Denali

 We toured Denali for one day, ten years ago, and have often looked forward to returning. When we were there before, our one day tour was a 10 hour bus ride into, and out of the park, taking pictures of animals and scenery. It was a wonderful ride.

The drive from Talkeetna toward the park was beautiful –

   although, as we approached the park, skies bode for bad weather.

We saw a moose mother and her twin babies. Many moose has two foul this season.

 The park is monstrous, at six million acres. It is hard to tour because there is only one road (unpaved) that goes part way into the park, and it generally cannot be traveled by any vehicle other than the park buses. At best, a visitor only sees a small slice of the park mostly the Arctic tundra area. Some brave folks are allowed (by permit) to hike and camp in remote areas. We aren't going to do THAT !

For this trip we made reservations to camp at the most interior space where RV's are allowed (about half as far in as we went before). We made these reservations last November. The campsite was 29 miles past the visitor center and took a little over an hour to drive to. At the checkpoint where we showed our pass to drive to the campground, there were several Caribou running down the road. We were required to wait until they decided where to go before we could continue driving.

 

The permit to drive our RV to the campground inside the park, specified that we were not allowed to leave the camp spot until we were leaving for good. In order to get further into the park, we made reservations to ride the camper bus to the Eielson visitor center at mile 66. The camper buses are usually full, so having an advanced purchased timed ticket is the best way to travel further into the interior. We bought the advance tickets in November.

Our campsite was a short walk from streams and a river. There were moose and caribou tracks and scatological evidence, but we saw none in our campsite.

 

 

 The park service is very serious about proper food management. The campground host comes around and observes every campsite, daily, and speaks with the campers about proper food management in bear country. She saw an empty beer can on our picnic table and informed us that it needed to be removed, and the table cloth needed to be washed after eating.  

The morning after our arrival, the bus ride from our campsite at mile 29 to the visitor center at mile 66 took 3 hours. Through some of the most spectacular Arctic tundra that can be seen anywhere

 

through a couple of OMG turns, without guardrails

Polychrome point

 

It's very funny on the bus when we stop for animal viewing, many people JUMP out of their seats to photograph what there is to be seen

We saw a few bear, VERY distantly – not good for picture taking

 

A Ptarmagin bird (the state bird) slowly walking across the road, right in front of the bus, with chicks following (this held the bus up for a long time they were in no hurry)

A very distant  rare Gyr Falcon – the largest of the falcon family

After a picnic lunch, a circuit hike from the visitor center, plenty of toddler play, we returned to our campsite via the return 2.5 hour bus ride.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are many very tiny and fragile to footsteps (about 1/2 inch across)  wildflowers along the tundra hiking trail

 

 

Great caribou sightings on the return trip.  It's just wonderful to see these animals in their natural setting ... running, and moving around naturally.  So much better than the 'frozen' movement in a confined zoo setting.

 

 

After the long day trip to mile 66, we woke to a pouring down rainy day. We were scheduled to stay in the park for another day, but instead opted to leave to make the drive to Palmer quite a bit easier by stretching it over 2 days rather then jamming it into one. That turned out to be a good decision.

Cheers!  Next Post about glacier viewing.