We got up at 4 a.m. to eat breakfast at the Chalet and then load onto the bus for our 8-hour guided tour into Denali National Park, home of majestic Mt. McKinley, lush forest and crystal-clean waters. Seeing the beautiful sunset made it worth getting up so early.
They say there are five big things to see in the park and the first one we saw were the moose. It is early morning and the sun isn't up very high so the moose are hard to see. Look in the middle of the picture. Moose, the deer family's largest members, are not herd animals and usually travel alone.
Such beauty! The park is 6 million acres which is larger than Massachusetts.
The second big thing we saw were the grizzly mama bear and her cub. Grizzly bears are omnivores---digging roots as well as eating grasses and other forbs, berries, ground squirrels, moose or caribou calves.
Another spectacular scene.
The third big thing to see is the wolf. This is a young wolf that was sleeping in the ditch beside the road. The bus driver stopped, shut off the engine and we put the windows down and kept very quiet. After a while the wolf woke up and started howling about four different times. The driver could see in the rear view mirror that its mother was coming up the road. We could also see in the mirror and watched as the young wolf walked toward mama and laid down close by her. That was a special treat to hear the wolf howl. It is told that if you are lucky enough to see a wolf, consider it a rare and privileged experience. We not only saw a wolf, but herd it howl several times.
Number four is to be able to spot the Dall sheep. Dall sheep, relatives of the bighorn sheep, graze the alpine tundra for the young shoots of mountain avens.
The fifth and most important thing to see is the mountain. Denali, the "High One," is the name Athaascan native people gave the massive peak that crowns the 600-mile-long Alaska Range. Denali is also the name of an immense national park and preserve created from the former Mount McKinley National Park.
Denali is the highest mountain in the United States at 20,320'. We were told that 400,000 people visit Denali National Park yearly and only 30% get to see it because it is usually covered with clouds. We saw it three days in a row. Aren't we blessed.
There are no safety guard rails and it is a long way to the bottom if the you get too close to the edge of the road.
More than 650 species of flowering plants as well as many species of mosses, lichens, fungi, algae, and others grace the slopes and valley of Denali. Only the thinnest layer of topsoil thaws each summer to support plant life.
We got up at 4 a.m. to eat breakfast at the Chalet and then load onto the bus for our 8-hour guided tour into Denali National Park, home of majestic Mt. McKinley, lush forest and crystal-clean waters. Seeing the beautiful sunset made it worth getting up so early.
They say there are five big things to see in the park and the first one we saw were the moose. It is early morning and the sun isn't up very high so the moose are hard to see. Look in the middle of the picture. Moose, the deer family's largest members, are not herd animals and usually travel alone. 
Such beauty! The park is 6 million acres which is larger than Massachusetts.
The second big thing we saw were the grizzly mama bear and her cub. Grizzly bears are omnivores---digging roots as well as eating grasses and other forbs, berries, ground squirrels, moose or caribou calves. 
Another spectacular scene.
The third big thing to see is the wolf. This is a young wolf that was sleeping in the ditch beside the road. The bus driver stopped, shut off the engine and we put the windows down and kept very quiet. After a while the wolf woke up and started howling about four different times. The driver could see in the rear view mirror that its mother was coming up the road. We could also see in the mirror and watched as the young wolf walked toward mama and laid down close by her. That was a special treat to hear the wolf howl. It is told that if you are lucky enough to see a wolf, consider it a rare and privileged experience. We not only saw a wolf, but herd it howl several times.
Number four is to be able to spot the Dall sheep. Dall sheep, relatives of the bighorn sheep, graze the alpine tundra for the young shoots of mountain avens.
The fifth and most important thing to see is the mountain. Denali, the "High One," is the name Athaascan native people gave the massive peak that crowns the 600-mile-long Alaska Range. Denali is also the name of an immense national park and preserve created from the former Mount McKinley National Park.
Denali is the highest mountain in the United States at 20,320'. We were told that 400,000 people visit Denali National Park yearly and only 30% get to see it because it is usually covered with clouds. We saw it three days in a row. Aren't we blessed.
There are no safety guard rails and it is a long way to the bottom if the you get too close to the edge of the road.
More than 650 species of flowering plants as well as many species of mosses, lichens, fungi, algae, and others grace the slopes and valley of Denali. Only the thinnest layer of topsoil thaws each summer to support plant life.
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