Canine Rangers!

Our main goal for today was to visit the famous Denali Sled Dogs. These Alaska Huskies are working dogs. When the park road closes for the winter, the only way to travel through the park is by foot or by sled dogs; no snowmobiles allowed. Park Rangers use these dogsled teams to explore the park in the winter. People who plan to climb Denali also use these dogs to help carry supplies to caches, before the start of the spring climbing season. The dogs are an official part of the park and are called the Canine Rangers.

During the summer, tourists can visit the kennels. When they’re not working, most adult dogs are tied to a long rope, where they can decide whether to approach visitors or whether to sit alone and rest.

Another section was reserved for puppies and other dogs like nursing mothers who need a bit more seclusion. We could see the puppies but we were not allowed to approach them like the adult dogs.

Three times a day, they do a demonstration where 4 dogs get harnessed to a cart, which they pull along a track that is about 1/4 mile long. The dogs got incredibly excited to get hitched to the harness; one was leaping with excitement.

The demonstration is much less exciting for the human visitors: just one lap around the track, with a lot of narration from a (human) park ranger, also named Greg.

After the lap, the dogs were given a chance to rest.

After we returned from the dog kennels, we went on a really gorgeous hike at Horseshoe Lake, near the park entrance. There were a lot of small steps down to the lake, but once we got there, the lake was absolutely beautiful.

Finally, we took a ranger guided walk of the forest near the visitor center. While we did that same walk yesterday, it was interesting to get the perspective from a different ranger.