If A Tree Falls In The Woods -- Or The Mountain Comes Out In Winter -- And Nobody Is There, What Then?

Denali is still there in the middle of the winter.
This is Mary Carey's McKinley View Lodge, which is not open until summer. 
Does a tree make a noise if it falls in the woods and nobody is there to hear it? Does Alaska have life and courage in the winter if nobody has come to see it during that time -- except for us? 

It was a warm January on the Parks this year. We drove up the highway, and hit the Canyon just outside Denali Park in the dark, as the wind was blowing hard. The hotels, boardwalk and other buildings that will be teeming with over 400,000 travelers this upcoming summer were boarded shut. There were two small lights, on porches of two of the shuttered Princess hotels.

In the wintertime, the distances between businesses are exceptionally vast. After you leave Trapper Creek, you have to travel all the way to Cantwell, before coming in to the two gas stations there, and the cluster of small buildings at the juncture with the Denali Highway. 

When you blow right through Denali Park, on your way to Healy,  the gas station, grocery store, hotels, ice cream shop, Subway store are all tightly shut and boarded over.

In the middle of winter, the underpinnings of our world here in Alaska are more obvious. The distances, and businesses that are staying open all winter... the schools, waitresses, and gas stations, all offer a sense of community. 

This winter was exceptionally warm, for January. Fairbanks was an ice rink, as temperatures rose. The Alcan between Delta Junction and Tok was too hazardous to drive. Schools closed in the Copper Valley -- not because it was too cold, but because it was hazardously warm. Thompson Pass shut down, and rocks thundered down onto the Glenn. 

This is the reality of Alaska, 9 months of the year. Tourism is important, but it becomes very obvious in the wintertime that ultimately, this is where we live, and it's an exceptionally challenging and incredible place. And that, yes, even if nobody is there to see it but the truckers, Denali and the Alaska Range are in full view -- bigger and more exciting than ever.