Nitpicking My Way Through Lake Clark National Park (and Preserve)!

Port Alsworth, AK
5.5 mi (8.9 km)

It’s Lake Clark on a lark, everyone!

Lake Clark National Park & Preserve, like many of Alaska’s parks, is huge: 4 million acres! To get to most of it, you’d need a specially chartered float plane, with all the time and expense that requires, because half of Lake Clark is in the national park, and it’s not the half touching Port Alsworth! No indeed, folks! We were slated to spend the entirety of today’s hike in the Preserve portion of Park & Preserve, but with a little coaxing, a group of us national park purists met up at 8:30 AM on the final morning of our Alaska Alpine Adventure to extend our Tanalian trail route beyond the Preserve and set foot in Lake Clark National Park!

I felt pretty fine this morning, and it wasn’t just the validation of hiking on a Beaver Loop! Oh no! After a week pathfinding in the pure wilderness of Katmai National Preserve, walking on a trail at all felt downright leisurely! For sure, it was slippery, and there were a lot of tree roots, which were totally absent on the tundra, but some parts of the trail had been tamed into boardwalks, reminding me of my trek along the Grand Portage last year!

It was really amazing seeing the difference in plant life too! While the lupines in Katmai were maybe six inches tall, down here, they stretched up three feet! Forest packed in on all sides of the trail with birch and spruce trees, the latter just beginning to sprout new tips on the end of their branches. Tim reminded us that spruce tips are tender enough to eat, and they had a lovely pine-citrus tang to them! It was nice to enjoy snacks in the wild while strolling this gently rolling trail, lined with the cute, white flowers of dwarf dogwoods (Cornus canadensis)!

We paused for a bit at this trail’s namesake beaver pond, for obvious reasons! I scanned and scanned, but did not have the chance to talk to any local, Alaskan beavers. After all, it was about 9:00 in the morning, and industrious wild beavers would have usually retired to their lodges by now. That was a shame, because I wanted to congratulate them on creating such a lovely reflection pool for watching the clouds roll across the mountains. I hope they felt my admiration!

About two and a half miles into the hike, we arrived at the sign pointing the way to Tanalian Falls, our original destination this morning. But we were on a mission to cross the park boundary, and cross it we would, in another half mile or so. Along the way, the forest canopy opened up, giving us glimpses of a spruce grouse, some startlingly fresh bear poo, and lots of Labrador tea (Ledum palustre), which, for centuries, has been steeped into a tasty herbal, medicinal tea by the Denai’ina and plenty more Native folks!

Not much farther ahead, our path was swallowed up by another thick forest, full of fuzzy woodland horsetails (Equisetum sylvaticum) whose wispy branches aligned with each other in the most uncanny way, like they were printed on some kind of computer matrix! It was just the right kind of shift in flora to welcome us across that coveted, invisible line separating National Preserve from National Park! Our checklist-driven hearts could rest easy tonight!

These horsetails rode with us all the way to our farthest destination: the shore of Kontrashibuna Lake! We wouldn’t even have known it was a lake from first glance, because the current was moving so quickly on its way to Tanalian Falls behind us! Here, we found a spot to set down our day packs and enjoy both the amazing undergrowth of mosses, grasses, and trees, plus the views of the greater park just beyond!

So who would have guessed that the focal point for my visit to Lake Clark National Park wouldn’t have been Lake Clark at all, but Lake Kontrashibuna—a heavily Anglicized version of Qenłghishi Vena, which is Dena’ina for “boiling lake?” This particular morning, as I took a stroll along the shore, this vena didn’t seem to be qenłghishi much. In fact, despite finding a sloppily abandoned fire pit with a frying pan still in the center, it was pretty darn calm, reflecting the mountains that teased a greater wilderness beyond! Venturing beyond this point was not on the agenda today, though, because we needed to be back at the Cranberry Cache by 1:00 to check in for our 1:30 flight back to Anchorage. So we took our last glimpses of the “boiling” lake and headed back toward our original destination… and lunch!

Backtracking to Tanalian Falls, it was pretty clear why this was such a destination for hikers out of Port Alsworth! The 30-foot waterfall was rip-roaring over ancient lava rock, making waves along the rocky shore and showering us all in mist that was very refreshing on a surprisingly warm afternoon! We took in the view down here, just our group with no national park crowds, until it was time to head up higher and rejoin our 9:00 AM hikers.

We had the perfect picnic spot on top of Tanalian Falls, made possible by the tasty bagged lunches provided by the Farm Lodge crew and some extra chocolate that had been packed along to share! At this spot, Brian debuted his one signature line as “Julio” Andrews in the Sound of Music production we’d talked about way back at Vista Camp, and it really felt like a fitting curtain call. These hills have indeed been alive for us this trip, with cool plants and wandering critter visitors of all shapes and sizes. It’s really amazing how quickly you can get to know folks in such a short time out in the wilderness, but as with so many travel friends over the years, the time had come for us to go our separate ways.

Philip was first to go, having to stay behind for another flight since there wasn’t enough room on the first plane back to Anchorage. There, we loaded into the van, and Tim drove us back to the Alaska Alpine Adventures warehouse to unpack and repack once again. He dropped us off at Midnight Sun Brewing for one last hurrah with tacos then hurried off to a trivia night. With a toast to adventure, we each caught rides to our next destinations, bringing the count down to me and Ross, who returned to Salt Lake City on the next late-night flight. And then it was me, back in the Alex Hotel & Suites where I’d begun my Alaskan adventure, coming full circle out of the wilderness. I’m not done yet, though. Tomorrow, I will be making a long journey overland to one more national park, the biggest of them all! I’ll share that journey with you once I’ve caught some ZZ’s!

Onward to Wrangell-St. Elias!