Our 2007 Driving Tour Of Alaska - Denali, Day 13
May 20, Day 13. We had decided to spend the day hiking the Savage River Trail. The trail is a loop going up one side of the river, crosses it on a foot bridge, then returning along the other bank. It is billed as an easy two mile hike on a gravel trail. Yeah, right. That may describe it in mid July but in May, there were numerous places where the gravel was deep mud and other extensive stretches where you had to cross ice packs - sometimes as much as 20 or 30 feet. These were not optional since there was no good way to circumvent them. They were very slippery and Dot slipped and fell at one point. At the river crossing, there is an unimproved trail that continues along the river for some distance. We had decided we'd hike the extension to see what might be out there. So, we headed out the park road to Savage Creek.
When we reached the Mt. McKiley vantage point, the mountain was clear and very beautiful with no clouds around it's peak. It still looks closer than from Talkeetna (it probably is closer) and its size is even more impressive from here.
After a few quick photos, we reentered the park road, continued to Savage River and parked in the parking lot. We started our hike along the river and the first thing we encountered was another male Ptarmigan. After a couple of shots, Dot pointed out some tiny flowers alongside the trail. I thought one of the arrangements of flowers, mosses, lichens and rocks made a nice composition so we spent a little longer photographing the scene.
A bit farther along the trail, a Hoary Marmot came out of the rocks. I quickly set up my camera and tripod and waited for a good shot. The Marmot came right up to investigate us and I got some really good shots of him. He seemed to be unafraid but soon lost interest in us (maybe because we didn't feed him???) and wandered off.
On this and an earlier hike out this trail, we had been seeing some small yellow flowers that looked a little like the Buttercups that we see in the southeast. Dot found some particularly nice ones that were convenient to the trail so we stopped for some photos. The yellow color is a bit subtle but comes through on the photos.
Another rock cliff and another Hoary Marmot. We saw several of these on previous hikes but they appeared to be very shy and scurried away as soon as we saw them. This one, like that seen earlier, appeared to be curious about us so he approached within twenty yards or so.
Dot spotted some more interesting flowers. These consisted of a small head filled with tiny individual blooms. We found one with a visible bloom and I spent a few minutes photographing it. One thing I realized on this trip is that I should never go anywhere without one of my macro lenses. I left several lenses at home to make room for a large telephoto. Bad mistake - I really needed a macro lens for these tiny flowers.
By now, we had reached the foot bridge where we crossed the river. We started out the extension to the trail and after crossing a couple of ridges, saw two young men sitting on the next ridge watching some Dall Sheep rams who were grazing just up hill from them. The (the guys) got up and started back toward us, crossing a stream that was tumbling down the cut between the two ridges. They had camped farther out the trail and were going back to get more equipment. We scrambled across the stream and climbed up onto the ridge and took their place. I got a couple of shots and the sheep then decided they had done enough for a while. They plopped down and proceeded to chew their cuds (do sheep do this?). We sat on a convenient rock to wait them out. While we were waiting, two other groups of Dall Sheep appeared on nearby ridges or peaks. The three groups appeared to be very interested in each other but made no moves to make contact or get closer. We sat and watched the three rams in our group for about thirty minutes and from about thirty yards until they got up and started grazing again. One of them was slowly moving in our direction so we waited until he got very close. I got a lot of photos of these rams as well as those on the surrounding ridges.
After several hours with the rams, we headed back to the main trail and back to the parking lot. Along the river, we saw more Harlequin Ducks in the water and on the rocks. These guys are very skittish and quickly fly/run/swim away at our approach. I managed to get several shots of these very pretty ducks.
We made it back to the parking lot and drove back to the hotel. Decided to pass up supper and turned in early. We had already decided to get up early tomorrow to go to the Wilderness Access Center to arrange for one of the 53 mile bus trips out the park road. This was one of the more rewarding days photographically that we have had in Denali.