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Today’s critter sightings- we finally caught up with some Snowshoe hares near one of the currently unused winter ranger stations, this one was not far from Savage River and the Parks Road in the Denali Wilderness. This is a log cabin in the bush. Outside there are half a dozen wood dog kennels. The outside window battens of the cabin have long nails protruding thru to the outside to stop nosy grizzlies from taking a further interest. It was near here, amongst the very soft under foot, sphagnum moss undergrowth that we saw a few of our hares and got some pictures.
Up at Savage River we went for a walk and found X critter (don’t know his name at the moment - you try and guess for us). He was eating grass near the bank and moving around the rocks. He was large furry rodent type animal about the size of a cat, his tail was longish brown but distinctly flat almost like a beaver, his coat was whitish gray and his head is darker gray to black and the tip of his nose is white. When he looked up, his head reminded me of a large guinea pig… what
is it?
We also saw a small heard of caribou, some had grown large black velvet covered antlers and a few eventually crossed the road in front of our car. Then we saw a lone moose, very big but he took off as soon as we stopped the car.
We took two interesting walks today. The second we mentioned above was along Savage River which runs thru a small glacier canyon. We saw a lone seagull sitting on its nest on the river high side bank. Time will tell if she can safely raise her chicks here. The first walk was a trail known as Meadow View which was near the visitor centre. Well, we saw three distinct sceneries. One was rather dense but easy to see thru paper bark trees section with an open flat undergrowth with some first of spring wildflowers starting up. Spring hasn’t started for these paperbarks, no green shoots were evident. Then came the normal stands of spruces. In there the undergrowth was higher. We clamed up further on the trail and found a breath taking view across a lowland valley with sparsely populated trees - the meadow. The view was all back dropped with
another spruce forest and in the distance; the usual big snow capped mountain range. Incidentally, the spruce sap has a much less pungent smell to the pine sap smell we are used to. On returning from the Meadow View walk we heard a train in the distance. Soon at the station two giant diesels, Alaska Railroad rolled in with 20 passenger carriages, most were sightseeing types and painted Holland America and Princess Cruises and all of a sudden the quite platform resembled a large airport lounge!.
We saw another Denali film at the visitor centre that showed the different seasons how plants change and how some animals survive. We then went to sled dog demo by one of the rangers at their headquarters. This was fun. Five dogs hitched up to a sled and they steamed around a track for everyone to see, the ranger has to work hard to slow them down. We had the history lesson and found out all about the sled system. All up, they have 32 dogs at the ranger set up and they work them all in winter for snow patrols all over the park. The dogs are all Alaskan husky and types of
huskies. They are very strong and each has his own kennel. In summer, the rangers get volunteer walkers in, to take the dogs for nightly walks (I think Sarah would have liked this whole part of the day).
As for the advent of spring here, judging by the stage plant buds have reached, Denali is about 6-8 weeks behind Chicago and say about 10-12 weeks behind Kentucky. Up here the snow has melted from where we are, but some high up pastures are still snowed under and off course so are the mountains. This together with the high latitude probably means a very short summer and so, everyone and everything has to make the most of the sun and the gently warm days when they finally come.
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