Alaska Weather It Ain’t What Brochures Tell Ya.

Alaska has cold winters, we know about that but when we packed our Canadian winter clothing we were not expecting to unpack them in Alaska in summer!!, but let me tell you a little secret it can be cold in Alaska in summer. All things are relative so Alaskans think it is warm but that is because they are comparing it to their freezing snowy winters. Oh yea and the travel brochures also forgot to mention the rain. In fact a favourite selling T shirt in Alaska describes the weather as “really shitty, unbelievable shitty, intermittently shitty, increasingly shitty, always shitty”  It says it all.

Alaska Weather Report

We arrived in Denali the national park that has the highest peak in North America Mt McKinley or Mt Denali as the locals call it. One can either hike into the park or take a bus tour to see the wild life and Mt McKinley. No private vehicles are allowed further than 15 miles into the park. It was raining and cloudy and the thought of sitting in a bus for several hours with 48 other people all watching for wild life seemed to as appealing as Walmart camping, it just isn’t us. The chances of actually seeing Mt McKinley from the bus is about 20% due to the inclement weather the mountain causes. One driver of the bus informed his passengers that he had done 84 trips this summer and had only seen the entire mountain once.

Mt McKinley Is Out There Somewhere we are told