Day 56 - Denali National Park

Using Bear Sray On Squirrels Is Overkill

The rain continued overnight and it was on and off drizzle this morning as we walked up to the Wildness Access Center and to the Visitor Center. It wasn't a great day for a long walk, but the round trip was a bit over 6.5 miles.

The main reason for going to the visitor center was to sign up for a Discovery Hike. These are off-trail ranger-led hikes into the park reached by bus. They only take 11 hikers on each day and you have to sign up a day or two in advance. We wanted to go on Monday. The hike starts 61 miles up the road and goes off into the tundra. It will be an introduction to hiking in the park and we hope kto do more like it when we go out to Teklanika next week.

We also stopped for coffee and scones while we were there.

In addition to signing up for the hike at the VC, we had to go back to the Wilderness Access Center to get a bus ticket. This part isn't free, but it is the only way to get to the start of the hike.

It was time for lunch when we go back to Speedy. As we were sitting down, I could hear some clunking noises under the hood. When I looked, I found that the ever present squirrels had been chewing on the hood's sound insulating headliner and making quite a mess. We left the hood up while we finished lunch.

While eating we pondered what to do. A search for squirrel repellent brought up several products based on hot peppers. Hmm, we had an expired can of bear spray that we had been wondering what to do with. Maybe I could use its contents on the headliner?

The idea was to spray into container and then paint the pepper liquid on the headliner. We'd never used the spray and it had expired, so we were unsure if it would still work. At the talk the other night on bears, someone asked about expired bear spray. The ranger said that one of the problems with expired spray is that sometimes the propellant leaks out and when you go to use it nothing happens. A test was in order.

I took the can several yards away from Speedy and gave it a quick shot, a quarter second at most. It worked just fine. There was no wind when I did the test, but by the time I walked back to Speedy a slight breeze had come up...and the van was downwind! We now know what bear spray does and I wouldn't want to be the bear. There was no visible spray, but we were hacking and coughing almost immediately. It took several minutes before the area around Speedy was inhabitable. A very long time ago, when I was in basic training, I had to walk through tear gas. It was mild compared to the bear spray. 

Spraying the headliner was not an option. Even using the spray into container would be impossible. I'm not sure I would survive being downwind from the charging bear and using bear spray. Another option was necessary.

Ellen had a bottle of Tabasco sauce, made from those same peppers. I put on rubber gloves and poured the sauce into my palm and rubbed it into the headliner. We hope it will work. As far as we know, the squirrels haven't come back.

Later in the afternoon we took Speedy out on a search for groceries, first going to Healy, about 10 miles away. The Mountain View Liquor and Grocery was not very well stocked, but it did have milk. We then tried three different stores in the commercial area just outside the park without much more luck. The best was Grocery 1. They at least had vegetables and yogurt. We don't understand it. The area around the park is a food desert. It is going to be a challenge to provision for our weeklong stay at Teklanika, 30 miles inside the park.

We hope the weather will improve tomorrow as we've planned a bike ride up to the sleddog kennels for a demonstration in the morning.