A day in Denali National Park

July 23, 2015

Today we rode the shuttle bus through most of Denali National Park. The shuttle bus is a hop on/hop off type of bus, but for our purposes, it was a tour bus through the park to the Elision Visitor's Center, 66 miles into the park. The total time spent on this bus was about 8.5 to 9 hours. We had a fantastic driver and even though the shuttle isn't suppose to be a narrated tour, she did a great job telling us what we were looking at and spotting wildlife before we got to it.

Phil took hundreds of pictures all of them great, I will try to narrow them down some, but this one is going to be a little harder! 

We enter the great Denali National Park 

Part of our caravan gets ready to board the shuttle bus, we are all anxious to see some wildlife, especially a MOOSE!!

 Our driver stopped the bus and everyone starts snapping their cameras. I could not find what they were taking pictures of. Finally, after a few minutes I found the antlers of a Caribou. Do you see them? 

 He is just laying in the bush, but his head moves. I couldn't believe our driver was able to see this while she was driving down the road!

Our shuttle bus

We see our first bear in the park and it's a Grizzly! 

The gravel flats, it's hard to imagine what this looks like when the stream becomes a raging river!

 The sun peaks out of the clouds and lights up a wider part of the river. I love this shot.

The colors of Denali 

 This one may need to be blown up in order to see the top of Mount McKinley through the clouds. We didn't get to see all of it, but it was still thrilling.

We had a few sprinkles, but not the heavy rain that threatened all day 

 At this point we could look ahead and see where the road was going, we could also see that it was literally carved out of the side of the mountain

 The highest point of the road in the park

 A dream come true, another item off of the bucket list, Denali National Park, in Alaska, the last frontier

 High on the ridge above the road sits a Mountain Goat

Phil tries on a pair of antlers...not horns

 Another Grizzly, still has quite a bit of his winter coat

 Another young Caribou

 This one was in the road, and didn't want to give it up. The bus drivers are not allowed to honk the horn to get an animal to move. Ours knew how to move the bus from one side of the road to the other so each side of the bus could take a picture. She was great!

 We finally arrive at Eielson Visitor's Center. Our driver got a 35 minute break here, so we had time to walk around and take some pictures. We could have waited for another bus, but none of us wanted to.

 The story of Mt McKinley, it's peaks and valleys and glaciers

 Adult Male Caribou with full racks, isn't that majestic?? But can you imagine carrying that around all day???

We came across this big guy walking down the road, he was in no hurry, so Phil got some good shots of him.

He stepped off of the road, and our driver started to move on, but then he started back to the road, so she stopped the bus. He then came closer and ran right along the length of the bus 

Phil was trying to take pictures over my head because he was sitting on the other side of the bus, but he couldn't get close enough to snap him alongside the bus.  

When the bear got to the front of the bus, I guess he decided he had had enough of this, turned and started down the hill. 

 Then things start going to the birds...possibly a hawk or falcon?

 A family of Ptarmigan come out of the bush and cross the road in front of the bus. These birds turn white in the winter to help protect them, but now they are colored to blend with the bush

A young one hurries to catch up with the rest of the brood

A small herd of Mtn Sheep or Goats make their way down the mountain

 Another mature Caribou

 And, FINALLY!!! We see a MOOSE!! This is apparently a young female as she doesn't have a baby with her. We were very glad to see her!!

Then, on the way back to the RV Park, we passed a couple of ponds and I was looking, as I always do, for more moose. Just past the two ponds, in the brush was a Mom and her baby casually walking through the brush feeding. We pulled off and watched for a little while.

Good shot of the baby, Mom wasn't as accommodating with a frontal shot