The Wandering Koi

Hardworking Rangers

So I mentioned the National Park Service’s cutest rangers… ok, so maybe they aren’t actually rangers but they are cute. The Denali National Park sled dog team.

These hard-working dogs are an important part of the ranger teams at Denali in the winter. They train year-round to be ready to take rangers and scientists into the back country in the brutal winter conditions, as well as other tasks that may come up. Snow mobiles are louder, more apt to need maintenance, and are less environmentally friendly.

This video shows them training on a summer sled to keep in shape. If you live/work in the area, you can volunteer to be a dog walker for the NPS.

Guided Hiking

We’ve found it useful to hire a guide early in our stay at any new location, if feasible. It’s a quick way to learn about the area, local customs, and access and safety issues, in addition to a great way to find places you can hike and explore on your own the rest of your stay. Guides are frequently knowledgeable about good local eats as well.

While the foliage was brilliant shades of yellow, orange, and red, the sky was a bruised purple-grey matte. It did NOT look promising. With the 60 air temperature, Little Koi was not interested in trying her luck. Mrs. Koi and I decided to take our chances (and it worked out perfectly).

The skies started clearing as the storm moved the other direction. Our guide said he was worried when he started toward the meeting point because it was raining hard.

Our guide was knowledgeable about local edible plants and found several different types of berries for us to try. He must have been right, as we both survived. I recall bunchberries, crow berries, and watermelon berries, among others.

Wildlife

We were hoping for our second moose of the trip (from a safe distance), as the guide had seen one earlier in the week.

No moose were around, but we did see some bear scat and fairly fresh prints of moose and bear.

And this guy… a spruce grouse. Who I think was about the least prepared to survive of any animal I’ve seen in the wild. Initially it was under a tree before walking onto the trail in front of us. In its effort to escape, it decided the trail was an easy path. Except, that’s where we were going also. We followed at a distance for almost a minute before getting impatient and and reminding it that its wings worked.

More Foliage and Moss

We next walked into a really interesting place. The guide pointed out the differing heights of the spruce trees. The type and height of the spruce trees gives an indication of the depth of the active layer of permafrost – taller trees, deeper active layer.

There active layer (where plant roots can grow in summer) also supports a lot of spagnum, umm, sphahgn-, no, um… a lot of peat moss.

It is wonderfully springy, with thick layers of it feeling almost like walking onto a trampoline. We had a great time. We learned a lot and made it back to Little Koi without getting eaten, poisoned by berries, or even drenched.

Buses

Before finishing the post, I wanted to include a little info about the buses in the park. There are 3 destinations at present (although this will be increasing when road repairs finish on a section that was closed due to a landslide from melting permafrost- turns out that building a road on frozen land that subsequently melts for some unclear reason *that’s satirical, folks* is not conducive to long-term road maintenance).

So please check the details before you go. You should take the bus to the sled dog exhibit. You can at present drive your car to the first destination about 13 miles into the park. Or you can take the bus.

The other bus is the point of this part of the post. It runs about 43 miles into the park. There are two varieties of bus- one that has a narrated tour and one that does not. If you want the narrated one, book it before you come to the park. How far out, I’m not sure. But if you don’t get one the narrated one, don’t fret. The driver on our bus (without narration) was good at spotting wildlife, as were several other passengers. Maybe we just got lucky again. But we ended up seeing more wildlife than the other bus. ( yes, that’s a teaser for the next post…)

-MK