hiking in the Plains of Murie in Denali National Park
I took the 6:30am transit bus with a very good driver that narrated quite a bit. I asked to get off the bus at mile 47.5, where a creek crosses the road after the Polychrome Pass bus stop. At the Polychrome bus stop, the sun was out so I took this beautiful pic.
I got off the bus and immediately realized that this is the place where the backpackers that enter this unit are left off. There is a social trail from the road to a creek and I noticed tracks on the sand next to the creek, although I never saw anyone the whole day I was there. I turned around and got a nice view of Polychrome Mountain:
And then the hike starts. I followed the creek until I veered left and I found an area to climb on the other side of the creek. Once that was done, I was on the tundra and I tried to find animal trails. I found some, but the problem is that the vegetation was oriented against me and it was hard to hike on it. One more look backwards:
My destination for the day was Geode Mountain. According to my planned route I was going to hit a creek that followed a wash from the mountain and hit the main creek that entered further into the Polychrome Glaciers. At that point I hiked right into that wash.
I was tempted to hike into the glaciers but that is for another time.
I made a mistake scaling Geode Mountain; I abandoned the wash too early and climbed, just to reach a ridge that I could not cross. I was concerned about timing and decided just explore that area instead. Look at that hill …. iron ?
I hiked that hill until I reached a glorious view of the plains of Murie.
All over the hill I saw berries, beat scat and digs for squirrels; I was very noisy.
I then decided to get down and return. That vegetation was now in my favor to walk on and the hike back was very fast. I stopped once to watch a gyro falcon looking for lunch. Those guys have a nest past the bus stop, sometimes the bus driver will point it out if the falcons are out of the nests.
Look at this cloud below !!!