Another beautiful day in this vast wilderness. A few more clouds and a bit warmer – in the low to mid 60’s. Before heading into the park we stopped at the Alaskan Coffee Bean for some coffee and breakfast. We took it to go and found the perfect spot to enjoy it.
In Denali they don’t have that many hiking trails that are marked on the map. Instead you can just head out… into the wilderness. If you want to camp you need a permit – just like the boundary waters. A campsite doesn’t come with your permit. Rather you are given 10,000 acres in a specific section of the park – that’s your campsite. There will be no running water, no toilets and you can’t have a fire. But there’s 10,000 acres that’s all yours. You won’t run into anybody else accept those in your party. It’s a really bad idea to go camping alone! You’ll take a shuttle bus into the park and they’ll drop you off close to your 10,000 acres. Good Luck – you better know what you’re doing out there!
Our plan for the day was to do a little hiking in the park. We definitely don’t know what we’re doing in the Alaskan wilderness so we stuck to the marked trails!
We hiked Horseshoe Lake first thing in the morning. It was beautiful. There is a very active beaver population around the lake and you could see beaver activity everywhere – lots of downed trees. Most impressive was the massive dam – unlike anything we’ve seen in Minnesota. It dammed the lake at least 6-7 feet. Apparently if you hike in the evening you’re likely to see the beavers at work. It looked like a mosquito haven so we were glad to hike it when they weren’t out yet. We’ve seen a few and they are HUGE – as big as dragonfly’s!
Our bus driver yesterday told us about all the work the sled dogs do in the winter maintaining the park so I really wanted to go see the kennels. Unfortunately the ranger activities at the kennels are suspended for the summer due to COVID but we were able to walk through the outdoor kennels, pet the dogs, if they were interested, and ask questions. These are not the kind of sled dogs that would run the Iditarod. These are much bigger, these are work dogs made for pulling heavy loads. These dogs have massive paws – just like Rosie! We talked with a volunteer who adopted one of the dogs when she was no longer interested in pulling sleds. She told us most of the retired dogs need to walk at least 5 miles a day.
It was time for another hike – Mountain Vista Trail. It was about a 13-mile drive into the park. Again we saw Denali! Not as pretty as yesterday as there were clouds hanging around the summit so you couldn’t see the entire mountain as clearly. Still pretty though!
I think moose in the Alaska are like deer back home. They aren’t shy! We’ve seen so many I’ve lost count. We saw this one munching on a tree at the side of the road.
After dinner at our favorite (and only) restaurant in Healy – 49th State Brewing we took a tiny little nap. We’re going on a photography tour to capture the midnight sun. It doesn’t start until 8:30 and as you know by now the sunset is late. Tonight it sets at 11:52. It supposed to rain so we’ll see how it goes. 🤷🏽♀️
The weather sort of cooperated. Finally around 11:30 the clouds broke and we were able to see some color. We took some photos next to this beaver dam – even saw the beaver! Then we drove 20 minutes to see it set against some different mountains. When we got back to our room after 12:30 the sun was still setting. It rises in the northeast and sets in the northwest and never really goes down.
* WiFi is hardly ever our friend while traveling. Alaska is no different. Most of these images I’ve had to try to load multiple times. There’s no way I could ever load Jon’s beautiful photos so what you’re seeing today are the ones I took on my iPhone. Imagine how spectacular the ones Jon took will be.
Halfway Round the Planet, Part 2 