Hi Everyone!
We spent several days enjoying the Denali National Park area. We stayed at 2 places, one about 30 miles north of the park, and one about 30 miles south of the park. We really liked the second place we stayed at, the first place not so much. In fact, we left the first place 2 days before we were supposed to. One evening we got back from a hike and found our extra fuel tank (It’s installed in the bed of the truck and we can carry about 45 extra gallons of diesel in it. It also has a switch in the truck cab that lets us turn it on so the fuel runs into the main tank when needed) was leaking. Turned out to be a minor problem, we had put too much fuel in both tanks and it was overflow, not a leak. But, the campground lady was not nice about it and charged us $200 for the small amount of diesel that went onto the ground….more than the fee, her unpleseant attitude ran us off. But, we found a really nice small campground that we liked better anyhow.
We got in 2 great hikes while in the area, one in Denali State Park, and one in Nancy Lake State Recreation area. We also visited a cute little town called Talkeetna. The hike we did at Denalie State Park, which was the Little Coal Creek trail, was very hard. It was a gray and drizzly day, so we only got a few pictures on Steve’s “big” camera because we didn’t want to get it wet. But I took a couple videos on my cell phone as we approached the top which I included in the link below. I hope the videos come out okay in the link, this is an experiment for me! It was a very steep trail and one of the hardest we’ve done so far. It was about 3 miles to the top, and gained 2,200 feet in elevation. So about 6 miles altogether. It was freezing at the top, we were literally inside of a cloud. Gerry started whimpering and didn’t like it at the top at all. We met a nice couple on the trail back down, they were from Iowa. Except she had just moved to New York, working as a doctor for the athletic program at Columbia University and also for the performing arts. She had just left a position on the medical staff for the Iowa Hawkeyes. We had a nice chat with them and then found a fairly protected area behind some rocks for our lunch.
The hike we did at Nancy Lake State Rec area was called Red Shirt Lake trail. By comparison it was easy, about 6 miles also. But very little elevation gain. We had a nice picinic by the lake there. We also came across 2 flocks of some type of ground birds, with babies. Grouse or Quail or something like that. I have a picture of one of them in the link.
We’ve seen a couple of Moose while driving, including a mommy and baby standing in a river. We’ve seen several eagles and those bears along the road I mentioned before. Otherwise, pretty uneventful so far on the animal sightings, which is probably for the best, especially regarding bears. We heard a story last night about a young man who was killed a few weeks ago near where we are staying while participating in a trail race. A grizzly had killed a moose, the runner went by the carcass and the bear attacked him. We’re especially careful with Gerry, and keep him on a leash most of the time.
Talkeetna was a cute tourist area that we enjoyed for an afternoon. Had some tea and cookies and a peach tart at a nice bakery there, they had a porch we could sit on with Gerry. We also drove into the National Park as far as they allow cars, which is 15 miles. After that, only park buses are allowed on the road. It was pretty, but no more so than the entire area around the park. Since they don’t allow dogs on any of the trails in the national park, we didn’t do anything else there.
On our last day in the area, the clouds finally went away, we woke up to a bright sunny morning and we jumped into the truck and drove to a viewing spot for Mt. McKinley. Mt. McKinley is the largest mountain in North America, and is just under 21,000 feet. It is only visible about 30% of the time, since there are so many clouds and gray days here. Steve got some great pictures, and experimented with his large zoom lens (sorry John, I know the lens has some number associated with it but I don’t know what it is, it’s the big one). The mountain was visible all day, and we got shots of it as we drove along the road to our next destination also. It was great to see it, the pictures really don’t do it justice, it is huge! I should mention we also found a great bakery near the viewing spot that had freshly baked bread that I took home for dinner that night, and also freshly made strawberry scones and a great breakfast sandwhich made on their bread….yum!
You’ll notice in the pictures that Gerry got a new scarf with his name and picture on it! We were in a gift shot near Denali National Park and the guy there makes them from a picture on our phone. The picture of Gerry on the bandana is from the big hike we did at Little Coal Creek. I think it turned out great, and he loves to prance around in it and show off even more than normal!
We are moving south, towards the Kenai Penninsula. More updates to come soon!
Lots of pictures, plus 2 videos in the link below – hope the videos work, let me know. Thanks for all the comments! It’s great to hear from you all!!!
https://1drv.ms/a/s!Ap-2lg-EnL0pkAyckK_PIFsPSrJV
