Denali National Park

We Joined the 30 Percenters Club!!

We drove north from Wasilla up the Parks Highway towards Denali National Park in cloudy, gloomy weather.  Because of the overcast conditions, we didn't get to stop at the two turnouts to see "The Great One"--Denali is the Athabascan name for Mt. McKinley.  As we were to learn at The Visitors Center and later on our bus tour, only 30% of the people who visit the park get to actually see the summit due to clouds and overcast weather. 
The park was established in the early 1900s and the mountain was named Mt. McKinley.  In 1980, the name was changed to Denali and the park renamed Denali National Park.  It was originally established as a wildlife preserve--the original park was about 2 million acres and it is now over 6 million acres:  that is about the size of Massachusetts!!
The next day started out still somewhat cloudy.  We drove to the Visitors Center which is located on the far northeastern corner of the park.

The Visitors Center had numerous displays of the park's wildlife

Then we ventured on out into the park:  private vehicles can drive about 15 miles into the northeastern corner of the park--to go further, one must take one of the buses which run deeper into the park.
About 8 miles into the park, we came over a hill and spotted the mountain!  Rich pulled into a turnout where a mom and some kids had stopped--the mom was scanning the mountain range with binoculars.  Looking through his camera lens, Rich was sure he saw a piece of the mountain.  The mom asked him to look through the binocs because she hadn't found it yet and sure enough, there was a bit of Denali's south ridge showing!  We all had a look through her binoculars!  The photos below are just teasers:  but we did see a bit of "The Great One"!  At this point, the mountain is about 75 miles to the southwest of our location on the Denali Park Road!

When we reached the end of the private vehicle section of the Denali Park Road, we found this good looking specimen browsing near the parking lot:

There are a good number of caribou in the park along with moose (which we didn't see), Dall sheep, and grizzly bears.  And surprisingly, there were kittiwakes flying about--one came right onto the hood of Rich's JEEP!  Maybe he (or she) thought it needed a new hood ornament!

The weather forecast for the next day--Saturday, the 12th--promised a bit more sunshine, so we signed up for the bus tour which would take us 66 miles into the park:  four hours in and four hours back out with about a half-hour at the Eilson Visitors Center to view the mountains.

The line for the bus tour at 9:15 a.m.--still a bit cloudy, but spots of sunshine!

We had our lunches, water, Cokes, cameras and binoculars!

Our bus driver was very friendly and informative--he has been doing this for 20 some years!  He gave a running commentary about the park's history, the animals, and other tidbits of fun information.  He promised to "STOP" whenever we yelled out the word because of the sighting of another animal.  And he promised that we would join the 30 Percent Club because the clouds were breaking up and he was sure that Denali would put on a show for us--he was right!

Of course, we all had to have our pictures taken standing in front of the mountain, even though it had started to cloud over again!

Jack and his ever present iPad!

We saw numerous bears along the drive in and out--and a couple of caribou trotting along the roadway, and at one point, three Dall sheep way up on a mountain ridge.  Missed the fourth of the "Big Four" in Denali--no moose!

That "bale of hay" in the lower center is one of Denali's grizzly bears!

Even though it was a long bus ride, we all decided that it was well worth the time.  We did get to become members of the 30 Percenters--many who made the trip the couple of days before and after would not have had that privilege!  The weather gave us a great break!

Next on our list of stops:  Fairbanks!!  Stay tuned...more to come