Denali

All I can say is - what a day! We started quite early in the morning. Shuttle left at 6:00 and by goodness, you better be standing there! We had a full bus and the day's weather looked to be quite promising. Our trusty bus driver, Peter, was a wonderful vat of information. We couldn't have asked for a better narrator.
We went with Denali Backcountry Adventure. This is an excellent way to see Denali if you don't have the time to stay and/or camp overnight. The park is restricted to number of visitors and so they use a bus system. There were day shuttles as well as the day-long tours. Not a Yellowstone or Rocky Mountains! As a result the animals are unafraid of the road and people since people do not congregate in large packs when they see an animal! The colors were absolutely amazing. all our guides say this is the best time of year to come. Fall colors at their peak, no mosquitoes, no family crowds, animals in full winter coats and getting ready for winter (snow should be arriving within the month!). My little camera was smoking with all the pictures I took!

 Those of you who know me well, know I am on point for wildlife. The bus driver is well aware of my kind and warned everyone "this is not Disney Animal Kingdom!" Like Rocky Mountain and Yellowstone, it's really luck as to whether it's your day or not. It turned out to be a very good day! The final count was 3 bull moose, caribou, Dall sheep, and 5 grizzlies! No wolves, foxes, coyotes, lynx, or wolverines. These animals we saw were never real close to the road but we were definitely able to see what they were and take pictures.

Of course the other major reason people come to Denali National Park is to see Mount McKinley, or, Mount Denali as Alaskans say. This mountain is North America's highest at 20,320 feet. Having said that, they say it is easier to see a grizzly than see the mountain due to weather. You have a 95% chance of seeing a grizzly during your stay at Denali and only a 25-30% chance to see Mt Denali. Our tour bus driver said he's only had a day as good as today maybe 3 times all season!!!! So we were very, very lucky. Here Denali is:

There are no words adequate to describe this mountain and Denali National Park. I could fill this blog with pictures but I won't! It was a very long fulfilling day. We went to the end of the road at Kantishna, had lunch,went on a botany hike. I'm ready to go back to my amateur naturalist ways. Berries are all out (have to watch our for the bears though) - blueberries, lingonberries, berries on dogwood (Mom, dogwood grows only 2 inches high!), other ones I can't remember...and the mushrooms. Whooo, so many in this one area. I love taking pictures of mushrooms! I'm very lucky our guide didn't leave me in the woods!

One story I am going to tell you though is, on the way back, we passed next to some cliffs. A few of us shouted that there were Dall sheep to the left of us ( you have to do that so we don't miss animals). So Peter slams on the brakes and we stop to count. There's one young sheep at the top looking for all the world like he was ruling over his domain. As we watch, a golden eagle flies by and tries to push the youngster off the cliff! The eagle is too small to grab them, but they knock them off and feed on them after they die! Anyway, the youngster got off after a couple of missed attempts by the eagle...and all was well (except the eagle was hungry). Even the bus driver was impressed and said again how lucky our group was!!

 The trip back was pretty uneventful after that. We saw one more bull moose but all was pretty quiet except for the buses carrying in people to spend the night. When we got back in town, we ate pizza and grabbed the last shuttle to our cabin. Some of our group got up during the night to check for northern lights but they were unsuccessful. The University of Alaska at Fairbanks puts out a daily forecast for the northern lights and tonight's was 'slim'. We went to bed instead. It had been a long but exciting and successful day.