Today we took the Denali Park shuttle from the Wilderness Access Center to the Eielson Visitor Center at milepost 66. We were quite fortunate in that we only had 7 people on our bus (converted school bus) and could choose any seat. The ride wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought since after mile 15 it is a dirt/gravel road! The Polychrome Pass area although beautiful did terrify me, there were 800-900 foot drop offs on a one lane road with no guard rails, just a drop off…
Most of the animals were off at a distance so it was difficult to get good photos of them but we did see grizzly bear (nothing like the up close and personal viewing that we had at Morine Creek in Katmai though. We also saw a moose, many caribou, dall sheep, and several golden eagles. We also were able to see the north peak of Denali during a brief clearing from 70 miles out. There is only a 4% chance of seeing the summit of Denali during the month of August. There was a fresh coat of snow on the peaks today. The weather was ever changing since we had 50 mph winds most of the day. But essentially no rain J.
We met a lot of really cool people on the bus on the way back. There was a hydrology professor from Oxford that was doing glacier result as it relates to global warming. She had some very interesting stories about her hiking out to her research areas to collect her data.
Tomorrow we are heading back to the bus and will go out to Wonder Lake at the 85 mile point. It will be 12 hours on the bus, but should give us a really good feel for the park.
Kate
Bull Caribou
North Peak of Denali - look carefully in the clouds
Dall Sheep
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