Denali National Park...by shuttle bus!

Charging for the bus!

Early Saturday, the 7th of July, we struggled out of bed, ate a huge breakfast, finished packing for our long day and arrived at the bus stop at 7:15am for our shuttle trip into Denali National Park. The park road is accessible by private vehicles only for the first 15 miles of the total 92 miles. Our shuttle would take us to the Eielson Visitor Center at mile marker 66, with several scheduled stops along the way for breaks and such.

Along the park road to Eielson

The shuttle bus, packed to the hilt with passengers and their cameras, backpacks and fervent hopes of seeing wildlife, soon departed the Wilderness Access Center and began the grinding climb over the gravel road through the Denali wilderness.

Mama Bear and two cubs

Our bus driver, Rod, ever effusive and entirely too awake for the hour, encouraged us to all keep our eyes out on the tundra in search of moose, caribou, bear and anything else of interest along our route.

Real Caribou

Two yahoos 'watching' our camera
while we're off the bus momentarily

Within a few minutes someone shouted 'Stop' and pointed out what would become the first of many, many animal sightings, though most so far from the road they were visible easily only with binoculars. (Despite our diligent planning and careful packing of every essential item for the shuttle bus trip, we neglected to bring, or even think of bringing, binoculars. Ha!) In any case, we saw lots of interesting animals all safely far away from our bus full of poisonous snacks. We saw a bear and her two cubs playing in a meadow, a caribou nibbling the grass, a moose off in the distance, and many other repeats of this, of which we never tired, all cramming one side of the bus or the other for the perfect photo.

Moose antler

Polychrome Mountains

Our first scheduled stop was at Toklat, a rest area with a small gift shop and long distance binoculars where we could spy on Dall sheep grazing high on the steep mountain slopes. Without the binoculars, they truly looked like grains of salt on a green background, so, no pictures of them. Various shed antlers were available for any and all who cared to inspect them. Janine and I each struggled to lift one of the moose antlers, thoroughly impressed with the neck muscles moose must have to carry a pair of those around. We continued the trek along the bumpy road and past Polychrome Mountains, so named because in sunshine the peaks seem to be alive with color. Sadly, and perhaps, not surprisingly, we visited on a day shrouded in clouds, so the mountains appeared as various shades of gray, red and brown, though still very pretty with the gravel bars of the river below them.

Fake Caribou

View from Eielson Visitor Center

We pulled into the Eielson Visitor Center under slightly improved skies, with bits of blue threatening to allow the sun through. We struck out on a nearby trail to overlook Mount Eielson and the other dark mountains nearby. As the clouds moved and changed, Mount McKinley was partly visible as well as sections of the rest of the Alaska Range. Completely at the whim of the wind covering the mountain with clouds, it felt like wishing milk swirling in a coffee would form one pattern instead of another. Hmm. Nonetheless, we did spy the snowy slopes of Taylor Ridge and Brown's Tower below the peak of Mt. McKinley, as well as other Alaska Range peaks, like Mount Brooks, Wedge Peak, and Mt. Carpe. The sight was impressive despite the fickle clouds.

On our short hike near Eielson

Mount Eielson

We hiked out along a ridge overlooking gravel bars in the river below with the Alaska Range beyond. We trekked through moss and alpine flowers with scraggy willow bushes tugging at our pant legs. With the threat of rain increasing, we headed back to the visitor center and watched the film 'Climbing Mt. McKinley', which convinced each of us completely that we never want to climb the over 20,000 foot mountain. The harrowing tales of frostbite, broken limbs and unimaginable cold were all we needed to hear for that.

Mount McKinley

We watched through the giant plate glass window as the clouds rolled past the huge peak, never quite allowing the entire mountain to be seen at any one time. Evidently, only 30% of visitors to the park ever see Mount McKinley at all, so we were lucky to have seen it from Fairbanks, and perhaps we would see more of it later in our week long visit.

Ground squirrel
eating Ken's shoe

We waited for the return bus to arrive to take us back to the Wilderness Access Center and watched the silly ground squirrels animatedly clowning around the picnic tables and visitors. At one point, a brave little soul raced over to Ken's foot and began feverishly gnawing on his shoe. As Ken tried to gently pull his foot away, the squirrel latched on with the claws of both front feet, still chewing and chewing. It was really entertaining.

Sleeping grizzly bears
...shhh!

After several hours at Eielson, we jumped back on the bus for the 4 1/2 hour return to the Wilderness Access Center. The rain came down and the menacing clouds loomed overhead, but still the wildlife came out to play. We watched a wolf running across the gravel bars and into the brush on the other side of the river, an extremely rare sight apparently, since there are only 90 or so wolves in the entire 6 million acre park. We found sleeping bears on a hillside, and a bull moose munching leaves not far from the roadway.

Safely back at the Wilderness Access Center

Exhausted from our great adventure, we dragged ourselves into town for dinner. Sadly, we chose poorly. The totally overcooked 'burgers' we ordered at the Denali Doghouse (an apt name, I'm sure) tasted like mustard and pickle sandwiches. Nonetheless, we settled in for a long night of raucous card playing back at the RV until midnight.

What fun!