Denali National Park, AK
We had booked our campground in Denali
National Park a few months ago and are two weeks earlier than we planned. For a
$4 fee we changed it and only have to wait a couple of extra days. We can use
the extra time down south. We were advised to try and get into Teklanika as it
is further into the park but it was booked out. You can’t drive around the park
yourself, you have to pay for either tours or the shuttle bus. Instead of the
usual 100 yard rule between you and an animal, it is 300 yards!
The camping spots in Reilly Creek
campground are excellent: large, level and private which doesn’t lend itself to
meeting people though. We pay a bit extra for our sized site, but at least we
fit. There are people picking blueberries and cranberries at the back of our
site. The mosquitoes are not as bad as we were led to believe, we have
encountered much worse in Canada, so that is a relief. The first afternoon
we listened to a ranger talk on Denali Park, how it came to be, what it is most
famous for: Mt Denali aka Mt McKinley and some of the people who helped shaped
it’s identity. Denali, means the great one and the mountain is certainly great.
Mt McKinley is the Federal name for it and hence what is on all the maps, but
the Alaskan government changed it back to Denali in the eighties. You are
very lucky if you get a chance to see it, only 30% of visitors see the mountain
“out” as they call it. There are only a few places in the park that you can see
it from and most of the time it is shrouded in clouds. It is more than 20,000
feet high and is the third largest mountain in the world, the largest in
circumference. The top half is covered in snow all year round and the best
pictures are taken in winter when it is around minus 40F. So no I’m not coming
back for that one. It is the only national park that has a working dog sled
team that patrol the park in winter for poaches and to check the boundaries. In
summer they do dog sled programs for the tourists. By far the best part of the
program was when the dogs knew they were going on a run and they all started
getting really excited. The Alpha female is the leader, next to her is her
apprentice, the two behind are called corner’s as they have to learn to go
around the corners without tipping the sled over, the others behind are just
the muscle power to help whatever needs pulling.
Caribou |
We took the free shuttle out to Savage
River on the second day and walked the loop trail. Denali was shrouded in
clouds, so there was no point in getting out at the vista stop. During the walk
along the Savage River, Lindsay noticed a bird going berserk up on the hill and
he thought he could see a bear near it; we could only see it’s backside and to
me it looked a little small for a bear. The bird was obviously trying to
protect it’s nest. On the way back it had moved and we could clearly see that
it was a lynx! Which is very rare to see. It’s like a gigantic domestic tabby,
except it has a stubby tail and pointy ears with black wispy ends; very
mortisherish. We went out again in the afternoon, but didn’t see anything
except some moose a long way off the road on the return trip.
Lynx |
We had been told numerous times that we
would see more wildlife the further we went into the park. So we booked a
shuttle bus to take us out to the Eielson Visitor centre which takes you to
mile 66 in the park, giving you plenty of time to see wildlife and see the
mountain if it was out. It was a cloudy day, so I didn’t hold much hope of
seeing the mountain, but we were lucky and it was indeed “out” or more
precisely “visible”. The trip was a slightly uncomfortable 8 hours in an old
bus on dirt roads, with one section which is very narrow with steep cliffs
which was nicknamed “poison”, one drop and you are dead! The sights of the
mountain were beautiful and amazing.
Mt McKinley aka Denali |
The amount of wildlife sightings were
minimal and disappointing. We saw a couple of moose, one wolf, and one bear
quite far away. A couple of caribou were on the road and a few far off into the
distance. The mountain goats were just white specs on the hills. I think we
have been spoilt with Yellowstone. We had planned on a second trip the next day
which would then give us a free trip on the third day, but the long drive to
see so little, just wasn’t worth it.
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