June 19 - East Fork, as far as the road goes (for now)
Denali National Park and Preserve is a HUGE park (over 6 million acres, 3rd largest in the National Park Service System) but has only one road going into the park. The Park Road (yep, that's the name!) travels 92 miles to a remote, former mining area called Kantishna . Mining ceased in 1985 when the area was incorporated into the national park. As I mentioned last week, a rock slide has closed the Park Road at Milepost 43, the East Fork of the Toklat River. During the trip, Denali appears several times on the trip out... (75 miles away as the raven flies) ...but we can't see "The Mountain" from the East Fork River itself. (Too low and the front range blocks the view.) The South Peak (on the left) is Denali (Athabascan for "the high one") at 20,310' and the North Peak (on the right) is 19,470'. (Sorry for all the parenthetical phrases.😉) So we hiked in the river bed. This area is so big and we're so small. What a great place for lunch, s