Errands
We started the day with a list of questions.
- Where can we wash our clothes?
- Where can we take a shower?
- Where can we get water?
- Where can we get groceries?
We started by driving the 20 miles north into Healy and going to Three Bears–one of a chain of Alaskan grocery stores. There we found a produce section that will be good enough and some bottled water. Then we returned 10 miles south to the entrance to Denali National Park and Preserve (est. 1917) and from there a very short distance into the park to Riley Creek Mercantile where we found coin-operated washing machines for our clothes and coin-operated showers for ourselves. All of our questions answered. Done.
Since we’re 9 days into this trip, we needed to do some laundry but all of the washing machines were in use. So we decided to go for a walk.
Horseshoe Lake (Failure)
We prepared our water bottles and armed ourselves with bear spray and started walking on a path that was also meant for bicycles toward the Visitors Center where our maps told us we could find the trailhead. But then we saw this:
That is a moose butt. We’d been reading signs that said not to approach a moose within 25 yards. We were well over 25 yards which is why I felt it would be ok to take a picture. The signs we’d seen said never run from a bear or from a wolf, but feel free to run from a moose. It was probably better not to be so close that running might be required, so after waiting for a few minutes feeling that we couldn’t proceed we decided to cut over to the road which ran parallel to the path. By the time we crossed the thin strip of brush the moose had also crossed.
We stood watching a ways down the road and noticed many passing cars stopping for a picture. The buses that were carrying park visitors were also stopping. The moose seemed pretty chill and continuted just munching. Arlene and I decided to pass the moose neither on the path nor on the road so we returned to Riley Creek Mercantile, climbed in the car, and began the drive to the Visitors Center. As we passed the moose we stopped for another picture. Clearly she’s not looking her most moosey.
Horseshoe Lake (Success)
We finally made it to the trailhead and began the descent to the lake. It was a popular path and in the few miles we must have seen a hundred people. The lake had a couple of interesting sections of rock, multiple beaver dams and, at one point, is so close to the Nenana River that I can imagine them merging at certain times of the year. Here we are with a beaver dam in the background. Inspired by earlier pictures with half of a moose, we gave Arlene only half of a head.
