Exploring the Great Land - Explored My son (in red) descends to Tattler Creek on our way back down from climbing Sable Mountain. Denali National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Explored # 32 on August 2, 2018.

Heading back down the #TattlerCreek drainage. #IglooMountain is visible to the right of the ridge ahead. #Alaska#Range in distance.

Beware those who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
#photography #nationalparks #Denali #Alaska #SableMountain
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This #ptarmigan thanked us for visiting as we descended #SableMountain. Part of a small group.

#bird #birding #photography #Denali #nationalparks #Alaska #nature #outdoors

Flavors of the Alaska Range There is lots of colorful geology in this stretch. View from the final saddle to the summit of Sable Mountain, Denali National Park and Preserve.

Another view from summit of #SableMountain in #Denali #nationalpark. It's a good intro to off-trail Denali.

Advice: get a seat on the first bus of the day, have a topo, and don't go down any slope unless you went up it earlier in the day. Watch the weather.

#photography #Alaska
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View from the summit ridge From the topo map, it's not clear which of Sable Mountain's two peaks is the higher. Inevitably, it turned out to the one farther away. That meant that we ended the climb with a delightful walk alon...

Sometimes we could see a park bus near the river or a #flightseeing plane on the other side of the valley, but we effectively had this big space all to ourselves.

Part of your #nationalparks.

#Alaska #Denali #SableMountain #photography #AlaskaRange
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Igloo from Sable We had thought about climbing Igloo Mountain this day, but decided on Sable Mountain instead. It was fun looking down on our rejected alternative. That's the Toklat valley behind. The Denali road (a...

And now we can look down on #IglooMountain -see earlier post- from #SableMountain.

#Denali #nationalparks #photography #mountains
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Sable indeed The distinctive color of its rock gives Sable Mountain its name. This is the final approach to its summit. The route starts in the valley below -- but more to the left, behind us in this view, conv...

Approaching the summit of #SableMountain in #Denali #NationalPark, #Alaska. As the clouds rolled in, we got only peekaboo views of The Great One, but we had perfect views on the drive in.

This view shows how Sable Mountain earned its name.

#photography #outdoors #nature
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Unnamed ridge - HSS! At the top of the Tattler Creek drainage, you get to look at this unnamed ridge with a big drainage between the two of you. The next mountain over is Polychrome Mountain, which has these same layer...

From the saddle at the top of #TattlerCreek drainage, you turn left up #SableMountain. Do stop to admire this unnamed ridge across the way, however. It's between #Polychrome Mountain (offstage left) and #WyomingHills (right).

#photography #nature #Denali #Alaska #nationalparks
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The Tattler Route Though you can't see it, you can tell where Tattler Creek descends through its drainage. That's your route up Sable Mountain. Taken from near the first false summit on Sable.

View from the top of the #Tattler drainage. We began at the river below, following the obvious route at center between the peaks to a ridge off-stage to my left.

Next up: the summit ridge.
#photography #Alaska #SableMountain #Denali #nationalparks #nature #outdoors
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Igloo Peekaboo We got this view of Igloo Mountain from Tattler Creek as we climbed Sable Peak (5923 feet, 1805 meters). Igloo Mountain is between 4800 and 4900 feet in elevation, or something shy of 1500 meters. ...

Views of #IglooMountain on way up #SableMountain. Sable is about 300m/1000ft higher than Igloo, so a nice measure of how much longer our climb will be.

We also considered Igloo or Cathedral, all about same distance on the bus. #Denali #NationalPark
#photography #nature #Alaska

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Eventually the route takes you out of the bush and into the #tundra. No trail, but I think you can find the route without difficulty.

#photography #nature #Denali #Alaska #SableMountain #nationalparks
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Here's the full vertical image showing our destination, #SableMountain. I don't know why #Bluesky crops previews on links.

The Tattler Creek Route We took the Tattler Creek route up Sable Mountain. While this looks pretty impenetrable from above, there were plenty of serviceable game trails that clearly get some human use.

The route faces a pinch point (behind us) as two hills squeeze #TattlerCreek. Options exist - like splashing up the creek - but we crossed a rise and then descended into the game trails hiding in the bush here.
#Denali #nationalparks #photography #nature #SableMountain #bushwhack
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Very interesting I'm standing on a trail here. Really. Sometimes we had to do a little bushwhacking, but it wasn't too bad. Title is a reference to an American comedy show from the 1970s. Some of you will know it. w...

Back to our regularly-scheduled outdoors programming.

Our climb of #SableMountain started with some willow. I'm standing on a trail, so it's not officially #bushwhacking even though I'm being whacked by bush.

Oh, #Alaska.

#Denali #photography #nature #nationalparks
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Denali bus When we got off the bus at Tattler Creek, the other passengers looked at us as if we were insane. The bus climbed a hill and then we waved it goodbye.

Saying farewell to the #Denali bus for a while as we climb #SableMountain. Most people stay on the bus all day for an out-and-back to the end of the road at Wonder Lake.

Some of our fellow riders didn't realize that you could ask the bus to stop somewhere.
#Alaska #photography
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