On Sunday, 8/14, we headed back to the Denali Visitor Center to take a ranger-led hike to Horseshoe Lake. The ranger was both informative and funny. We learned that bears love soapberries, and that those berries taste about as good as you'd think. We also learned that moose can swim, dive to eat aquatic plants, and hold their breath for a full minute. Sadly, we weren't lucky enough to see a moose in this lake. The ranger said it sometimes pops up to the surface and surprises people like an Alaskan Loch Ness monster.
We also saw the beaver dams in the lake and were surprised to see how far the beavers traveled up the steep hills around the lake for wood. It was quite the trek up for us - I wonder why the beavers go so far uphill.
Overall, this was another beautiful hike, 4 miles, much steeper in parts than any of the other trails we did here. Between the scenery and the ranger's info, it was my favorite of our Denali hikes.
After a quick lunch in the RV, we headed over to the Denali Science Center, which was small and not that exciting, but the girls examined the animal poop samples and Zadie did some coloring. Those diversions did give us some wifi/phone research time to plan the rest of the day and squish in some Duolingo. (Bill and I were always scrambling to find a few minutes of wifi a day so we didn't ruin our Duolingo streaks of daily Spanish practice.) Cell service in Alaska? Muy malo.
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| Bye, Denali! |
By mid-afternoon, we were heading north for Fairbanks. We didn't have a clear stop in mind, hoping to find a good boondocking spot along the highway for the night. We also wanted to stop for some fishing time on the way, and had found a list of places to stop along the road to fish. The first few recommendations were a bust, but at mile 269 on highway 3, we found a small trail to an adorable little stream filled with grayling. When I say filled, I mean that after Bill pointed out the first fish, we saw them everywhere in the clear water, maybe 10 fish immediately in front of us in a 8 foot section. The creek was small enough that the girls could point Jim to a fish and say, "Try that one!" then he'd drop a line right in front of it and we'd watch it swim up and bite.
He caught two fish immediately on the first two tries. I have never seen anything like that. We eventually moved down the stream further to a slightly more open area, and both the girls tried fishing too. Zadie also got a bite immediately, before Jim had even finished explaining to her what to do, and she got so excited that she quickly reeled the fish all the way up to the top of the rod until it popped off the end. We were releasing the fish, but that wasn't quite how!
The fish were on to us after a short while at the second spot, or perhaps we'd already caught and released most of them and they weren't excited to repeat that experience. After an hour or so, we got back in the RV to keep heading north. It took a while to find a good spot because we wanted to be as close to Fairbanks as possible in order to minimize driving time before our early tour the next day. We eventually found a nice spot overlooking a valley and cooked a late dinner in the RV before heading to bed.
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| Boondocking on a scenic overlook |