Shenefield Denali Alaska 2024

With my extra day off, this morning I went bushwhack hiking about 3 miles along a game trail (the old Parks Highway).  It's a trail I've seen from my bus every day, and I had a strong feeling I knew where it would come out.  And it did!  But I still carried my bear spray and was talking to the moose to make sure they knew I was coming through.  Hurray!!  No encounters!!   This afternoon, Susan and I took a quick trip into the park on the Savage River shuttle.  Fall is coming fast to Denali National Park and Preserve.  Every day while driving my bus, I see the aspen trees changing from dark green to light green to yellow and gold.  The low growing dwarf birch are underneath the dark green spruce trees and splashing a magenta color across the hillsides.   Along the way, we did spot a caribou .  This guy (or gal; don't know for sure since both male and female caribou have antlers) had a really nice rack. Caribou are geared fo...

Alaska in August has been rainy with limited sunshine.  Susan was able to get an extra day off (I've been working 4 days on, 3 days off for a month), so we chose to take the 6 hour drive to the largest national park in the United States - Wrangell-St. Elias in the southeastern corner of Alaska.  Our 3 days off turned out to be spectacular, with lots of sunshine!  We did a flightseeing tour of glaciers in the Chugach Mountains.  The Wrangell Mountains were socked in, so Chugach was a great alternative. To break up the trip, we decided to make some scenic stops along the way and also check out the Museum of Alaska Transportation and Industry in Wasilla, about halfway to Wrangell. This museum is full of planes, trains, and automobiles.  I loved it and Susan enjoyed it as well. Snowmachine with a steering wheel.                                       Snow toboggan!...

As the 3rd largest national park in the NPS system, Denali might be expected to have miles and miles of trails.  Ironically, the 6 million acres of Denali (about the size of Massachusetts) has only about 30 miles of developed trails.  While off-trail hiking is encouraged (especially along the Park Road), I do like hiking on a trail, and a new trail is being developed right across the river from our summer location in Denali Park Village.  The Nenana River Trail is still under construction, but the Park Service has completed 3.5 miles one-way, and I hiked it Tuesday. Hiking along the Nenana River and hearing this water rushing by at 7,000 cfs, this section of river is a favorite for the rafting companies in Denali.  Alaska is big and humans feel small in this "great land" (that's what Alaska means in the original Aleut language - Alyeska - Great Land).  Can you find the 3 rafts in the Nenana River?         Here's a picture of Mt. Fellows from...