Every year over 600,000 people come to Denali, hoping to get a look at “The Great One”. On average, 400,000 of them go home without seeing the mountain peak. As I mentioned previously, the incoming weather systems cause clouds to pile up around the mountain, leaving it covered about 60% of the time.
Yesterday we went on our 5.5 hour bus tour of the park. These tours leave every half hour and before we came into the park 5 days ago we tried to book earlier in the week and they were all sold out. It was a typically cold and rainy day yesterday, and you can see behind us that the mountain clearly stayed in for the day. The bus was packed with people who likely had 7-10 days to see all of Alaska, and only had one day dedicated to Denali. None of the folks on our tour got to join the Denali 30% Club if that was their only chance to try.
Our visit to Denali was one of the main reasons we hauled our bikes 5,000+ miles this summer. Like Zion, there are very few private vehicles allowed on the main park road, and bicycles can safely navigate for miles. Tuesday was a spectacular day, and the third time we got onto our bikes. But as the odds had told us, this would be a day when the mountain was out, and it was there in all its glory.
People often post pictures on our Bainbridge Facebook group of Seattle in the rear view mirror from their cars on the ferry. I thought it would be fun to see Denali in the rear view bicycle mirror.
Even though we had plenty of time viewing Denali these last nine days, we have been woefully short of wildlife sightings. We had the one grizzly sighting in Canada alongside the road where the Milepost Guide said it would be. Then on Tuesday I had one sighting far away with binoculars that even Rob’s zoom lens couldn’t pick up. So I had high hopes our bus tour would provide more animals for us. This is a bit fuzzy, but it’s a sow and two cubs that we watched for a while, then further up the road we saw another triplet just like this one that we got to watch. The fun thing about the bus tour was that the driver had a camera with significant zoom and there were drop down screens inside the bus like on an airplane. Most people were taking pictures of the screen but I thought that was a bit cheating, although now I wish I had taken a few.
This is a gorgeous bull moose that we saw from a shuttle bus on our second day in the park when we were scouting for a bike ride.
And this is also a bit fuzzy, but a pic of a caribu on a ridge that Rob & I saw on Tuesday. Funny thing was when we went by that same ridge on the tour bus yesterday there were five more caribou on that same ridgeline.
Even though it’s still August and most at home are still feeling like it’s summer, we’re already seeing big changes here. The fireweed has finished it’s bloom, gone to seed, and has turned deep red. And this is a side by side of a line of trees taken the first day we arrived in the park and then again yesterday as we drove out on our bus tour. The trees are turning fast, and sooner than we want it will be time to leave Alaska and head back home.
This is just a random valley in Denali, but one of my favorite vistas in the park. We are grateful that we are now firmly in the Denali 30% Club. And we’re off to Fairbanks to catch a bush plane into Debby & Chris’ hunting camp on the Wood River.
The rest of the Denali pix are Here.