Continued from the previous page.

PEAK ADVENTURE:  THE EIELSON ALPINE TRAIL

After taking some photos of Denali I headed across the park road to the trailhead for one of my favorite hikes in the park. It might not look so special from the road, but the views from the mountainside and the plateau at the top are fabulous:

It took me about 40 minutes to reach the top of Thorofare Ridge, including numerous photo ops of Denali. I love this ascent on a pretty day because you can see Denali most of the way up.

Here are some of the many pictures I took on the ascent, which switchbacks enough that I wouldn't call the trail "steep," as in the park website's description, just relentlessly uphillfor a mile:

View west to Denali from partway up the trail

Not even halfway up yet and the visitor center (under arrow) looks eensy. This view is south.

The trail reaches the ridge about at the arrow.

View of Denali from about 3/4 of the way up to the ridge

Above and below:  Oh, you big, beautiful mountain!!!

 

Almost to the ridge; last time I was up here (late August, 2012), the upper parts of
the trail were under snow and I had to climb up a snow cornice to get on the ridge. Cool!

Made it to the ridge -- now let's have some more fun!

The little sign says "End of maintained trail."  Ignore it and keep going for another hour or two like I did a couple of times when I was up here in 2012.

There are miles of tundra to explore on this long, broad plateau. The side of the ridge with views of Denali, the road, and the riverbed has trails that are as good as the one I just ascended. It's just as easy to hike off-trail, which is something Denali National Park officials encourage visitors to do.

If I hadn't had an "agenda" to continue farther west on the park road this afternoon, I would have stayed up here for a couple hours.

RIDGE WALK

It was breezy on the wide plateau on the ridge but the sun felt quite warm. I had limited time to wander around the tundra if I wanted to catch Tim's Kantishna bus so I stayed up there just 20 minutes before heading back down.

That was enough time to take a bunch more pictures of Denali and other incredible scenery in every direction:

View south to visitor center and park road

 

Above and below:  view SW to Denali

 

The trail continues farther west along the ridge.

View north to another ridge

Nearby ridge to NE

View to higher part of Thorofare Ridge to the east

View east near beginning of trail descending the mountain

Here are a few more pics from my descent to the visitor center:

Denali's still visible at noon from this direction.

View to the east

Almost back

I got back down to the visitor center before Tim's Kantishna bus arrived. He was running late again today by 15-20 minutes outbound but made it up on the return. I got back to Tek a little earlier than yesterday.

Continued on the next page:  my hike at Wonder Lake

Happy trails,

Sue
"Runtrails & Company" - Sue Norwood, Jim O'Neil, Cody the ultra Lab, and Casey-pup

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© 2015 Sue Norwood and Jim O'Neil