Mt Healy Outlook and Horseshoe Lake

Okay so instead of staying home for the rest of the day, I finally made my way into the Park for a few hikes. I had to walk from Denali proper into the park which took a bit of time, but I had the rest of the day so it didn't matter too much. It was cloudy and threatening to rain so I started with a short hike to Horseshoe Lake. To the left is a photo I took on the way from up above. I got down to the lake and read for a while about beavers and with it still being cloudy and windy I headed back toward the Visitor Center. On the trail I stopped to tie my shoe, bent over and when I stood up I heard rustling on the path ahead of me. It was a BEAVER! Dragging a sappling down to the lake to dam it up some more. I freaked out because I thought it was possibly something dangerous, but I survuved my first beaver encounter.

When I got to the trail head and the sun started peaking through the clouds, I decided to tackle a trail up to the Mt. Healy Outlook, a hike that my booklet said would take two to three hours but took much longer. On my way up, I only saw people heading down for the first half of the hike and the second half of the way up, I didn't see a single soul except for squirrels, bees and a few marmots. One of the last people I saw told me there were rumors of black bears at the peak... I didn't see any. Here is a picture of about the half way point, and the a pic of me at the top.