Day 3 July 6, 2022, Wednesday a.m.

We had breakfast at the Denali Bluffs Hotel, not the Denali Lodge. I was grateful to not have the long walk up that steep, switchback road before breakfast. It was a nice buffet with pancakes, scrambled eggs, sausage and bacon, and biscuits and gravy. Oh my, I ate way too much bacon and biscuits and gravy. I decided (rationalized) I was on vacation and I don’t get biscuits and gravy very often. A splurge was okay once in a while. Besides, believe me, we walked off a lot of those calories on our morning hike.

We met the group at 8:30 a.m. in the parking lot with backpacks on. The wind had shifted and lifted the smoke. We could see The Mountain much better now. Denali is, of course, THE Mountain. Nice to have the smoke gone for as long as it lasts.

Denali Visitors’ Center

Our bus took us to the Denali Visitors’ Center, which we toured for about an hour. It was informative and well done. The photo below is a “photo spot” the Visitor’s Center provides for tourists. Nice hiking boots on this pair, don’t you think? I’ll have you know we bought them, especially for this trip. They served us well.

Krista had a park “passport” that you can get from the park service. They also provide stamps at each park that you visit. We don’t visit enough national parks to feel like I needed the passport. I thought why the heck not put a stamp in my journal? Then I accidentally wrote the name of a butterfly over it. Oops. See the photo below.

McKinley Station Trail

After our museum tour, Tom took us on a hike along the McKinley Station Trail.

The sign says the hike was 1.5 miles. I appreciated that it was a loop because as I walked the scenery changed the whole time. As you can see, we had lots of choices of trails. One of the other things I like about a guided tour is that someone else has decided before we got there what fits the needs of the group and the time frame we have. I know lots of people like the adventure of exploring. At my age, I’d rather not.

I took a video of a pretty butterfly. I’m quite proud of that video because the butterfly stayed close enough that I was able to capture it. I snipped these butterfly pictures from the video. The butterfly’s scientific name is the Holarctic azures. Tom looked it up for me on the internet on his phone. Yes, we still had internet. I’m assuming it was because we were close enought to the visitors’ center. The outside of the butterfly’s wings was a pale blue.

When it landed in the sand and folded its wings together, the underside was the same color as the sand on the bank of the creek. Nice camouflage.

Tom took this photo of our intrepid group of hikers and shared it with us. Cathy and Krista are on the far left, then John and I are in front of the boulder. On the boulder from left to right are Karen, Ron, Tammy, and Sam. Behind the boulder, you can see the creek.

That’s John on a bridge over Riley Creek.

Susan on the trail:

Below is a picture of Fireweed, a wildflower that was everywhere. Tom told us that the legend is that since the flower blooms from the bottom to the top, when the top flowers bloom, summer is over.

Toward the end of the trail, we walked along Riley Creek, Tom commented that in most places it would be considered a small river. Indeed.

The train tracks on the bridge in the next photo are for the train that we would be taking the next day. It was cool to think that tomorrow we’d be on the train going over that bridge.

Calories

After our hike, we arrived back at the Visitor’s Center where Tom’s helpers, Colby and Jack, bought us a bunch of snacks, many of them found only in Alaska, and set us up in a picnic area. The soft drinks and beer were interesting, but I forgot to write their names down, the brand, or the flavors. It was a very nice gesture and the food was welcome. Oh, and sitting down was welcome, too.

Home again, home again

The Nat Hab bus took us back to the Denali Bluffs Hotel and Tom gave us the to-go lunches we’d ordered the first day. I think we had to-go lunches because they weren’t sure when we’d be back to the hotel and might not make it before the Denali bus came. Unfortunately, it wasn’t good. I was glad we’d already had a snack.

Bad lunch rant here: For me, there was too much food as usual. I ate half my soggy chicken pita bread sandwich. The chips were some awful flavor, like jalapeño sour cream or something like that, so I didn’t eat them and gave them away to someone who appreciates that kind of flavor. I’m sure the pasta salad would have been good, but I wasn’t interested. We got Cokes we didn’t drink that we put in the little fridge in our room. When we left, John wanted to take them along. I think we carried those around for almost a week and never did drink them.

When we got back to our room, both John and I shucked those hiking boots and lay down on different beds to nap. I propped my legs up on pillows to get the blood back out of my feet. After that hike, they needed some elevation.

It’s hard to believe that this was just the morning. In the afternoon, we were to board the Denali bus for a tour of the interior of the park.

In an email to the group after our return, Tom wrote about Day 3 Denali bus ride: Think back to our bus ride into the interior of Denali National Park. That was the real start of a great Alaskan wildlife safari.