Denali 7/3/08

Got an early start today. Had to be at the shuttle bus station by 6 a.m. That meant that we were us by about 4:30. Not complaining, the sun was out and it was daylight...oh yeah, it's always daylight. What we had signed up for today was an 8 hour bus ride into Denali Park to Eielson. Denali National Park is 600 acres and has one road through it. The general public can only go in the first 15 miles - to Savage Rock - after that if you want to go any further you have to be shuttled in.

So it was 66 miles in to Eielson and we stopped for pictures whenever we spotted wildlife and for a few rest stops along the way. We spotted a red fox first. He was sitting roadside just posing.

And then a mama grizzly and her two babies. They were pretty far off and played for quite a while putting on a show for us.

The papa grizzly was right on the roadside on the way out. He is huge. MM said we should say we met him on the trail lol. Not me, I'm glad I was safe in the bus.

We also saw another caribou that must have been quite old by his coloring and the size of his rack. The driver says that the rack has just about doubled in just the last two weeks.

We also saw several dahl sheep but our previous shots were better.

Being the flower lover that I am, I've been amazed by the wild flowers that grow just everywhere.
There is the Alaska poppy

The Oregon Crabapple

The Lapland Roseberry

And there are wild roses absolutely everywhere.

I think I'm right on the names, if not I'm sure someone will correct me lol. Anyway, the pictures don't do them justice. They are absolutely everywhere and when there are fields of them it is positively beautiful.

When we were out at Eielson we were about 25 miles from Denali (Mt Mckinley) and the shots were even better.

The story on Denali/Mt Mckinley is that the park has renamed it Denali, but all of the maps of the country still call it Mt Mckinley and it would take an act of congress to change it. So here they call it Denali.

Also learned a little about hare vs rabbits. In this area they only have hares. Hares are born with hair and can see and are ready to survive on their own. Rabbits are born without hair, cannot see and are dependent on their moms for their survival in the beginning. I thought that was interesting.

Hope I'm not putting on too many pictures, we are taking about 100 a day. Just can't delete too many right now. They are all just so beautiful. It's probably just being here that makes it so.

We'll be heading out tomorrow morning. We have another stop then Anchorage.

Denali 7/2/08

I could stay here the rest of my life. I love it!! We did a lot of hiking today. Drove out to Savage Rock and we could climb the rock or walk the loop trail around the river. We decided to climb the rock first. What an amazing feeling. I went almost to the top, stopping just about 15 feet lower than MM. He says there was a spot higher that you better make sure you had a good hand hold too, because it was straight down. I knew there was a reason I didn't go any further.

Here's a photo of Savage Rock from the parking lot

Here's a shot looking down while hiking

We saw several families of ptarmigans. Got lots of pic of both babies and moms. The adult ptarmigan is about the size of a partridge.


The snowshoe hare has been too fast for me too, up until today. Their back feet are huge and white.

After climbing Savage Rock we hiked around the river trail. I think that said about a mile. It was so peaceful with the water rushing past us and the birds in the grasses around us. We did climb a few more bluffs along the way that looked interesting and really wore ourselves out. We hiked for a total of 3 hours. We weren't sore, but my feet felt like lead. Love, love, love it.

And did I fail to mention that we were in the 20% group? We were privileged to see Mt. Mckinley!! It is usually so high that it is covered in clouds. We saw it all day. There were so many pictures to choose from - we took a ton of the mountain because we weren't sure we'd see it again.

We did see a huge moose today too, but a bus drove in front of us and we missed the shot. We're turning in early tonight so we can catch an early bus in the morning for Eielson. Six a.m. - I thought we were on vacation? Looking forward to seeing lots of animals.