Dynatrekkin'

Come along with us!

July 25, 2024

Day 177 / June 16, 2024

Posted by

Ember Hutton

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We were tired (especially Riggs) but it was time to head back to Denali for one last visit today. What better way to spend Father’s Day than harassing your kids to take a hike with you? 🤪 Thanks to a special visitor the hike turned out to be worth it.

Our first stop was back to the Visitor Center to earn the Junior Ranger badge since we knew it would be closed by the time we got done hiking. Some of the rangers that we’ve met are exceptional and this particular ranger at Denali was one of them. Besides the sled dogs, he was the friendliest government employee that we’ve met. 😂

Three new Denali Junior Rangers reporting for duty!

We love our XTRATUF boots so these alphabet cards in the bookstore made us smile. There is nothing cuter than seeing a toddler stomping around in their XTRATUF boots here in Alaska!

We had heard that there was a mama moose and her calf hanging out along the Horseshoe Lake Trail so we went to check it out. 👀

The Horseshoe Lake Trail travels around Horseshoe Lake but first we had to get there…

Horseshoe Lake did not disappoint, but we were on high alert for a moose to pop out of the woods at any moment. We’ve heard that most Alaskans are more worried about a moose encounter than a bear encounter. Apparently the most dangerous are a mama moose and her calf…you can see where this is going. 😱

We also passed by the Nenana River and, of course, spent some time tossing rocks into the water.

Views for days as we hiked around Horseshoe Lake and kept an eye out for mama moose.

It was cool to see a beaver felled tree and a dam up close.

Looks like a dam good engineering job! 🦫

Happy Father’s Day, Matt!

All of a sudden we turned a corner and spotted a moose calmly grazing in the lake! We’d heard from fellow hikers that her calf was bedded down in the woods nearby.

Adler immediately hit the ground and got out his binoculars for some spotting. When she decided to climb out of the lake and went onto the trail we were also about to be on, we decided to va-moose and catch up to the group of hikers ahead that had gathered to watch. Safety in numbers!

Once we had made it safely out of the moose zone we were treated with one last look down at Horseshoe Lake.

We enjoyed our time at Denali National Park but are actually looking forward to leaving the park and continuing south so that we can SEE the mountain. How’s that for ironic?

We were excited to try 49th State Brewing Company for dinner but it was a major flop. 😖

We waited almost 3 hours (!!!) for dinner but the kids were troopers keeping themselves entertained.

The infamous bus from the movie “Into the Wild” is on display at 49th State Brewing Company.

“Into the Wild” tells the story of Christopher McCandless who hiked across the country and attempted to survive in the Alaskan wilderness in the early 1990s. We’ll wait a few years before we let Adler watch the movie so he doesn’t get any ideas!

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About the author

Hi! I'm Ember and I love traveling and photography but not so much organizing said adventures and pictures. Chronically blogging in past tense. :)