Alaska Diary - Denali National Park - Part VIII

The summer solstice, Tuesday, June 20, 2000:
We were aboard one of the first buses to leave the Visitor Center for an eight hour ride into Denali National Park.  It's buses only on this gravel road.  Our bus driver provided excellent commentary but little was really neccesary as this vast expanse of wilderness spoke for itself. Actually much of it simply defies description.

Everybody, of course, had cameras. But some were loaded down with backpack camping equipment. The bus driver explained that these intrepid souls would be dropped off at anyplace of their choosing along the route. They will be picked up on their return by any passing bus provided, there is room. I have always considered myself somewhat of an adventurer, having wilderness camped in the Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness and hiked many a trail, flyfishing remote parts of Montana. I shook my head admiringly at these young adverturers, thinking of the vast untamed space all around us.

The bus driver laid out a few rules and said he would stop whenever anyone wished. If you spotted some wildlife, with the driver being 12 o'clock you would shout out the animals position, he would stop so everyone could quickly orient toward the picture target . I was the first to call out "Grizzly bear at 2 o'clock." And pulled out my little point & shoot.....

She was slowly coming down a gully to a small creek, which was still partially covered with ice. It was already a warm mornning for Alaska, in about the low seventies. We watched her mosey on down the creek bed till she dropped down out of sight. An ice water bath perhaps felt good.

It was a good beginning for animal watching in Denali. It's just not the same seeing these animals roaming free as opposed to behind bars at a zoo. Later, we saw another grizzly with two cubs, caribou, a golden eagle, willow ptarmigan, magpies, moose and lots of Dall sheep


We brought sack lunches with us and stopped midday for a picnic with a view.



A visitor joined us for lunch. He was a horny.... oops I mean hoary marmot.

Later, another creature, a hoary Barbot, err I meant horny Barbot, joined the festivities



It was the landscape that most impressed us all. This is near or above the arctic tree line. It seems you can see forever. Vast mountains ranges and huge watersheds fill the space. If any word besides the obvious cliches comes to mind it would be forbidding. Human beings and doings seem so insignificant here. It is nature in the raw.

A bus comes round the bend.



Picture this valley during the spring runoff. Permafrost lies beneath.



The Zebra mountains.
Next: On To Anchorage