A Hike Into The Clouds
After a rainy night, we took the 6:25am Wonder Lake bus to the Eilson Visitor Center driven today by Omar. There was no problem getting on without a reservation as it was only about three quarters full. Sat in the back behind two young park bus drivers who were going hiking on their day off. One was an avid photographer and the other was just getting started. They were quite helpful with finding wildlife and quite interesting to talk with.
We were awash in wildlife on the way to Eilson starting with a solo wolf walking along the road who passed right next to the bus. As it was walking by, Omar spotted three Grizzly bears on the road just ahead of us and heading our way. It was a sow and two two year old cubs. They also walked around the bus and then came back and walked along in the brush next to us. Not much further on we spotted another bear with two little cubs, but they were further away.
Not to be outdone by the bears, the caribou were out in force. We saw two males browsing right next to the road. They ignored us for a while then crossed in front of the bus and climbed onto a ridge where they were just silhouettes in a backlit sky. We also saw a large herd on the tundra. There were several hundred spread out in front of us.
The birds were not to be left out. There was the Golden Eagle above the Polychrome Pass rest stop being harassed by a Gyrfalcon (a life bird) and we saw the Long-tailed Jaegers again just before we got to Eilson.
It was still pretty cloudy, cool and damp when we arrived, with low clouds streaming over the hills...including the one we intended to hike. We planned to walk the Alpine trail, a two mile hike up to the ridge behind the visitor center and two miles back down . It also had about a thousand foot elevation gain. It was rain jackets over warm liners and Ellen even put on her rain pants.
Off we went. It was an easy climb on gravel trail at first, but it soon turned to dirt and became a series of steep switchbacks through the tundra and eventually onto a scree slope. On the way up we passed by patches of scrubby willows and kept our eyes open for Arctic Warblers, one of the supposedly common species that is a target bird for Ellen. All we saw was a White-crowned Sparrow and a juvenile Wheatear.
After the scree field we reached the top of the ridge and could see down to the visitor center and across the river valley beyond to the mountains...if one could nave seen the mountains in the clouds. The clouds were streaming up to the ridge from below us. The end of the trail was not quite at the top and as we walked over the top to the north it opened onto a high tundra meadow. We crossed over the meadow to a stunning view into the next valley. One with no people and no roads, just tundra and forest and rivers and rocky slopes in the distance.
As we were descending the wind changed and it started getting quite hazy. The winds carrying smoke from northern wildfires was back.
It was a relatively quick trip back down and we got back to the visitor center just before noon. It was packed. There were seven buses in the parking lot and most of their passengers were inside. We found a quiet corner to sit and take off our damp gear. Within minutes, the place cleared out and it was suddenly nearly empty. We found a table in the area set aside for eating and our tasty PB&J sandwiches for lunch.
After lunch we took in a film about climbing Denali, took a short walk on the trails around the center, then caught a bus back.
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