Day 12 (Friday, June 17, 2016)

What an amazing day.  We had been up much later than planned the night before since we really wanted to make sure we got our blog updated and were already a day behind due to lack of service of any kind.  We had a date with Denali this AM so we were up by 4:15, yes AM!  Our campground was across the street from our pickup point, even though our bus driver told us we could just meet her at the Denali Wildlife Access Center so save time at the end of the day (she was just picking up passengers from various campgrounds/hotels and that had to also be done at the end of the day and we were the first to be picked up so would have been the last off).  So we hiked back across the highway and just drove to meet our group. 

It literally looked like a school bus except for green and a flat front, so perhaps not exactly.  It felt like one on the inside except we had to wear seatbelts!  Why, you may ask?   He said that it was because they quite often have to brake suddenly, due to wildlife or even other oncoming busses, and he didn’t want any human projectiles!  There were 35 of us scheduled to make the long, very long drive to see Denali close up.  Private vehicles are NOT allowed beyond 15 miles into the park; you have to make arrangements with the park service to do one of the several tours or shuttles.  I think that is a great idea—I can’t imagine how that many cars would have been on that narrow and even narrower road for that long, stopping to gawk at wildlife and not listen to the rules and BE potential lunch.

We were gone for about 12 hours, on and off the bus, mouths dropping as Denali got closer and closer.  Our guide Craig was a really great guide as he shared TONS of information:  dates, Latin names for the animals, stats about the park and the animals, history and more history.  We literally drove to the end of the road (of the park), turned around and came back.  We were lucky to encounter Dall sheep (HIGH above on a mountain as that is where they hang out-their hooves are specially designed to hang onto really craggy and precarious ledges to keep enemies at bay), caribou (they can only be called reindeer if they have been domesticated), moose (picture moment when one just pops up out of the grasses really puts the scale of everything into perspective), a bald eagle, multiple Ptarmigan (state bird, and apparently tasty), ravens (they don’t have crows, but this is one huge and very smart bird-watch The Birds if you want proof!), and grizzly bears.  Per our driver/guide “not a bad day” – 6 bear sightings (repeat on 2 on way back), half dozen or so moose, dozen or so Dall sheep, couple dozen+ caribou, ravens, Ptarmigan with chicks, and a bald eagle (plus hare (they are a different species than rabbits!) and ground squirrels).  Craig gave us the danger dos and don’ts of wildlife and bears are the most dangerous and we had to be really, really quiet when one popped out of the ditch right NEXT to the bus!  He had to remind some amateur photographers to keep all body parts in the bus and several times he had to shush us.  He also said that even though we were so excited with our sightings, in his career here (summers for the past 11 years), the numbers get smaller each year.

Denali herself was amazing.  Just looking at her majestic presence on the horizon—nearly brought tears to my eyes again.  The only way to actually see her up close is to do this tour.  If you are lucky and the weather cooperates you can see her from a highway lookout.  Today the gods were smiling as we got to see her in all of her glory and we got to see wildlife-usually it is one or the other!  We literally picked up a park ranger who shared some stories about the first homesteaders of the region, especially a plucky woman named Fannie.  To think part of her household “duties” included hunting for food as well as gardening and everything else.  She turned into a great marksman and often put more meat on the table than her husband.  Of course, he was busy mining!  Not too many made their fortunes in the mines, so some left, but Fannie hung in there as she became one with her beloved land.

We opted to eat pizza this evening as it just sounded amazing after a long day out.  Our pizza’s meat choices were caribou and elk.  J  Yummy. 

Tomorrow we are going to a sled dog demonstration at Denali park that explains how they use them; not for racing, but for just getting round once snow flies.  Then a hike or two before we head south to Anchorage.