Thursday, June 19, 2008

 

Woke up to a light rain, ate a quick bowl of cereal, and made our way to the bus that will take us 87 miles into the park.   We can only drive about 15 miles into Denali and then you have to be on a bus shuttle or tour to go farther.  When we arrived in the park last night, we were charged $20 for the entrance fee for a week.  Considering we paid $20/day entrance fee at Banff National Park, Denali seemed like a great deal.  After we stopped at the Visitor’s Center and found out the price for a bus ride through the park, we realized why the entrance fee is not too high. 

 

We boarded the bus at the Wilderness Activity Center in Denali National Park at 9:00 in the morning and we were all on time thanks to Tim’s prodding.  About half the riders are from Germany, so there was a definite language barrier.  Our driver was from Ohio, and this is her 8^th year to come to Denali to drive bus tours.  She was very good at giving info, and stopped when we saw wildlife.

 

11 hours on a school bus is one long day, but we did see some really great sights. We got to see 5 grizzly bears (two were cubs), lots of snowshoe hare, a bull moose, a white-tailed red fox catching something (a squirrel or snowshoe hare), some caribou, many dall sheep, a male and female ptarmigan, a wolf, golden eagles, and artic ground squirrels.  Our bus took us from our campground area to Wonder Lake. We got to see Mt. McKinley briefly before the clouds covered it.  Our trip through the park was mostly in the sunshine but there were clouds in the sky and they covered Mt. McKinley.  Now that we know where to look for Mt. McKinley, we can look for it on our own the next few days. 

 

We got back to our campers around 9, ate spaghetti for supper, and fell into bed.