Tuesday, Aug. 23rd - Denali National Park


We had an early rise in Healy in order to be on time for 7:15 Denali shuttle to Wonder Lake. It was too early for breakfast in the hotel (they start at 6:30) so on the evening before we asked for and got a 'breakfast to go' (very simple). We also ordered sack lunches for the bus trip and they waited for us in the morning. The sack lunch was huge and kept us going through all of the day. At 6:30 we left the hotel for Denali.

The evening before the hotel receptionist told us the roadwork between Healy and the park entrance are supposed to be done by 6AM, but apparently, no one told that to the road workers… we were stuck there for over 15 minutes.  

One bonus though, while we were waiting for the road to clear, we saw a large brown bear right on the highway. The poor animal wasn't happy at all to be there and on its first chance it jumped off the road  and disappeared between the trees. But for us this was a pleasant surprise and a nice start for the day!

Eventually we made it just in the time for the Denali WAC, where we picked up our shuttle tickets and boarded the bus, which left promptly on time. Our driver was Barr, at the beginning she seemed a bit rough and focused on warning us on what we should and should not do. But soon she 'softened up' and was very helpful in locating wildlife and in providing interesting background on the park.

We were relatively lucky with our day in Denali. The weather at the park entrance was cloudy and iffy, but as we progressed into the park, it became much nicer and we had some blue skies and sunshine. We enjoyed some amazing vistas on the way !

Denali Panorama

Denali

Early along the road we saw our first Caribou for the day.

First Caribou

We came to Denali in late August hoping to see the fall colors. Well, we saw a lot of yellow and brown, but very little red and orange. We asked Barr about the fall colors, she said 'this is it!'. According to her, colors were off this year due to the heavy summer rains.

Polychrome Pass

At some point we started to see the Mountain – the peaks were never fully visible, but we think we saw about 2/3 of it, and Barr said we qualify to be part of the '1 of 3' J.

The Mountain 'Almost Visible'

On the way to Eielson we saw a bear on a nearby hill slope (Barr said 'I bet you think I'm a good driver now!'). We also saw Dall Sheep and more caribou.


Denali Bear

Denali Bear

Dall Sheep

Caribou

We reached Eielson around 11AM and had a stop. We saw incredible views from there, including our best view of the mountain so far.

Eielson Views

Eielson

The Mountain from Eielson

The Mountain

We considered staying at Eielson for the 12PM Ranger stroll, but it was chilly and windy and we didn't feel like hanging there. In addition, Barr said there's a good chance to see moose in the ponds on the road to Wonder Lake, and we were hoping to get an even better view of the Mountain. So we decided to continue with the bus.

As it turned out, we didn't see any moose, and we didn't have much better views of the Mountain, but we are still happy we went the extra distance, since the scenery was beautiful and different than what we saw before. We were especially impressed by the dirt-covered Muldrow Glacier which looked more like a grassy hill, and the huge McKinley River.

In Wonder Lake we had another stop which we used for strolling around and for picking blueberries (they were plentiful!). 


Wonder Lake

Near Wonder Lake

Denali Range from Wonder Lake

We then made our way back to Eielson for another stop. We took a stroll on our own and were able to see another bear on a far slope (it was actually one of the rangers who located it.). 

Eielson Bear

We continued with Barr on the long way back to the entrance. We saw few more bears, including a mamma with 3 cubs, though the cubs were really hard to spot (thank you Barr!).

Mamma Bear with Cubs 

Bear Cubs

  We also saw more caribou, dall sheep, and ground squirrels, but no moose L.

Caribou

Dall Sheep

Caribou

We got to the WAC at 18:15, exactly 11 hours after leaving it. We thought of driving back with our car for the first 15 miles of the park road and maybe have better luck with moose, but we were tired from the long day and weren't up to dirt road driving, so we decided to take the rest of the evening easy. 

We drove out of the park to the Canyon and did some shopping for gifts and souvenirs Then we went for dinner to the Salmon Bake and we liked it a lot. They are under the same ownership as the 49th State Brewery and share the same beer offering and the same cheerful air of hospitality. Food was very good (the halibut special really excelled). 

After dinner we drove back to the our hotel in Healy for packing towards our trip back and ended our evening.

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