Thursday, August 5, 2010

Denali State Park and Mt McKinley

We started out our first full day in Denali State Park with a 5 mile hike around Byers Lake. At the upper end is a suspension bridge that you have to cross. Mel, Kenai & Flora were just fine with that - Mickie and Pat were not too thrilled but we did make it across. It was a great hike and took us 3 1/2 hours but is was worth it as you can see from the next pictures.
We were so excited when we noticed that "the mountain" was OUT. Denali or Mt. McKinley does not appear very often in the summer. It creates it's own weather system since it is so high and most of the time it is shrouded with clouds.

I think this is my favorite picture of Denali. I must have taken 50 or more as we walked around the lake, it is just so magnificant!!!!!!!!


Byers Lake and the mountains on the south side.



Byers Lake in Denali State Park - a great place to stay, kayak and hike. Thanks to Donna Quante for suggesting this to us. We so enjoyed it that we stayed for 3 nights without electric, water or sewer. We were joined on our third night by Donna and her handsome dog Spirit for dinner and good company. Donna is now working as an interpretive ranger at this state park.




Loon and her baby. It was so fun watching her teach the baby to fish, diving, etc. I don't think that the baby got that much on her own because the mom was feeding her fish.





The baby loon, so cute and neither mom or baby were afraid of us in the kayaks.






Oops, another loon and baby picture - well we really liked watching them







1 comment:

  1. Finally had a chance to read the whole blog. Great job Pat! Was sure nice to have dinner with you and Mel and the morning walk with all the dogs was perfect!! have a safe trip the rest of the way!

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