Alaska Day 13, Freakin' Beavers Part 1

Day 13

 Thursday June 14

      Cassidy Had asked the evening before if I had tackled the Mt. Healy overlook trail.  It’s her favorite.  It’s also the favorite on a few hiking sites.  It was on tap for this morning.   It’s a little over two and a half miles with an elevation gain of 1,700 feet.   
     The morning clouds on the drive in...

      The trailhead is across from the visitor center parking lot.  I stopped in to ask about the weather.  The forecast called for clouds and a forty percent chance of rain.  I rolled the dice and decided to risk the rain.  A couple I had met in the parking lot told me the official trail ended at two and a half miles.  But, there’s an unmaintained trail that goes much further.  They started up as I sorted out my gear.  Remember them, they do come back in the narrative.

      The first stretch was simply through the forest.

       Then the climbing began.  Stretches of level trail were few and far between.  But, I’ll take a trail that’s basically a ramp any day over one that’s all rocks like the one in Skagway. 

        The view from the trail.

        The view from the top.

        That marker is the official end of the trail.  As you can see, the trail does indeed go on for a ways.  Way up the trail I could see that couple I met in the parking lot.  It certainly seemed like a easy trail onward.  

    To the east, patchy blue sky.  To the west, leaden skies.  I really didn’t like the idea of getting caught in the rain again, but pressed forward.  At about the half mile point, I stopped and had a serious internal debate.  On the one hand, I wanted to continue. On the other hand, the wind had picked up and the clouds to the west seemed to be thickening.   I turned back.

      In the end, it was the right move.  When I arrived back at the official trail, I felt the first splatter of rain.  
      Seen on the way out of the park for lunch...

      On my previous trip, a guidebook suggested Horseshoe Lake in the evening.  That’s when the moose come out.  Between the one with her two calves on the lake shore and the other standing shoulder deep in the lake, no one was disappointed that night.  But, that was seven years ago.

      A great deal has changed over the last seven years. The trail down is still the same.  

     The lake itself is much larger and deeper than I remembered.  There were also no moose. Instead, there were beavers.  They had dammed the outflow of the lake. 

      The old trail simply ended at the lake.  The Park Service had lengthened it into a two mile loop trail that runs past the dam and out to the Nenana River.

     It then loops back to the other side of the lake. 

     I was minding my own business and walking along when suddenly one of the beavers scurried across the path in front of me dragging a branch.  He then swam back to the lodge with it.

     Further up the trail, I watched one come ashore, rest for a moment, then scurry up the hill and out of sight.  A saw a third one swimming along with his own branch.

     Not a bad way to end the day at all.

     By this point, it was almost 7P and I really wasn’t thinking dinner.  But, I did get to thinking about one of the beers on tap at the pizza place. So, I went back and enjoyed an Alaska Brewing’s Smoked Porter.  While I do like a good porter, the slight smoky flavor was just amazing.

Coming Up,

A surprise waterfall on an unofficial trail