Our first day exploring Denali National Park involved a 5am wake up and 184 miles on a dirt-gravel road in a school bus – it was outstanding and we just loved it!  In fact, the only problem was some extreme frustration because there were so many places we wanted to stop and savor the landscape or to get a better view of some wildlife along the way.  We didn’t get back to our hotel until about 8pm so we put the camera batteries on chargers, grabbed a quick bite of dinner, and fell into bed so we could do it all over again.

Our second day in Denali was a bit less structured – we decided to take one of the park buses up to Mile 66 – to the Eielson Visitor Center so we could spend some time hiking.  We still had to get up at 5am in order to catch a park bus that would get us to Eielson early enough to have plenty of time for hiking, and we arranged for box lunches from our hotel since there isn’t anything available inside the park.

An interesting feature of Denali is that there aren’t that many actual hiking trails – rather the park is just open wilderness and you can hike anywhere.  Along the first few miles of the park road there were temporary signs closing that area to hiking because it was moose mating season.  Moose are grumpy and dangerous enough on a good day; I hate to think of how much worse they can be when they’re rutting.  But the good news is that we saw a number of moose……and one was very close to the edge of the road.  (I wonder how thick the steel is on a school bus?)We were most excited about the moose, caribou and Dall sheep since they aren’t things we see down in SE Alaska very often.  We saw a number of brown bears, though they are called “grizzlies” in the interior and they are smaller than the coastal brown bears that we’re used to because they don’t have all that salmon in their diet.We saw a number of Dall sheep up on the mountainsides, though they were usually too far away for good photographs.  This ram came down a bit lower so we could get a better view.  Sometimes it’s hard to decide whether to just look at them with powerful binoculars or try to get a photograph, hand-holding a long lens.  Regardless, any wildlife sighting is a thrill.

We had a number of caribou sightings, and they are impressive with their huge antlers.  One caribou even ran across the road in front of our bus!My favorite was this one, though, silhouetted against the late afternoon sky.  He’s a beauty!We finally got to the Eielson Visitor Center and began to appreciate the views we had the day before.  Our second day was overcast which made the chilly temps feel much colder, and we never saw the mountain (THE mountain) all day.  We decided to hike up the Alpine Trail behind the center, through the high tundra.  It wasn’t a very long hike but it was very steep, climbing over 1000′ feet on a mile-long trail.  We stopped often to catch our breath, but we were lucky enough to hear and then see some little pika – 6″ long mouse-like animals that live in the rocky high country.  They don’t hibernate, so they were very busy gathering food to get them through the long winter.

The tundra seems plain and barren, but there was a lot of subtle fall color in the various plants and the lichens growing on the rocks.  The views along the trail were grand sweeping landscapes, though they would have been even better if we could have seen the mountain from up there.As we got higher up the mountain the wind really made us feel the cold, and we were glad we brought some layers of clothing, warm hats, and gloves.  It was very strange to be standing on snow on August 31st, but that’s Denali.  As of today, the park road is completely closed due to snow, only accessible by dog sled until spring.

After the flight to see the Alaska Range of mountains and Denali (Mt. McKinley) we headed to Denali National Park for two too-short days of exploration.  I apologize that the blog is so far behind, but note that we were in Denali in the last days of August.  Summer, right?  No – we were lucky enough to catch the short fall season which only lasts for a few weeks.  Note the light dusting of snow on the mountains in the background – it was pretty chilly, with temps dipping into the high 30s overnight but the autumn color was well worth it.You have to set your alarm clocks for an early (5 am) wake-up if you want to really see Denali National Park.  The 6 million acre park is difficult to explore since there’s only one road into the wilderness, 92 miles long.  The first 15 miles are paved and open to private vehicles, and beyond that the road is dirt/gravel and only open to the park’s Blue Bird (school) buses.  The buses will stop for wildlife sightings, but you can’t get off the bus for those stops.  We had to do a lot of jumping up and down to wrestle with the sticky school bus windows to get photographs or video, and it was a bit frustrating.  On the first day we took a tour that traveled the entire 92 miles of the park road to the Kantishna Road house, and we were incredibly lucky to have glorious weather.  It was chilly, but very clear and we had perfect views of Denali (THE mountain) all day long.  We didn’t realize how rare it is to be able to see the mountain from the park – only 30% of the visitors get to see any of the mountain, and even then it is often partially obscured by clouds.  Less than 10% of the park’s visitors get the kind of view we had, which was just awesome.

Here’s Denali framed by some caribou antlers at the Eielson Visitor Center at mile 66…And Jim showing us how big and very heavy those antlers are!  I wanted him to hold them on top of his head but they were just too ungainly.We had some great wildlife sightings along the way – moose, caribou, bears, and Dall sheep, but I’ll save most of them for tomorrow’s Part 2 posting.  We had fun watching the little arctic ground squirrels, though the ones near the visitor center were pretty plucky, looking for food in anyone’s bag left on the ground.

After a number of wildlife sightings and some stops where we could get out and stretch our legs we finally got to the end of the park road at mile 92.  We left our hotel around 6:30 am and arrived at the Kantishna Roadhouse around 1pm.

We had a little lunch and were treated to a talk and small demonstration about sled dogs from a winner of the Junior Iditarod and his father, who won the Iditarod several times.  (The Iditarod is a dog sled race over 1000 miles from Anchorage to Nome held every March.  The experience, expertise, and physical and mental fortitude of these competitors is simply amazing, and here in Alaska they are rock stars.)

The talk was illustrated with a real sled and some little stuffed dog toys as we learned about lead dogs and wheel dogs, and the demonstration used just 6 dogs (where an Iditarod team might have 16) to show us a little of how it’s done.  The dogs were so happy to run, and they are obviously very well cared for.We were glad we chose to go the entire distance into the park on the first day so we could figure out how to make the best use of our time on the second day.  It was a long ride back out the park road, and we spotted places to go hiking, looked at wildlife, and enjoyed those Denali views all the way.  The fall color and the snow were quite unexpected, and the rangers at the Eielson Visitor Center told us that they’ve had snow in every month this year.Denali (the park) was very overwhelming – so much wildlife and such stunning landscapes.  The color in the alpine tundra was so pretty, especially set against the snow covered mountains of the Alaska Range.  We’ve already realized that two days isn’t enough time to explore and savor here.