Day 18 – June 16, 2009
Today was another busy day as it was time to do our big shuttle bus ride into the National Park. Just to give you a little background on the whole thing, Denali National Park was open to the public until 1973. Anyone could come and go in and out of the 90 mile stretch into the park. Back into 70’s they started to have problems with people and their garbage, and of course the bears. As a result the park became closed to the public by vehicle. They only way that you could come into the park was by taking the shuttle buses in. This allowed for the park to maintain a more pure state without all the traffic and tourists. Now taking a bus ride into the park doesn’t sound like such a bad idea. Well, to take the 90 mile ride in and out of the park takes about 11 hours, and that’s with no extra stops! If you choose to relax and take in the scenery for an extra amount of time you have to wait for another bus. They bus system works like a city bus system with most buses coming within an hour to each place. Some places even every half hour. I would imagine that this system with dramatically decrease the amount of people that can see the park. Also, the 11 hour journey is quite the experience as the shuttle bus is not a fancy bus in any way, rather they are old school buses that have been painted green. Enough about that! Let me tell you about our trip.
We left from the bus shuttle station in the morning at about 10:15. Some of the buses were very packed, but our bus was only about half full so everyone could get a window seat. When you start out you think to yourself, this isn’t so bad. The first 17 miles are paved so it is a good ride with the odd bit of construction. There are a few campgrounds that the public can drive into in this first 17 miles, but you need a backcountry permit and you have to agree to not move your vehicle for 3 days after you get there (to decrease the amount of traffic in the area). After this point the only way into the park is by passing through a ranger station, which is conveniently located at the end of a bridge over a fast flowing river. Just in case you thought that you might be able to sneak in! The ranger gets to come out a count the people on the bus and bit you a good trip.
After this the road starts to get a little hairy and sometimes it just shakes the bus terribly. We had really good weather in the morning and we could see the small tundra mountains silhouetted with the blue sky. There was a cloud here and there but nothing major. As we got more into the park the clouds started to increase and it became apparent that it was going to be very unlikely that we would see the top of Mount McKinley. Nevertheless we pressed on and enjoyed the other beautiful scenery of the tundra. All the shrubs are very small and the valleys are long stretching for miles towards the larger mountains. Speaking of small shrubs, we noticed that many of the shrubs appeared to be stripped of their bark at the base. When we asked the driver about this, she said that it was from the snowshoe hare. They have become more abundant as of late. One man pointed out that some of the trees were chewed on quite high up on the branches and she said that this was from where the rabbits could reach in the winter! Had to believe that there is so much snow!
Our first real wildlife sighting of the day was a group of Dall Sheep up in the mountains. There were about 4 of them and they were quite difficult to see as they were up very high. Thankfully the trusty Bushnell’s came in handy. (Note that binoculars are a must for this trip). Shortly after that we came across a bald eagle. Jason and I have seen so many bald eagles that we hardly thought it worth taking a picture as we have so many close up shots. The driver mentioned that in her 13 years of driver she has only seen about 10 eagles in the park. They are actually a very rare sighting at Denali as so many of the eagles tend to live by the coastal areas.
We haven’t had a chance to see any grizzly bears, so that was one of the primary reasons we decide to take this painful 11 hour journey. Shortly after the eagle we came across a big brown grizzly. It was kind of comical as the big bear was actually sleeping beside the road in a pile of snow that had yet to melt. He didn’t seem to even mind that the bus was there as he lifted his head for a short moment, and then back to sleeping. Very neat, but we were still waiting for the big majestic grizzly walking though the park. Surprisingly close to the grizzly was a one caribou in another snow patch. So close that we didn’t even have to hardly move the bus to take pictures of both animals. This caribou had a pretty decent rack of horns already started, as caribou lose their horns just like moose do.
