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.
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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.
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.).
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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!).
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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 49
th 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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