Beyers Lake to Denali NP

Bridge on hiking trail the circles Beyers Lake

    We enjoyed a restful night at Beyers Lake even to the point of sleeping in a couple extra hours. It was a pleasantly warm day so Joyce and I decided to take the hike around the lake after we ate lunch. It was a nice 6 mile hike with nice views across the lake and of the mountains beyond. We had hiked about 30 or 40 minutes when Joyce spotted a black bear out in a meadow at the north end of the lake. We continued on after taking a few pictures of it and completed the the hike in a couple of hours or so. By then Gary and Janet had caught up to us and we made plans to head up to Denali the next day. In the morning we headed out and drove up to Denali NP, seeing a young black bear and a cow moose along the way. There is lots of construction going on along the Parks highway so a trip that might normally take an hour or so can take twice as long with all the hold ups. We got to Denali around 11 or so and checked in at the store for our reserved campsites at Riley Creek. The camping is run by a concessions company (Armark) and seems to be fairly well maintained. We spent the afternoon exploring the front area of the park, visitor center, museum and the wilderness access center where we would depart early the next morning on our bus into the park. 

Black bear near Beyers Lake

Cow Moose in a pond a few miles from Denali NP entrance

      We got up by 5 the next morning and had to be at the WAC to catch our 6am bus into the park we had reserved. We were lucky that Pigeon (Toni) our friend that we befriended while hiking the Appalachian Trail was able to join us for the day. She has worked for several years in the Denali area leading guided tours into the back country as a naturalist. She spent a day off and drove nearly 2 hours to spend the day on our bus tour with us. Toni has spent quite a bit of time hiking and backpacking in the park. We started off the bus ride seeing a pack of wolves run across the road in front of us within the first 15 minutes. Along the way we saw a couple of grizzly bears grazing and eventually a few caribou and a couple of moose. The day dawned gray and before too long it began to rain. You are in a bus so you are protected from the rain but it pretty much killed the scenery as the roads turned muddy and the buses splattered mud on the windows as they passed. We ended up about 65 miles inside the park to the Eilson Visitor center. If you take the green buses you can get off any where and catch another one later on. We wanted to go on a day hike with Toni and decided not to let the rain stop us. Gary and Janet decided to stay on the bus but the rest of us got off and hike up a gorge with a stream flowing down it. 

We bushwhacked our way for a couple of wet miles before heading back to the road. We had a good time and were glad we made the effort in spite of the rain. We did appreciate the warm bus that picked us up to return to the WAC by 5pm or so. After getting into some warm dry clothes Joyce and I met Toni, Desiree (Toni's daughter who works at a coffee shop in the park) and Mike (Desiree's boyfriend) for pizza at a local pub. It lots of fun to meet Desiree and Mike, they make a very nice young couple. We finalize plans with Toni to meet at the park in a couple of weeks to go backpacking together.

A view from one of the rest stops the bus made

Steve tried washing the bus windows on a rest stop...but they were soon muddy again

On our day hike with Toni in the rain

Sled dog program at Denali NP

     After a nice warm nights sleep in the camper we all drove out to "Glitter City" which is a bunch of tourist stores and eateries across the road from the Princess Resorts just outside the park entrance. It was a good place to look for t shirts and other gifts. That afternoon we took a bus over to see the sled dogs program the park runs. They use dog teams in the winter to explore the park as snowmobiles are banned. Tomorrow we head to Fairbanks area.