Today we left a really cool hostel where we met some nice French ladies traveling Alaska, a couple of guys from California touring on a trip without their wives, a guy from Washington up here looking for work for the summer, and a teacher and her husband and daughter from Washington DC. Pretty cool time and we stayed in an old time canvas tent on cots. It was nice to have a shower and a warm place to hang out that had AWESOME INTERNET!!! Notice the website is updated and all the galleries are complete. Kudos to the hostel for a great environment, and thanks Carl for the find.
We left with nothing in mind other than exploring. We found a pull off where the “Igloo” was for sale. We had a look around. What a fun place that would be to complete and have as a hotel. Later we ended up in Denali State park and found a great place to view Mt. McKinley, albeit the clouds were not at all playing along. We decided to wait it out and in the end, the clouds parted and we got to see the top of the highest peak in North America… really cool.
Further on the road, I found a road to Petersville, AK, an old mining area that allows for open mining. It was 18 miles to the end of the road and then 18 miles further to other claims. We actually found multiple roads and crossed some streams. We found a cool road up to the glacier valley a couple of miles from where Denali NP boundary was and could have made it if the snow had not covered a section of the road. (Thanks Ben for the training, and I decided not to forge it). Maybe next time.
We settled in on a campsite on an old Gold mine claim next to a stream and fixed dinner of Chicken Alfredo. We talked to a mining lady who owns 7 claims up here and makes enough to keep doing it every summer and she said there was a rogue Grizzly that was wounded and pissed off two streams down the road. We had traveled that road earlier and decided to explore some more rather than camping there…it’s a good thing. Oh, and we saw two moose today with one running in front of us on the road.
Today was epic and the country back here is so beautiful. Loving life and thankful for this opportunity.