Denali!

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I'm almost caught up with the Fran chronicles...
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This was an exciting day. Everything worked for once: we had decent weather, camping, transportation, and animal viewing! It was great to end our time together on a such a high note.

Our first view of Denali in the Park. It's about 70 MILES away!

We left our soggy camp early in the morning. (Yes, I CAN get up at 6am if there is a reason to do so!) We stopped for gas outside of Cantwell (Fran was happy to get her coffee and some breakfast), and shortly thereafter checked in at the Mountain Resource Center to see about getting a campsite and bus tickets.

We lucked out on getting on the 10:30am bus, and we also lucked out on getting a walk-in campsite for two nights. Again, "walk-in" isn't as bad as it sounds since you can drop stuff off, and then it's only a short walk in to the campsite. You just have to park your car in the "limited parking area," so if your forget something, you don't repeat that mistake. They have bear lockers nearby, so we kept all the cooking stuff and food in there. My 10-year-old backpack has been getting a good workout, since it was Fran's "sleep-kit."

Dall sheep grazing on the mountainside

We had some time — but not a lot — before the bus left, so we just toured the visitor center beforehand. We were on a "double" bus: there had been so many people for that time slot that they got a second bus. This turned out to be doubly (haha) lucky, since the bus was only half full. We first sat together, but then realized that we could each have our own window! Score!

Our bus driver, Sandy, actually was a naturalist with the natural history association, and therefore was fount of information.  She kept up a running patter about what we were seeing, from the trees, to the animals to the geology and history. It was great!

I think the first animals we saw were a couple of moose cows. I didn't take any pictures, because they were so far away, the bus was moving, you had to put the windows down to take pictures, and I already had good pictures of moose! It was nice to be able to sit back and relax and just enjoy the sights!

WE GOT TO SEE THE WHOLE MOUNTAIN!!!

Sitting back and relaxing didn't last long, though, because we did get to see the WHOLE of Denali. We stopped briefly, and everyone piled out of the bus to take pictures.

I cannot describe the feeling. The mountain is so big, so massive, that it looms above everything else. You're looking at all of these other mountains, and then all of a sudden it's there, bigger and whiter than everything else. If it hadn't been as clear as it was, it would be easy to confuse it for clouds!

Grizzly bear foraging

And then there were more animals! 

Since our driver was, well, driving, and supposed to be paying close attention to the road, which is a one-lane dirt road, we were supposed to be the scouts.

She instructed us to yell out whenever we saw something, or even if we just thought we saw something. "Bear at 11 o'clock" if there was a bear off the left side of the bus. "Don't be shy" she said.

It turned out that one of group of us at the back of the bus was a very cool guy from Oklahoma. He was a hunter, and he had an eye for animals like I've never seen. He managed to pick out movement, or patterns, or something, while the rest of us didn't see anything except plants and rocks. He was our star spotter.

Arctic ground squirrel. I don't care if it's a rodent, it's adorable.

So we managed to see everything from moose (at least five), bears (at least two), caribou (lost count), Dall sheep (lost count), ptarmigan (a flock), Arctic ground squirrels (a bunch).

Grazing caribou

We did not see any wolves, lynx, or eagles, although there was a callout for an eagle at one point, but it wasn't confirmed (hard to see eagles from the bus). Just the day before our driver's passengers had seen two white wolves harassing a caribou, but we were not so fortunate. I'm really not complaining at all!

We made made short stops for picture-taking from the bus. We were strictly warned to keep all of our appendages (arms, hands, noses, legs) inside the bus windows. Camera lenses could stick out, but that's all. So yes, all of these pictures were taken from the bus!

We were also advised to keep our voices down low so as to not disturb any of the animals.

Broad valleys and hidden peaks near Polychrome

Need I say it? The scenery was incredibly beautiful. I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

Near the Toklat visitor center

Stream emptying into the Toklat River

We stopped at Toklat Visitor Center for a short break and leg stretch. The area here would be interesting to come back to, as there are some fossils that have been found in this area. The most recent discovery is a "football-sized" area that has hundreds of well-preserved dinosaur footprints!

There were some moose and caribou antlers that we could handle. Fran got a picture of our star Oklahoma animal spotter with a moose antler for scale!

That's a big antler! (pic by Fran)

By the time we got to Eilson (about 2pm), the clouds were starting to sock in, but we could still see Denali's peak It's about three times taller from here than I thought!

Denali's peak looms over everything. You might even miss it if you didn't know it was there!

It's huge. It's massive. It's incredible. We were so lucky to see it.

