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, so we did!

Awesome view of the front range mountains.  During the summer, much (but not all) of the snow in this picture will melt.  The runoff will feed streams with glacial melt, which is full of very finely ground silt.  Although credited to Mark Twain about the Missouri River, "too thin to plow, to thick to drink" applies to these glacially fed streams and rivers as well.  While there are a few clear streams and rivers for fishing in Denali, fish just can't breathe in the thick water, so they stay downstream.   

Denali herself will not lose much snow at the peak.  Too cold; too windy; too much snow to melt.  

This landslide at the East Fork shuttle turn around is thought to be the backside of the subsidence on the other side of the ridge that has closed the road at MP 43.  Though much smaller in size, this rockslide could block the river and cause more problems for NPS to deal with.

We enjoyed the beauty of some tundra flowers while we were at East Fork.  These are very difficult growing conditions in this harsh environment: rocky soil, cold, and snow.  But here they are...flowering!

I've been calling these hare bells, like we have in Yellowstone.  But Seek corrected me; these are tall bluebells.  

And these pretty little ground flowers are called mountain-avens.  They cluster all over.  

On our trip back, we spotted a caribou cooling off on a patch of snow.  Caribou are not built for warm, sunny days.  The coat has two layers of fur: a dense woolly undercoat and a longer-haired overcoat consisting of hollow, air-filled hairs.  This fur keeps them comfy warm in the winter, but creates problems in the summer.  Thus plopping on the snow!  

And Mother Nature likes to keep us on our toes.  Caribou (aka reindeer if they are domesticated) are members of the deer family, and both male and female caribou have antlers.  With all other members of the deer family (elk, moose, deer), only the males have antlers.  Sometimes it's just too much!!  😃 

On the way back to the Bus Depot, we stopped at Teklanika River overlook...

...to check out the braided river.

Hurray for clear blue skies.  A memorable day in Denali.  Hard to believe we've been here for a month now!