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Published: September 30th 2017
The Mountain was OUT !!!
We were lucky with the weather for most of this trip. Very lucky here since Mt. McKinley is not visible very often. It was for a short while the morning of our bus ride. This shot taken with the zoom lens.Geo: 63.2237, -151.002
Tuesday, 8/3/10 – up fairly early to catch the 9:30 Toklat shuttle bus at the Wilderness Access Center (WAC). You can drive only about the first 15 miles of the Park Road – to go further you have to buy a ticket on a shuttle bus. The Toklat bus goes about 53 miles into the park where it turns around and goes back to the entrance. We rode it all the way to the turn-around, seeing very few examples of wildlife.
Weather was exceptionally nice on this day – clear sunny and not too hot. And the “Mountain Was OUT”. That is the term used to mean that Mt. McKinley was visible. Apparently, due to the clouds and mist that are generated by the high altitude of the mountain, it is relatively rare for it to be visible from the Denali road. It was visible for our ride out to Toklat but was covered with clouds by the time we got off the bus and actually did some hiking. Mt. McKinley is the highest mountain in North America at 20,320 feet and the Athabaskan name for it is Denali. The name has not been officially changed to Denali Mt. McKinley
Taken from the road with no zoom lens. From this point on the road the bus driver said Mt. McKinley was around 80 or so miles away. because of an Ohio senator who keeps blocking it because President Wm. McKinley, for whom the mt. was originally named, was from Ohio. Makes sense to me.
The road generally has mountains on the north side, the right side of the bus on the trip out, and a valley with creek and/or river bottoms on the south or left side. We saw a couple of bears on the way out that were down in the valley along the river, maybe a mile or so away. Not real close but could tell they were bears. After the turnaround, we rode back to about the 46 mile marker where the ascent over Polychrome Pass begins. We got off the bus and hiked across a low boggy area, through some bushy willows to a point where we could climb up to the ridge line of the Polychrome Mountains. Once on the ridge, hiking was pretty easy with a couple of exceptions. Elevation at the start where we left the road was about 3,700 feet and the highest elevation we got to on the ridge line was about 4,300 feet so not too much elevation gain today. But the views and the wildlife we saw
Ptarmigan
This is the state bird of Alaska. These four, along with several others, were sighted along the road. made this one of the best, if not the best, hike of the trip. After attaining the ridgeline, we walked west along the ridge and saw a pair of Dall Sheep grazing on the north slope. Took a few pictures of them, then continued along the ridge to almost the end of the ridge where we topped a knoll and found two more dall sheep grazing not more than 100feet away. Got some pretty good close-ups of them. They noted our presence but pretty much ignored us. On to the very end of that ridge and found two more lying on the summit overlooking a steep descent to the bottom of the ridge. Got pictures of them as well. Really amazing how we were ignored by the sheep.
We turned around and hiked back east along the ridge for about two or three miles. About a mile along this ridge line we encountered a spot with very loose shale where we had to leave the ridge and circle around to a spot where we could regain the ridge . We picked what appeared to be the best approach through that loose shale or ‘scree', scrambled around and back up to
Bear
This is about as close as we got to a bear on this trip. The main bear in this part of Denali is the Brown Bear. Actually that's a grizzley but they call them brown bears in Denali, as opposed to black bears, for some reason. the ridge, probably the highest elevation of our hike on the ridge.. Once back up there, we could see a young caribou grazing on the north slope about halfway down to the valley. Got a picture of him (her?) and walked a bit further and saw a mature bull caribou a bit closer grazing on the south slope. He had a huge set of antlers. Got his picture and continued a bit further to a point where we would have to climb a steep slope to the top of another peak. At this point it was getting fairly late so we decided to go back to the road to catch another bus back.
Getting back to the road was a chore, down a really steep slope with lots of loose shale, gravel, dirt, etc. to the lower valley, then back up a small foothill through fairly dense brush, and finally back to the road where we walked up to Polychrome Overlook. Saw two more bears from there, a mother and her cub apparently, down along the river bottom. All the bears we saw were down low along the river so, thankfully, did not have any close encounters with any of
Toklat turn around.
Our shuttle turned around here at the Toklat river. Everyone disembarked for a nature call and a visit to the gift shop/visitor center tent (out of the picture to the right) set up here. them. Tried flagging down the first two buses, but they were full. Caught the third bus which was a “sweeper” bus out to bring in late hikers.
That trip back was a real ‘trip'. Saw a couple more bears from the bus, then a wolf showed up, right in the middle of the road in front of the bus. He/she was just trotting along the road. The bus drivers are very conscious of the wildlife and do their utmost not to bother them more than absolutely necessary. No loud talking allowed, no hands or arms allowed out the windows, etc. The driver of this bus could not pass the wolf without changing his (the wolf's) behavior, so we followed behind slowly. Very slowly. Followed him for about 4 miles – took an hour or more before he trotted off to the right and we could pass. En-route the wolf stalked and caught what appeared to be an arctic ground squirrel, took it 100 or so feet off the road and had a snack. The bus stopped, and we watched while he quickly finished his meal, returned to the road, and continued in front of us. Shortly after this, we saw
Valley and Mountains to the north of the ridge
I think this is a shot from the ridge we walked along after getting off of the bus and climbing to the top of the ridgeline. There is a creek bottom near the bottom of the ridge with a river in the valley beyond with the mountains to the north in the distance. Since the road was to the south of the ridge, and I don't see the road in this picture, I'm assuming this is a view to the north. a large caribou off to the left of the road. Wolf saw it too. Stalked it a little until the caribou saw the wolf and dashed, really fast, off to the left. Wolf retuned to the road and continued his journey. This was really getting old – and late. Finally he moseyed off to the right and disappeared under the brush, and we were allowed to pass.
Finally arrived back at the WAC around 8:00 PM. On the drive back to the motel we stopped in the ‘canyon' along the park highway where most of the commercial establishments, hotels, restaurants, gift shops, etc., are. Ate a pizza at Prospector's Pizzeria (very good) and had another sample of Alaskan beer (also very good). This place advertized that it offered 49 different brands of beer and, though I did not count them, I believe it did, most of them Alaskan brewed. Very nice place. Back to the motel and bed – a late night for me.
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