Denali NP

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Saturday, 12 June 2010 Denali NP

Gena here---so the blog won’t be as detailed. Charlie, Kerry and I went on the shuttle bus ride out to Wonder Lake, where all the wonderful pictures of Mt. McKinley are taken. However, they must be taken on better days than today, as we had rain for the moment we awoke until we got back to the campground. Not nice at all. In fact, more than half the folks that started on the journey out to Wonder Lake, got off at the halfway point and went back to the Wilderness Access Center where we got on the shuttle. Once we hit the gravel road, the windows got so dirty, you couldn’t see through them. We made several stops at rest areas where they supplied a bucket of water and squeegees to wash off the windows. Kerry, being tall, did most of the windows, as the driver wasn’t tall enough to reach the top of the window. However, she was such a good guide, as she would tell us important details about this and that. Such as, both the male and female caribou grow antlers. The male antlers have the shovel that sticks out in the front. Now, you’ve learned something too!!! Anyway, we had a long day, 11 hours, but we did see some Dahl sheep, a loon, snowshoe hares, a golden eagle, a moose, fresh snow on the mountains tops and lots and lots of rain. It was raining so hard and the wind was blowing up a storm, that when we got to Wonder Lake, no one even got off the bus to take pictures. Kerry called Bob when we were about 30 min out, and Bob said he was sitting in the parking lot, figuring we’d be back early. Since there wasn’t much to see, we didn’t make a lot of stops. Tomorrow we head for Fairbanks and hopefully better weather.

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Photos

Artist in Residence Quilt
Artist are allowed to come stay in a cabin here in the NP. They are then asked to donate a piece of their work to the park.

Baby raven
He was one of three babies in a nest under a bridge. He was sitting on the side of the road looking at his sibling still in the nest.

Caribou
The caribou were so far from the bus, it was hard to see them. They were in a snow bank near the top of the mountain

Dahl sheep
They were also way up near the top of the mountain---good thing I have a 20X zoom lense