Remy's RV Adventure: Denali Finale...a special place!

Yesterday we did a hike that one of the rangers suggested yesterday. Sometimes when a hike is really long or has significant elevation change it scares us off. He reminded us that you don't have to go the whole way, just do part...a good thought to leave us with!

Yesterday morning it was in the 40's, clearly there was fresh snow on the mountain tops so we bundled up for our hike.

By mid hike it had warmed considerably and even some blue sky! Loved this old trestle bridge that the railroad regularly uses...

It was a nice scenic hike

We also saw many of the he common wildflowers. This pretty purple flower, Monkshood, is one of the worst poisons known to man. Just touching it can kill you according to our guide the other day. I looked it up, she is right, wow!

We even walked over this very cool suspension bridge...

It was a nice day, capped off with a beautiful movie at the Visitor's Center!

last night we went out to dinner, Park 229.5 (name refers to milepost), it was a neat log cabin in the woods but modern inside...

we had a wonderful meal of salmon and king crab...

This morning we left home at 6am for another bus trip, this time an 8 hr one, 52 mi into the park to the Eilsen Visitor Center to get another chance at seeing Mt McKinley. Remy and Cinder had another day with walks by the camp owners which is why Remy is having nothing to do with this blog and hasn't quite forgiven his Mom and Dad yet! When we got home he had balled up both his and cinder's beds up, something of a tantrum I think!

On the bus you are supposed to yell out STOP with a clock marker, e.g., 9:00, if you see wildlife to immediately get the driver's attention and tell everybody where to look. This time it was me who saw a bear first and got his attention! a grizzly way off in the distance...

next up we saw some caribou...

we made a stop at Polychrome pass, named so for the beautiful multi colors...

the other thing it is known for is the scariest part of the trip!

more caribou and bear followed...

once we reached Eileson we had a nice hike in beautiful sunshine...

And then a rest while we watched the clouds start to lift

It is tough to ever get a clear day at Mt McKinley. Two out of three days it is clouded over and you can't see it at all, and only 10% of time is it clear. We were fortunate to be in the 1/3, we saw the base and even a sliver up higher as the clouds teased us with clearing...