We didn't tarry long at Eilson; I think Fran would have liked to stay longer, but I was slightly worried that later busses would be full, although in retrospect I'm sure they don't leave anyone in the backcountry without a permit! As it was, the four-hour trip would get us back after 6pm, and lunch would have been a long time away, so I'm glad we stayed with our initial group.

On the way back, we saw more animals, and the scenery was as compelling as it was on the way out, the lighting was just a bit different.

Grazing caribou (probably young)

We saw a few caribou on this trip (real, wild caribou, not reindeer). Our trusty Oklahoma scout was kept busy shouting out his sightings. I was kind of surprised that the caribou weren't in a big herd. Maybe this only happens in migrations, but the only caribou I've seen this on this trip have either been singles, or small groups of at the most five. Maybe the others are just out of sight!

I think this is Mt Eilson. The fall colors are just starting to be evident.

We saw quite a number of sheep in the mountains. They are a little easier to spot than the caribou because they are white, and show up against the darker rock or vegetation. On the other hand, they were really far away. When somebody — not our Oklahoma scout — pointed some out ("Sheep at two o'clock") our driver joked that they were "sheep dots."  There are a lot of sheep dots and caribou dots!

Dall sheep doing what Dall sheep do.

Somebody spotted this bear on a steep hillside. Somebody else thought there might be a second bear nearby, but both of them scrambled down the steep bank toward the willows alongside the Sanctuary River, and we really couldn't see them after that, even though they got nearer. We could see bushes moving, but it was impossible to see the bear(s). I felt luck to have seen TWO bears in Denali; close enough, to my mind!

Our second grizzly bear of the day

This ptarmigan, along with about seven or eight others, were right at the side of the road! They were pretty well camouflaged, though — our bus driver was the one who spotted them! There are three different ptarmigans found in Alaska: white-tailed ptarmigan, rock ptarmigan and willow ptarmigan. This is probably the latter, Lagopus lagopus. Notice that this bird is just starting to change feathers from the brown of summer to white for the winter. Yes, Winter is coming.

Ptarmigan, the Alaska state bird

We had seen several cow moose on our way out in the morning; the bull moose seemed to come out in the evening, as we saw two of them in rapid succession. These were the first live male moose I'd seen (ever!). It's hard to imagine that they can run at 35 miles an hour and jump a 7-foot fence — from a standstill. They are big and unpredictable. Best viewed from a distance. Not sure if I will still be here for "the rut," but that would be awesome to see!
Want more moose info? There are a lot of funny stories.

One bull moose

A second bull moose

The big wattle under the male moose's chin is called a "bell." According to our guide, no one knows what it's for. I did a little online research, and it's true, nobody knows for sure. There is some conjecture that it's related to sexual attraction ("my what a big bell you have"), since bells are bigger in males than females, but nobody really knows. Not sure how one would research that hypothesis!
Want to know more about moose? Here are some answers to random moose questions! Makes for entertaining reading and answers questions you didn't even know you  had!

Wilderness that stretches on for almost ever

We made it back to the campsite in the early evening. There was a ranger campfire talk at the Riley Creek amphitheater, so in order to take full advantage of everything at Denail, we went to that, too, from 7-8pm or so. With it being so light so late, there was no danger of running of out of light in order to make dinner!

The talk was interesting: the main thrust of it was about the hidden resources of wilderness, and the effects human have on the park. The ranger asked us to think of words that would describe Denali, and people came up with: "Awesome," "Wilderness," "Bears," "Magnificent," "Adventuresome," "Wild," "Ecosystem," you get the drift. 

He introduced us to some of the studies that are being conducted in the park. Of course, we might be familiar with studies on plant and animal populations, searches for fossils and geological interpretations, the effects of human activity, but he told us about a study on NOISE in the park! He asked us to sit quietly for a few minutes (no talking), and write down all the sounds we heard. We are so used to human noises in the background of our lives, that until we really listen, we tend not to hear them.

But of course human noises are all around us, even in a wilderness park. We heard planes overhead, a helicopter, trucks on the road, squirrels chittering, people in our group coughing. The sound of the buses grinding their gears had been a part of our earlier day, even the sound of human voices carries outside. They actually are taking these studies into consideration, and trying to figure out how to ameliorate the sound of humans in the park.

I applaud them for this. There's been many a time when I've been in the Sierra, thinking that I'm miles away from civilization, only to have planes fly overhead. It really breaks the sense that you're far away from people...

We ended the day with a fine meal of turkey burritos, cleaned up and went to bed!

I want to hold this day in my memory forever. 

And I will be back...