Back to Denali National Park

We went back to Denali National Park in the morning, going to some hiking trails that were close to the visitor's ceneter.  (As you may have guessed by the photo of the sharp dropoff and mention of the narrow road, personal vehicles are NOT allowed to drive past a certain point in the park.) 

It was a little colder than I'd expected.  My gallant husband loaned me his jacket.  (What a "manly man!")

It was still pretty chilly as we remained in the mountains' shadows during our early afternoon explorations.  So Russ avoided the temptation of reaching into the creek to feel how cold the water was, though he wanted to.

 

We went back to the visitor's center to warm up a bit and look at all the exhibits we'd missed seeing yesterday in our scramble to catch the last shuttle bus of the day.  Have I mentioned before how much Russ loves looking at maps?  It doesn't matter if it's an ancient map, road map, air chart map, etc.  He could spend hours reviewing the details of a map.  As this was a topographical map, he wanted to spend a lot of time looking at it. 

 

By the later afternoon the sun was out and I was warm enough to explore some more.  Though you can't really see the moose in the picture below, we had a great view of it on the other side of the lake.

 



Here's a better photo of the moose getting a drink of the extremely cold water.  (Yes, Russ could no longer resist the temptation and had to feel how cold the water was.)

To summarize our Denali adventures, we had a great time and would go back again.