Oh to Be On Geode Mountain...

Thursday, July 7, 2016 was our last full day in Denali, and we couldn't let it go to waste.  We did a lot of research and decided that we wanted to climb Geode Mountain to look for some interesting rocks.

This was not a simple hike.

First, we hopped a hiker shuttle bus at 6:30 am and rode 2.5 hours.  Eventually, we got to Mile 47.5 of the Park Road and the bus let us off.

We felt a little pang of insecurity as the bus rumbled off, leaving us to the tender mercies of the Denali Wilderness.

But we turned our attention to our hike and looked out across the tundra toward the mountains that were at least a couple miles away.  Our hike started down the drainage in the foreground:

At the bottom of the drainage, we had to cross the main stream.  We had anticipated this and brought our stream wading boots.  Here, Kathy demonstrates the proper method of crossing a stream in water boots:

Our quarry was squarely in our sights:  Geode Mountain.  Capped in mist, it looked appropriately mysterious and remote.

Kathy was not to be deterred, and she kept her gaze ever on the target:

David, too, was ready for the trek:

We slogged 2 miles across the muskeg, feeling thankful that we had been fully trained by Ranger Jordan two days ago.  While we worried that this hike would be harder than our Discovery Hike with Jordan, in fact, the terrain on this hike was not as difficult, although our hike was longer.  Once we got to the base of the mountain, we started our climb:

We had barely started our climb when Kathy noticed movement up on the slope.  "Bear!" she cried. We pulled out our monoculars and scoped the hillside.  Rather than a bear, we spied two wolves, who heard us just about the time we saw them.  They were about a quarter mile away from us -- too far to photograph but close enough that we could watch them with our monoculars.  Quickly, the two wolves moved down the slope and away from us.  Concluding they were no danger to us, we continued our climb, but we decided to change our route to avoid what might have been their den.

We reached the saddle between the upper and lower peaks of Geode Mountain and peered over the far side.  Everything sloped down to a stream drainage that beckoned to us:

The colors and lines of the slopes were entrancing:

Turning to the west, we could see the slopes of Geode Mountain that bore the geodes and other unusual rocks we were looking for:

As soon as we got onto the rock field, we spotted our first dramatic stone - a bright orange one that Kathy displays:

Here is unquestionable volcanic rock, bearing the gaseous swiss-cheese holes that betray its heritage:

Kathy was so excited about all the unique rocks, that she just kept climbing toward the peak of Geode Mountain!

Here's another rock with spectacular color and the remnants of a huge gas bubble from its formation:

Looking out across the valley, we could see other mountains bearing the polychromatic marks of the far volcanic past of this region:

Kathy yelled, "At last!  At last!  The Land of the Polychromatic Rocks!"

This was, indeed, a pretty dramatic landscape.  If you don't believe us, take a look at this 360 view from the saddle of Geode Mountain.

Closer to earth, Kathy found some beautiful rocks with layers of various shades of white and blue:

How about this sandstone-type rock with layers of gold and tan in a spiraling design?  Never saw one of these before...

...and this little gem could not deny his volcanic ancestry!

Some rocks were unsurpassed for their varied colors.  This little fellow had iridescent blues among its reds, oranges, yellows and tans:

All too soon, we had to set out on our return hike.  Because our route back was downhill, we could move quickly.  We were out on the muskeg before we knew it.  In fact, we almost passed this gorgeous caribou before we realized he was there.

Because it had started raining as we began our return descent, the muskeg we had crossed without incident in the morning was much wetter in the afternoon, and our feet got a fine soaking.  We squished our way back up the stream drainage to the road and, luckily, as soon as we posted ourselves on the road, a hiker shuttle bus arrived, picked us up, and returned us the "short" 2.5 hour drive back to the Wilderness Access Center.

We were starting to debrief ourselves on our hike, when Kathy spied two moose calves on the side of the road.  We realized that our wilderness experience wasn't quite over.  The little guy obliged us by posing for one last photo as we said "Goodbye!" to Denali National Park.