Had a terrible nights sleep waking up every hour or so - must be jet lag.
Set off at 8.00am Northbound, again, for Denali National Park, our next stop over. But first a bit of sightseeing.
The countryside was nice, being as it was in snow as we followed what may have been some of the Iditerod route. The Iditerod is a dog sled race from Anchorage, the "ceremonial starting point" - Wasilla,about 20 miles away, is the real start, to Nome 1000 miles or so away. Iditerod is about mid-way.
The first stop was at about 9.30 at a very unglamorous service station at Talkeetna Junction where we had time to get a coffee and stock up with Hershey Bars which is chocolate that tastes like vomit - but that is only my (and Vals) opinion - before moving swiftly on.
The next couple of stops were soon after entering Denali National Park. Both gave fantastic views of Mount McKinley, with its peak receiving a light dusting of snow. Mt McKinley is America's highest mountain at 20,320ft above sea level and is a sight not often available. To quote one guide: "Mt. McKinley is a flirt hiding in the clouds - count yourself lucky to get a clear day because they are rare and precious".
The whole of the Alaskan Range of mountains were set against a clear blue sky. Best view and panoramas were at 2000ft up close to Broad Pass where all around us were snow capped mountains all against the fantastically clear blue skies. Air temperature was pretty cold - about 5 or 10 below freezing, but you didn't feel it with the sun blasting down. Little or no wind chill.
The late lunch stop at Cantwell provided a transport cafe type meal at a sensible price and every request to the waitress was greeted with "No Problem" - I hate this expression, it's grossly overused by the people who use it as so often they don't do what they describe as "no problem".
We weren't too far away from the destination for today - The North Star Inn at Healy which, on arrival, you could be excused for thinking it was a series of stacked containers with windows put in though portakabins would be nearer the mark. I have to say, though, the interior was a lot better than I expected being reasonably furnished. The "hotel" had "Youth Hostel" about it - we had to buy meal tickets in advance and you will hear shortly about the hotel restaurant.
To familiarise ourselves with the area and walk off lunch we dumped the stuff in the room and went out for a walk down the road. The scenery is what I fear the rest of the week will be like and that is snow and fir trees. The only variation in scenery will be the relative density of the fir trees.
The room had excellent lighting - nice and bright, and there was no difficulty in working the room heating "system" - a convector heater with a dial to indicate temperature. Why can't they all be that easy?
We went to dinner in the refectory, sorry restaurant, at about 7.15. It was described as a buffet, but it was cafeteria style service very like Littlewoods or BHS but not as classy.
Dining was taking place at a leisurely pace when, at about 8.15, John Mason burst in to announce that a feint auroral arc was forming. Well, the room wouldn't have emptied any quicker if he'd have shouted "Fire". Everyone dashed off, carrying "doggy-bags" and cups of coffee to get changed into cold weather gear and go outside. After all, this is what we've all paid enormous sums to come and see!
Sure enough there was a feint band of green light glowing in the sky and stretching from the Northeast horizon to the Northwest horizon via North at about 30 to 40 degrees elevation.
Over the next couple of hours this developed very slowly into long streams and sheets of light resembling curtains hanging in the sky. The brightness varied enormously fading in and out as new shapes developed and spread across the sky.
As all this happens we make our first attempts at photography taking prints and slides on a variety of lenses (55mm, 35mm, and 18mm) just in case we don't see anything else during the coming nights.
At one moment there were three distinct auroral arcs formed with varying degrees of additional displays of "curtains" of green and, we are told, red. [Note: We didn't see the red until we got the photos back from the printers]
My thermometer, hanging from my pocket, read minus 3C - quite a warm night by all accounts.
As time wore on, the feet got colder so decided to go in to get a warm and a hot drink at about 10.45pm and then opted for a relatively early night, too, as we were still trying to recover from the travelling of the last few days.
It was lucky that the room faced North because in the middle of the night, well quite near the end of it really, at 5.00am, we could see a pulsating auroral display through the window.
It turned out to be quite a satisfactory night of viewing.
Goto Day 4: Denali to Chena Hot Springs Resort
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