Day 30 - Denali, Alaska

Thursday, July 7, 2011- Day 30

Denali, Alaska

By:  Dave and Lynn Coleman

We got an early morning start for our trip into Denali National Park.  Our driver, Michael, picked us up at our RV park at 6:15 am.

Even before we got into the Park, we made our first wildlife sighting—a moose on the railroad tracks!

Michael gave us many facts about the Park—it covers 6 million acres and only has seven different varieties of trees.  We were told to yell “stop” if we sighted wildlife and he would stop the bus so everyone would get a good chance to view and/or photograph.  We were also told to remain quiet if the animal(s) were close to the bus as they do not want them to become desensitized to the human voice—they want the animals to be afraid of human voices so both they and the humans will be safer. Our star wildlife spotter was Bruce.

Our first view of Mt. McKinley (Denali) was just before 7am.  We were very lucky to have clear views of the mountain for most of our day. The number of days with clear views are very few.  Some people on our trip have been to Alaska several times and never seen Denali as clearly as we did today.

Throughout the day we made several wildlife sightings including Dall sheep, a bull Caribou, blonde grizzlies, eagles, a ptarmigan family and a huge red fox.

The road reminded many of us of our travels on the “Top of the World” highway, with steep cliffs and sheer drop-offs.  At least none of us had to drive, and the only other traffic was buses like ours. We made several rest stops along the way and had a nice long lunch and relaxation stop at the Denali Backcountry Lodge at Katishna--a lovely resort at the end of the road. Some of us panned for gold, some of us took an informative walk with the naturalist, and some of us just relaxed and enjoyed the sunshine and peaceful river side setting (a few of us managed to do a little shopping, as well).

 

We returned to our homes on wheels around 7:30pm.  It was a long day on a bus, but with views and sights we will never forget.