In which Moominmama explores Denali National Park and hikes a stretch of the backcountry with a park ranger... Denali, the highest mountain in North America, is a ghostly and elusive presence over the Denali valley that makes up most of the national park. Clouds often obscure the peak, and even under clear skies, it often appears like an afterimage. The south peak (the smoother bump) is the high point. The north peak is the one more pointed. At 20,320 feet, it is shorter than Mt. Everest (29,029 feet), but it rises from a plateau at 2,000 feet of elevation. The plateau at the base of Mt. Everest is already at 17,000 feet before the mountain rises above. I expected to feel more like I was in the mountains in Denali National Park. Denali is part of the Alaska Range, which looms over the park but at quite a distance. Closer is the Outer Range, which I did get to climb. In this late-day light, the rock looks almost pink. But the bulk of the park is in the valley between the two ranges...
In which the sun sets on Moominmama's adventures of 2025 with a return to two favorite hikes in the Tetons... The Moominhouse is about to go into storage, and Moominmama will be doing only a little car camping en route to visits with the offspring and friends back east. Come winter, she will return to Colorado for some Nordic skiing until she can set forth again with her trailer home in the spring. But I went out with a bang, hiking two favorite trails, one in Idaho on the west side of the Tetons and one in Grand Teton National Park on the Wyoming side. These were both memorable hikes that I first did in 2021. The photo above is of the Snake River in Idaho, where I had a beautiful campsite right on the river. It put me close to the Palisades Canyon trail, pictured to the left. This is how the trail starts, with the canyon walls protecting you on either side. What you can't see here is the clear, tumbling Palisades Creek that runs alongside the trail up to Lower Palisades La...
In which Moominmama reflects on the start of a new year and what it means to reach Year Five of a life on the road... Starting on my fifth year on the road, Moominmama wonders if it's an adventure anymore, or just a lifestyle. Somehow, "Moominmama's Lifestyle" just doesn't have the same ring! But the truth is that not everything is new and exciting! Having picked up the trailer in New Mexico and driven to Arizona, I'm enjoying a Sonoran Desert that's actually somewhat familiar. I enjoy being back among the grandfather saguaro cactus, unique to this particular desert. The Sonoran Desert, unlike others, is marked by two rainy seasons: the summer monsoons and winter rains. But as I've learned, last year there were no significant monsoon rains in the Phoenix area, deepening an already serious drought. This year, no flowers greeted my March arrival. The plants were dry and dormant, and the local park ranger was taking photos of stressed-out saguaros on my...
I take it you did NOT get wet from the trip!
ReplyDeleteNope, that would have been a mighty chilly dip!
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