Sunday, May 8, 2016

It got pretty chilly last night. The water in our bottles was partially frozen despite being in the fly of the tent. The ptarmigan were cooing all night. There was a definite thin overcast in the sky that may or may not burn off. We happened to have a little bit of cell reception at our campsite so we checked the weather forecast; 90% chance of snow/rain tomorrow. It is very exposed up here with very few trees, it would be a very cold ride if we stayed out another day. In addition, I woke up with a head cold. We decided to head back today instead of waiting until tomorrow.

Riding out

Clouds rising from the mountains

As we had no reason to rush back to the car, Kristy road her bike up to Maclaren pass while I rested for a bit longer. Then we packed up our gear and started out. The sun came out for a little bit on our ride back but it was mostly overcast. Once again we saw many ptarmigan and spotted a small group of caribou. We ended up back at the car around 3 PM, just as snow pellets were blowing in from the south. We both wished we had more time to do a thru-bike trip of the entire 135 mile Denali Highway, maybe another day.

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