Our second day in Alaska was packed with a plane ride, a lung busting hike and a drive into Denali National Park on the 15 mile portion of the Park Road accessible by private vehicle (you have to take a shuttle bus for the rest of the 80 mile access road).
Although it was cloudy at the camp, the folks at Denali Air reported that it was clear around the mountain, and taking the chance, we embarked into the wild blue yonder, circling Denali in vivid blue skies. We were even able to pick out climbers making a slow path to the summit of 20,320 feet.
Wendy and I then picked up Chowder and took her on a hike straight up to Sugarloaf Mountain. We didn’t quite make it to the top; there were no switchbacks – it was just a hard scramble for 2 hours that left us breathless. Chowder ran circles around us, playing mountain goat and sniffing out the marmots that whistled at us in warning.
Unable to let Chowder off leash in the park, we just drove in, hoping to see some bears but instead seeing a couple female moose close to the road. By 8 p.m. we were wiped out, but the sun again came out from behind the clouds and we had a hard time winding down and taking ourselves to bed.
An update on the photo of Grandpa from a couple posts back: it was taken at Fort Barrow, on the north coast of Alaska (in the Arctic Circle) sometime around 1957.
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