskan outback.
Abandoned on the Stampede Trail near Denali National Park, the bus had become a pilgrimage site, revered by travelers around the world. The bus, a 1946 International Harvester K-5, was originally used by the city of Fairbanks to transport commuters. Around 1960, it was hauled into the wilderness by the Yutan Construction Company to house employees during the construction of a pioneer access road. It was abandoned in 1961 when the road was completed.
So how did Christopher McCandless come to use the abandoned bus? The story about the "Magic Bus" goes like this . . .
In 1996, Christopher McCandless "aka Alexander Supertramp" became a cult hero when his true life story was immortalized in print by Jon Krakauer in his bestselling book, "Into the Wild." In 2007, he became more famous when the book was adapted to film by Sean Penn.
Christopher abandoned a life of relative privilege after graduating from college in 1992 to seek out existential meaning in the wilderness of Alaska. He ditched his possessions and donated $24,000 in savings to a charity and disappeared north into the Alaska wilderness, cutting off his family and friends, carrying only a little equipment and gear with the sole intention of living off the land.
He wanted a simple life, a life with meaning, and somewhere along his four-month journey -- he was struggling, starving and desperate for shelter. He stumbled upon an abandoned school bus near Denali National Park, where he could seek protection from the harsh environment while waiting for help.
(A self-portrait of Chris McCandless on the Stampede Trail, found undeveloped in his camera after his death.)
After months spent living in the bus, Christopher decided to return to civilization. Yet, when he reached the Teklanika River, which had been calm and manageable when he had first crossed it, he found that the water had risen significantly and had changed the river into a dangerous current. Fearing the river to be not crossable, he returned to the bus where he soon fell ill. This lead to his starvation and ultimately his death in 1992, four months after his journey had begun in August 1992.
However, before Christopher had died from starvation, he had survived for more than 110 days on nothing but a 10-pound sack of rice and what he could hunt and forage for in an unforgiving taiga (a swampy boreal forest).
He left behind a few meager provisions, including a .22-caliber rifle, a diary, and 113 cryptic notes on the back pages of a book that identified edible plants.
While his diary entries and photographs would later show that finding the shelter was a huge morale boost at the time that he discovered it, it would prove short-lived. His body was found 19 days later by five individuals - a couple from Anchorage and three moose hunters riding ATVs through the area. The hunters called the Alaska State Troopers to remove the body and McCandless's remains were later cremated and his ashes were given to his family. A heartbreaking story indeed!
(Memorial placed on the steps of the bus by Christopher's parents.)
Through Christopher's own documentation in his diary and in the photos found in 15 rolls of undeveloped film, he detailed his final days living in bus 142 -- relics that were found alongside him off of the Stampede Trail near Lake Wentitika in the Denali wilderness.
The drawing below shows how Christopher had the bus set up to live in while in the Alaska wilderness.
However dramatic and compelling Christopher's story may have been -- the magic bus is just as famous! As word began to travel outside of Alaska of Bus 142's exact geographical location, people from all over the world started making pilgrimage to see the bus and honor the adventuresome folk hero, Christopher McCandless.
There have been two reported deaths related to hiking to the bus. The first occurred in 2010, and the second in 2019. Both victims drowned in the raging Teklanika River while attempting to cross it. In 2010, a 29-year-old Swiss woman, Claire Ackermann was backpacking the Stampede Trail with her boyfriend in search of the bus and drowned. Another woman, 24-year-old Veramika Maikamava, a newlywed hiking with her husband, Piotr Markielau were trying to cross the Teklanika River along the Stampede Trail near Healy. Like Claire in 2010, Veramika was swept underwater and drowned in 2019.
The Teklanika River was the same river that had stopped Christopher McCandless from leaving the bus many years ago. It was then that residents of the area decided that something needed to be done once and for all to deter people from heading into an unknown, unpredictable, and often dangerous wilderness to visit the bus.
That is when the 49th State Brewing Company (whose owner acquired the bus that was used in the film) had it dropped into the beer garden outside of the brewery. Now anyone can safely experience the "Magic Bus" after a day in the wilderness, without having to risk their lives to see it -- and as Mel would attest, hoist a "craft beer" in their memory.
So how did the bus get moved? On June 18, 2020, the Alaskan National Guard initiated "Operation Yutan," which was a secretive mission to safely remove the bus by airlifting it from its spot and placing it in an undisclosed location. The original location of where the bus was moved is still unknown.
(An Alaska Army National Guard helicopter prepares to hoist the bus from where it had been abandoned in the 1960s.)
Before its removal, the bus was in central, remote Alaska along the Stampede Trail (63°52′5.96″N 149°46′8.39″W). The trail began as a paved road, but the section leading to the bus was an overgrown patch that lied to the north of the Denali National Park and Preserve. In the bus's original location, it was 25 miles outside of the nearest town of Healy, Alaska. The rusted bus sat on a small cliff overlooking the Sushana River with pink flowers called Fireweed growing alongside its wheels.
Operation Yukon, took the bus up, up and away!
However, the 49th State Brewery in Healy acquired the green "Magic Bus" replica that was used in the film, "Into the Wild," and placed it in the beer garden outside of the brewery. And that is where tourists from all over come to see it.
Mel enjoys a flight of craft beer at 49th State Brewery in Healy, Alaska. He also had a growler filled here. I however enjoyed a root beer float (see below)!
After we finished at the 49th State Brewery, we drove back to the pull out that we had found just outside of Healy and set up camp for the night. We boondocked there and it was free camping -- and free is good.
That night, we had pork chops and zucchini for dinner.
Story time is over for now, so we will bid you "Good Night!"
Shirley & Mel
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