Byer's Lake, Views of Mount McKinley, Talkeetna

Our second dnr cabin at Byer's Lake was, well, very interesting . We will definitely remember it with its gnarls and sod roof and dark interior. How do you put skylights in a sod roof cabin?


This is a view of the lake. It was very quiet, shallow, and good for kyaking but not fishing. The morning we left, a woman came running up our steps because she had run into a bear some 50 ft from us. Did we see it? Oh, no!The first morning we walked five miles around the lake. What does bear scat look like? Well, we think we saw tons of it. I took after Annie and sang loudly the whole way. Charlie even joined in when my voice gave out. We were nervous. The only thing we saw was a ptarmigan.
We did see this the second day as we were driving into Denali ( the native Indian name for Mount McKinley) which makes us some of the lucky 20%.

Talkeetna is where the climbers all congregate before they attack the hill. 50% make it to the top. It is actually taller than Everest if you consider you are starting from an altitude of 2000 ft and going to 20,000 plus. It takes about 17 days.

Poor Cris and Charlie can't seem to find any animals. Here is a caribou on a chain. Tomorrow we are taking a 13 hour tour of Denali and should see a lot if we are not rained out. Today they stopped the train between Denali and Fairbanks because the river is flooding over the train track. It is also causing heavy slides along the road in the park. I can't believe how well preserved and protected it is: no cars past the 15 mile marker. We hear it may be summer next week.