This might be the most beautiful day we have had yet in Alaska.  The sun cleared out the lingering clouds this morning and revealed a gorgeous mid to high sixty degree day.  Brooke went bike riding around the small but picturesque campground.  We went looking for blueberries, but didn’t find any.  The Milepost says they are in season here in the fall.  We are headed back north on the Richardson Highway.

Those are mountains behind Brooke, not clouds!  Wow!  What a view!

Wrangell - St. Elias National Park is the largest US National Park.  It has the greatest collection of peaks over 16,000 feet on the continent.  It also has the largest concentration of glaciers on the entire continent.

A fish wheel on the left and Scott touching a bear pelt on the right.

Brooke doing a bear impression and Scott chatting with a ranger who gave a chat on eagles.  We touched an eagle talon and a brown bear claw and they were the same size!

We watched the overview video of the park and then let Cody practice his walking skills.  Brooke wanted to be in the picture too, so she is also pretending to learn how to walk.

Brooke was giving a junior ranger talk on the similarities and differences in the rocks that could be found in the area. She made sure we felt them too.  Cody took it one step further and decided to taste them.

Mount Drum (12, 010 feet) and Mount Wrangell (14,163 feet).  Mount Wrangell is Alaska’s largest active volcano and a plume of steam can often be observed rising from its summit.

We went on a very short hike in the forest that followed part of the original Valdez Trail that many stampeders followed during the Klondike gold rush.

Brooke loves hands-on exhibits.  She was the first to excitedly pick up (rubber models – I think/ hope)  scat samples and compare them.  On the right is bear scat which confirmed that we had in fact come across bear scat on our hike in Valdez the day before.  Yikes!  The scat we saw was very fresh and full of berries.

More scat!  This time from the red fox.  They also had a Plaster of Paris paw print.

We were very thankful for a gorgeous day.  Brooke’s cheeks are really red because we are not used to eighty degree days and sun!

We headed on down the road to the next visitors center off of Nabesna Road near Slana where Scott cooked up one of my favorites homemade pizza.  We saw a moose along this road.  It was amazing how quickly he disappeared into the forest.