Into the Park - click the moose for more photos

Well, Ron finally made a trip into Denali Park for a “Tundra Wilderness Tour”. I boarded a bus one afternoon with about 40 other folks for a 100-mile roundtrip (8 hour) ride half way up the one and only road that goes into the park. Our driver/narrator (Dave) has been conducting these tours since 1982, I suspected that he was one of the most experienced, but he says he is not even in the “top ten” of the 140 drivers that they have working this year. In any case, he was a wealth of information about the park history, animals, plants, geological history, and anecdotal bits he has picked up in his 27 years working in the park each summer.

There are on average 9000 bus trips into Denali each season (May – Sep)…that does sound like a lot but the human footprint on the park is really quite minimal. Since 1980, when President Carter enlarged Denali to its present 6 million acres, vehicular access to the park has been strictly limited. It requires special permission for private vehicles to be on the road. So, the 400,000 visitors that come each year are bused into the park and monitored very closely to ensure that they do not bring food or any other items into the park and leave them. It has enabled the park to remain extremely pristine.
The objective of our tour was, of course, to see as many of the animals as possible. And, in particular, what are referred to as the “Big Five”…. Moose, Bear (Grizzly), Caribou, Dall Sheep (very similar to the Big Horned Sheep in Colorado) and Wolves. We indeed saw all of them except the wolf and in addition we saw plenty of golden eagles, snowshoe hares and one very large marmot. The bears we saw were a mom with her two cubs. They were eating along a hillside and mom was keeping the two cubs close by. Even though they were some distance away you could almost feel the massiveness of them as they moved. Interestingly, the coloring of the grizzlies (in the sunlight) is more of a silver color than the dark brown/black that we think of. The most unusual creatures are the Caribou (Reindeer), they have hooves that are way out of proportion to their legs. Their hooves are large … like snowshoes…so they can move around easily on the snow. Very weird looking as they run along the road.

Most of Denali Park is well above the treeline and consists mostly of tundra with miniature plants, lichens and the occasional wild flower. The bears seem to like the edge of the tundra where the low scrubs give way to the treeless rolling tundra. The saying here is “The bear you don’t see might be a bear that has never seen a human.”

The vast natural beauty of Denali Park is quite something to see! Although Mt McKinley was not in view that particular day, the views of the other peaks in the Alaska Range were spectacular. From a point along the road called “Polychrome” (for the multi-colored hues of the earth) the view was incredible. Multiple peaks interspersed with Glaciers and ribbons of braided rivers.

All-in-all it was a great 8 hours. Mary and I plan to do another similar trip soon but starting early (5:30am) in hopes of seeing even more animals. As one of the Holland America Tour Directors here is fond of saying when asked how he is doing, we are “Living a Dream.”