Day 61: Denali State Park

June 14, 2014

We awoke to heavy clouds and some wind at Denali National Park with a temp in the 40's. We prepared breakfast of grilled smoked sausage with scrambled eggs and biscuits. That was a good way to start celebrating Donna's birthday. We left the RV park about 9:20 am en route to Byers Lake Campground in Denali State Park. This park has been highly recommended by several people as one of the best state parks in Alaska. It was a very pretty drive with a few attempts to see Mt McKinley (Denali) again at various pullouts along the highway that were noted to be good viewpoint (“in good weather.”) It was still pretty much cloud covered all the way.

 

We celebrated Donna's birthday by hiking a loop trail around Byers Lake and some other shorter hikes. Total about 6 miles today.

 

 

This is a beautiful area. We only drove about 90 miles south on the Parks Highway and the difference on the terrain was quite surprising. This morning we were hiking in tundra and this afternoon in lush greenery reminding us of the rain forest in Hawaii. We all agreed the loop trail hike was a really nice hike. We took pictures of two, new to us, birds.

Long Tailed Duck

Trumpeter Swan

White Crowned Sparrow

Then for dinner we grilled reindeer sausages and elk sausages on an open camp fire and finished it off with s'mores. (The sausages didn't stay around long enough to take pictures).

 

What a fun day we all had. We are glad we were able to share in celebrating Donna's birthday.