Denali National Park Alaska

Sunday, July 9, 2017

We got up at 4:45am, had breakfast, packed food for the day and took off for our 8 hour tour in Denali.  We arrived just before 6am and were able to catch a bus immediately.  We had heard that the earlier you go, the more wildlife you will see. We are taking an 8 hour round-trip tour with Eielsen Visitor Center 66 miles into the park.

Please excuse picture quality, it was just a little above 40 degrees and no one wanted the windows open on the bus. 
And you must ride the bus, no private vehicles permitted. So many pics were taken on the move, out dirty bus windows; but you know, I had to take the shot. There was no other option. The driver did stop and let us unload several different times, so not all the pics are fuzzy.

First glimpse of Denali (AKA Mt McKinley), highest mountain in North America.

All the views in the Denali National Park were stunning! So many valleys and mountains.  The Park is now over 6 million (yes 6) acres.
 

 So high up on the side of the mountain, they looked liked little white spots of snow that moved.  Dirty bus windows did not help, but we did see Dall sheep.

 See close-up below of colored hillsides.

We will be traveling across the bridge shortly.
 

 One of our stops where the driver turned us loose.  No photo can do this justice.  The majesty of it all is breath-taking.

 We are getting closer to Denali and the clouds have cleared for now. I couldn't decide whether to post the picture above or below so I posted both.

The winds are blowing the snow, it is not clouds.

Our views of Denali come and go as we drive along. There are some darker clouds moving in now.

 This was a view from one (of two) restroom breaks.

We are looking at Polychrome Mountain. This area has lots of colored hillsides. See below.

This is a small part of a large herd of caribou way up on a high hill. We learned that both male and female caribou grow antlers.
 

Denali through the window as we rounded a corner.
 

Another stopping point with a great view of most of Denali.  The dark clouds have moved in to cover the lower part of the mountain.
 

Another stop without clouds. 

This is the end of our tour. We are the Eielsen Visitor Center.  We liked the US flag in the picture. We were told there are currently 60 climbers on the mountain today.  Most of them are on their way down according to the park ranger.

Tic zoomed in on Denali from the Eielsen Center. Stunning!
 

 We are on our way back now and the lower clouds have cleared again. 

We had to stop for this small group of caribou.  The tour buses are required to stop for any animal or bird on the road.
 

If I have it correct, these flowers are called Fireweed. Lots of beautiful wild flowers around the park.

 These are just some other mountains in the park.

Above is a close-up on part of Denali shown below. We were so blessed to see Denali so clearly.  We were told we were part of the 5% club because we did see all of Denali.

At another spot on our way back, we saw this mother grizzly and her two cubs.  Look how blonde mom is.  The cubs are born dark brown and lighten as they age.
 

More of Denali.  I can't help putting so many pictures of Denali in this post.
 

Above are young ptarimigan and below is their mother. She is acting as if she has a broken wing to distract us. The ptarimigan turn white in the winter to blend more with their surroundings. 

We saw bear, moose, snow hares, caribou, dall sheep and ptarmigan.  We were not able to get pictures of all the animals. Our driver told us that if we had seen a wolf also, we would have had a "grand slam". No matter, we had a fantastic day!!!


As we headed home from the park and almost into town, we crossed this bridge going over Nenana River.

We were able to walk out over the river.  This river has a concrete color because it is glacial flow full of powdered rock.

There were several rafters as we were standing there.  This picture shows the color of the river well. This is actually the color of the river.