Denali

Wolf - The best animal of the day

The legendary lounging Caribou

Magpie nest - my desk indicates I could be a magpie

Grizzly bear beating a hasty retreat from my invading camera lens

The park is one stunning view after another

Ground squirrel

 We came to Denali on Wednesday, by riding the railroad up from Anchorage. We had booked into the Gold Star seating which meant we were in a raised, glassed in car. We also had preferential seating for lunch. It was a gorgeous ride up, Mt. McKinley (Denali) was visible from many miles away. It is not always visible, so that was a bonus.

We had declared our hotel from Anchorage, so we caught a shuttle and the luggage met us at the hotel. That was a nice bonus not having to schlep the bags. We reconnoitered the area and bought provisions for Thursday’s green bus tour to Wonder Lake in the park.

The tour is an eleven hour tour. I think if I had it to do again, I would go with the 7 hour tour to the Eileson Visitor’s Center. Eleven hours in a school bus that was full to capacity was not fun. The high point of the day was seeing a wolf closely. That is a rarity because there are only 71 known wolves in the 6 million acres of the park.

We saw (at great distance) caribou, moose, grizzly bears, dall sheep, and mountain goats. We also saw ground squirrels, which were very cute. They stood up like prairie dogs. They are also world class moochers, so we were sternly warned not to feed them if we lunched at Eileson.

When we got back to the Wilderness Activity Center near park headquarters, there was a moose and her two babies right outside the center. When I spotted her, she was just about 50 feet from us. By the time I got into position to photograph her, a tour bus pulled up and she fled. Our sweet young driver from the hotel found her for us, and we got a lot of photos of the moose and her babies. Most of the photos are pretty camouflaged, but perhaps I can zoom into them.

Today, we will have a few hours to wander the area and then we need to catch our bus to the depot at 2:30 to transport us to Fairbanks. There, another adventure awaits us. I think I may rent us a car, so we can get around a lot more than relying on hotel transportation.

The wireless internet card on this computer is dying. That is a frustration, but I will figure out how to deal with it. The real issue is getting online to post to the blog. Maybe I will mail it back with some extra items that I no longer need.