Shortly after this we entered the mountains that they call polychromatic, as they are multiple colors. None of them very predominant, but you can see pink and orange colors. Shortly after this we stopped for a rest at the Telkeenta River. The rest breaks were very short, about 10 minutes or so. We got some cool pictures with caribou and moose horns. After this we continued on towards the visitor center. At the point the road starts getting really precarious. There are crazy hairpin turns and you are literally on the side of a cliff for a good portion of the time. The drives have to radio to each other as there are many areas that are single lane. Sometimes another bus comes by and you are thinking, “How are they every going to make it past each other?” but they do. I guess it just comes with experience; however there is really no room for an error on most parts of this road. You might think that I am exaggerating. I recall reading in the book that people that are afraid of heights should definitely not take this bus tour, and I can really understand that now.
We got to the visitor center around 2:00 in the afternoon and stopped to enjoy our lunches. There is absolutely no place that you can buy can food or water in the park, so you have to bring everything that you need with you for that day. The visitor center is a surprisingly modern facility with flush toilets and running water. The building is built into the side of a mountain, so you can enter for below into the building and look out over an observation deck. You can take a set of stair and be on top of the building, which is actually right at the same level as when the buses stop. The visitor’s center has lots of near little displays including a small scale replica of Mount McKinley and all the surrounding mountains of that range. Another neat point of interest at the visitors center is a very large window that looks out towards Mount McKinley. Normally this would be the most amazing view but today we were not so fortunate as it was clouded in. You can stand at different makers on the floor according to our heights and there is a white outline on the window indicating where Mount McKinley would be if you could see it. It is so huge, it would have been an exciting thing to see.
Most tours only go to the visitor center but we decided to add on the extended package that goes to Wonder Lake another 30 more miles into the park. We were told that this is where we would see the mountain and also all the wildlife. Both things were not true in our case. We saw one lone skinny caribou and a fox only for a brief second. We arrived at wonder lake at around 4:30pm. There was not much to see there and I was expected a more spectacular lake for all the extra miles of travel. One thing that the lake does have is mosquitoes! We were for warned by some people that came in from the buses last night. Jason picked up some head nettings that actually worked really well. I am going to have to use these when we get home!
We were at Wonder Lake for a half and hour and then continued back to the visitor center. No more wildlife graced us with their presence and the rain started to come down. After the center we did see a little more game once the rains settled down. We saw a moose off in the tundra and a few more Dall Sheep up in the mountains. We also got to see an odd little creature called a marmot. It is a little groundhog looking creature that was sitting up on a pile of rocks. Very cute and chubby! We also got to see another caribou starting to grow its new set of horns.
At this point in the day I was started to feel a little at loss as we didn’t see the mountain and we also didn’t see much of the grizzly bears. Other tours told stories of 5 or 6 big grizzles and we wanted to see something. We approached another bus from behind that was stopped on the road and we could tell that everyone was looking at. Once we moved forward we could tell that there was a mother grizzly and two very small cubs on the road! Once we came the mother bear started to very slowly make her way up the mountain while the cubs stayed behind on the road. Much to our amazement the cubs started play fighting with each other! They were standing up on the hind leg and batting away at each other. Within a few minutes they realized that they were getting left behind from their mother and they quickly scurried up the mountain after her. We watched the family until they disappeared. That made all the hours of driving worthwhile!
We arrived back at the shuttle main office around 9:30pm. What a long, long day! Overall I would say that if you had a clear day and you were able to see the big mountain, this trip would be worth a million bucks. You would put up with the rough roads and close proximity to everyone else, just to see this amazing giant. On a day like today you have to just take it for what it is worth. There is lots of other beautiful scenery in that area and sometimes we just get caught up on seeing Mount McKinley. I was a great tour to see wildlife although if we had previous seen the grizzly we would have most likely have opted out. Talkeetna seems to be your best bet to see Mount McKinley. I would recommend spending the time waiting for it to clear from this side of the mountain. The park is defiantly an experience and if you are up for it, then it is a good day of wildlife sightseeing. Remember that only 20% of people that come to the park ever see the top!