{"id":98,"date":"2006-07-10T12:56:09","date_gmt":"2006-07-10T18:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/alaska\/monday-732006-denali-national-park\/"},"modified":"2012-08-20T13:44:09","modified_gmt":"2012-08-20T19:44:09","slug":"monday-732006-denali-national-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/alaska\/monday-732006-denali-national-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Denali National Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monday morning, we took the park shuttle from the visitors’ center to the dog kennel, where we got to meet the dogs, and see a sled-pulling demonstration. It was kind of rainy, but the dogs were raring to go regardless. They were probably wishing for snow.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\ndenali sled dog kennels<\/em><\/p>\n


\nsled dog demonstration<\/em>\n<\/p>\n

We rode back to the visitors’ center and shopped (A LOT) at the store. We bought a bunch of postcards and then went to eat in the cafe there so we could fill them out. Fyi, the restaurant in the park is surprisingly good. Spectacular dining is hard to come by in that area, since your options are so limited.<\/p>\n

We dropped our cards off at the post office, the headed over to the Horseshoe Lake Trail. It was kind of cold, but the rain gear we had was very sufficient. My waterproof jacket from REI was an excellent investment.<\/p>\n


\nhorseshoe lake<\/em>\n<\/p>\n

The mosquitoes were terrible, but we were well-protected. On the trail, we saw woodpeckers, and these strange burled trees. Even on one of the more popular trails, we hardly saw any other people.<\/p>\n

We hiked back up to the road and drove the 14 miles down the park road to the Savage River bridge. It’s the farthest private vehicles can go into the park; after that, you have to take a shuttle bus. We headed down the trail to the north. For about a half-mile, it’s paved, and then it becomes a narrow path heading into the canyon.<\/p>\n


\nsavage river <\/em><\/p>\n


\nglacial runoff entering the savage river<\/em>\n<\/p>\n

We saw tons of ground squirrels, who let us get very close so they could yell at us, and dall sheep up on the top of the surrounding hills. Glacial runoff was melting into the river, mixing clear water with silt from miles away. We hiked over shallow streams and waterfalls, occasionally wondering how the hell we were going to make it back. Also, I peed on a peak overlooking the river. I rule.<\/p>\n

We ate lunch on the trail, then headed back to the bridge. Near the road, we encountered a family of ptarmigans. I love those birds! They’re like Alaskan quail.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

We drove back up near the visitor center to see the train trestle, then went down to the station. There was a train sitting there, and we resolved immediately to return to Alaska, and travel by rail.<\/p>\n


\nalaska railroad trestle<\/em>\n<\/p>\n

We decided to drive to Healy in search for Independence Day party supplies and food for dinner. There was a little convenience\/liquor store combo on the corner of the Parks Highway, so we turned off and thought we’d drive into town to see what else was there. A few miles down the road, we realized that was all there was of the town. We turned around and stopped at the store for snacks and liquor. We then headed back to the park entrance. After checking several restaurants (all of which were insanely crowded), we decided to just go back to the same place as the previous night.<\/p>\n

We realized that the crowds were because the cruise people had just arrived on the train. There was a long line there, too, but it wasn’t as bad as the rest. We had pizzas and devised our new travel motto: have fun, be awesome, don’t die.<\/p>\n

Words to live by.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monday morning, we took the park shuttle from the visitors’ center to the dog kennel, where we got to meet the dogs, and see a sled-pulling demonstration. It was kind of rainy, but the dogs were raring to go regardless. They were probably wishing for snow. denali sled dog kennels sled dog demonstration We rode […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[16],"tags":[506,77,106,56],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"geo":{"latitude":63.11479949999999661258698324672877788543701171875,"longitude":-151.19261169999998628554749302566051483154296875,"description":"Denali National Park, Alaska 99743, USA"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/storage\/2006\/07\/186979362_33a86fcced_o.jpg?fit=3072%2C2304","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Z5R-1A","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":96,"url":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/alaska\/saturday-712006-anchorage-to-denali\/","url_meta":{"origin":98,"position":0},"title":"Anchorage, Talkeetna, and our Cabin in Denali","author":"Jenni","date":"07.10.2006","format":false,"excerpt":"We awoke at 5:30am (which happily felt like sleeping in), and checked out of the hotel. We got us some Starbucks downtown, then stopped at a supermarket for the supplies we felt might be hard to come by in Denali. They were playing Don't Stop Believin' over the loudspeaker, just\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Alaska"","block_context":{"text":"Alaska","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/category\/alaska\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/storage\/2006\/07\/186895556_4868b5212a_o1.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":99,"url":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/alaska\/tuesday-742006-independence-day-denali\/","url_meta":{"origin":98,"position":1},"title":"Celebrating Independence Day in Denali","author":"Jenni","date":"07.10.2006","format":false,"excerpt":"We got to sleep in on the 4th of July, getting up shortly before 8am to make the 9:30 bus to the Toklat River station. It was clearer, with no sign of rain for once. We called home to reassure my mom that we were alive, then went to the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Alaska"","block_context":{"text":"Alaska","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/category\/alaska\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/storage\/2006\/07\/187039435_1d6625ad67_o.jpg?fit=1200%2C813&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":97,"url":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/alaska\/sunday-722006-denali-national-park\/","url_meta":{"origin":98,"position":2},"title":"Denali: All the Way to Wonder Lake","author":"Jenni","date":"07.10.2006","format":false,"excerpt":"We woke at 6:15am. Though it had been light all night, we slept fine. I was not particularly enjoying my cocktail of decongestants, however. I didn't feel sick otherwise, I just couldn't breathe. We drove into the park and followed the signs to the Wilderness Access Center. Because the buses\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Alaska"","block_context":{"text":"Alaska","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/category\/alaska\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/storage\/2006\/07\/186928441_232e8923cf_o.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":100,"url":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/alaska\/wednesday-752006-denali-to-the-kenai-peninsula\/","url_meta":{"origin":98,"position":3},"title":"Denali to the Kenai Peninsula","author":"Jenni","date":"07.10.2006","format":false,"excerpt":"We got up, checked out of our awesome party cabin, and headed back south. We saw a moose crossing the highway with two babies along the way. Traffic sucked in Wasilla, so we got to Anchorage around 1pm. the igloo We stopped for food and a memory card for my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Alaska"","block_context":{"text":"Alaska","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/category\/alaska\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/storage\/2006\/07\/187099969_7857ca20b4_o.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":103,"url":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/alaska\/saturday-782006-seward-to-anchorage\/","url_meta":{"origin":98,"position":4},"title":"Hope, Alaska, and Back to Anchorage","author":"Jenni","date":"07.10.2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Saturday morning, there were brand new cruise ships in the harbor. Sadly, we checked out and headed back up the Kenai Peninsula. We decided to take a short side-trip to see Hope. We liked the name. hope Hope was a ridiculously cute little town, and from the looks of it,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Alaska"","block_context":{"text":"Alaska","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/category\/alaska\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/storage\/2006\/07\/187344814_a3f0e2586e_o.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":112,"url":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/new-mexico\/sunday-932006-mesa-verde\/","url_meta":{"origin":98,"position":5},"title":"Mesa Verde","author":"Jenni","date":"09.5.2006","format":false,"excerpt":"On Sunday, I decided to drive up to Mesa Verde. While I tend to visit Colorado fairly often, it's in a part of the state that's hard to get to. Of course, it was hard to get to from Santa Fe, too. I didn't find that out til later. i'm\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "New Mexico"","block_context":{"text":"New Mexico","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/category\/new-mexico\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/storage\/2006\/09\/236514890_fbe52517a9_o.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}