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Published: June 12th 2017
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Geo: 62.3878, -150.255
Our luck changed, however, as we awoke the next two days to bright sunny skies. As walked from our building to the lodge, we realized the unparalleled views of McKinley ahead of us. I said we were in the middle of nowhere, which is no exaggeration. There is a small town of roughly 500 people about an hour south called Talkeetna, on which the TV show "Northern Exposure" was modeled. Princess runs a shuttle down here, so we rode down in the morning. It was a really neat little town, though I cannot imagine living there year round. Interestingly enough, the most unique and some of the best shops we'd see in all of Alaska were in Talkeetna.
We were back at the lodge for lunch and then an afternoon trail ride. We had so much fun on our ride out at Canyon de Chelly in April, we'd arranged this one as well, with high hopes. We were met by a female wrangler who drove us to their stable, and shortly thereafter seven of us saddled up and were on our way. I was in the rear, on an immense horse named Ghost, and the wrangler had given me
We Awoke to Clear Skies...
Mt. McKinley from the Lodge the name “Bear Bait,” as I was in the rear and she was too far forward and the trail too narrow for her to get back and help me should a bear attack. Wonderful! It was, of course, tongue in cheek, but was somewhat prophetic, as about half way through the ride – which was along a very dense, narrow, and high trail that was incredibly muddy and slippery from persistent rains – my horse decided to kneel down and roll over, almost on top of me. It happened so quickly, my first thought was that the horse was dying, so I jumped off and narrowly missed being laid upon. Luckily the horse rolled over on some brush and didn't lean the other way, which would have been in 10-inch deep mud, so I was unscathed or dirtied. The horse, however, bolted up and shot forward. There was nowhere for him to go, as the trail was narrow and chocked with the other horses. The wrangler could not see what had happened and I later learned she'd feared my horse had seen a bear and thrown me off. I give her incredible kudos for being able to secure her horse
and run back and grab Ghost quickly. If she had not, I fear many of the other horses would have bolted. I was able to get back on and continue, but it had really spooked Anna, who at first thought I'd been attacked by a bear. This somewhat soured the last bit of the ride, but by the time we were back at the stables and Anna was playing with one of their dogs, all was forgotten.
We spent some of that night doing a final repack on our bags, hoping against hope that we'd distributed the weight enough that no one bag exceeded 50 lbs. Skipping ahead, we weighed in at 47, 46, and 49 pounds respectively. Not bad for eyeballing it!
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