Blogs from Denali National Park, Alaska, United States, North America - page 8

June 30th, Thursday Teklanika Campground, Denali National Park Left Rosie II at 8:30 after packing our lunch plus drinks and snacks. Walked to shelter with Jim and Diane to catch the bus. While waiting for it to be time to walk to the bus stop, I spotted a pair of bohemian waxwings in top of the evergreen trees near Rosie II. Valerie was able to get good pictures of them. They are almost the same as the cedar waxwing, but have a larger and brighter red bar on the wing. Our seat reservations for the bus ride was scheduled for July 1, but since you are stuck at this campground for a minimum stay of three days, you are allowed to ride any shuttle bus that comes along, if there is room. Our friends, Jim and ... read more

People told us many times that we would never see Mount McKinley, the highest peak (20,320 feet in North America. Evidently there is something like a 30% chance one will see the mountain; and 99% chance one will see bears. Oddly enough, we did not see the grand mountain until the day we left Denali and headed North towards Fairbanks. Denali (The High One) is the Native (Athabascan) American word for Mount McKinley. Measured from 2000-foot lowlands near Wonder Lake the summit at 20, 320 feet, the mountain's verticle relief of some 18, 000 feet is greater than that of Mount Everest!! Permanent snowfields cover more than 75% of the mountain. The only way you can see the park is by shuttle bus. We took the 13 hour bus ride to "Wonder Lake" and were amazed ... read more

We are now beginning our new adventure starting today. For the next eleven days we will be touring Alaska and the Yukon Territory with a tour group of about 45 people (with about 38 of them being seniors). We met up with Judd's parents, another couple they are friends with, their two children and their parents as well back in Anchorage yesterday. Today we boarded the McKinley Explorer headed toward Denali National Park. We started out with an ice breaker game where we each received someone else's nametag and had to find out something personal about that person before they could get their nametag back. We met two sweet girls from New York, Beatrice and Christine, who you will see in some later photos. They were touring with their parents for their 30th wedding anniversary and ... read more

This morning we went on a Natural History Tour through Denali National Park. We spotted a female moose with her calf way off in the distance but it was yet another fleeting glimpse. We visited the ranger station at the park and then went on to see an old mining cottage. Our first real close-up view of wildlife was a porcupine crossing the road in front of our bus. Porcupines, it seems, are quite blind so it was not surprising to see it cross right in front of us. Luckily our driver was alert enough not to run over it as it sauntered across and then into the bushes before disappearing up a tree.....managed to get a photo or 2 this time. We met and Athabascan native named Susan who gave us an informative talk about ... read more

In 1997 the family took a trip to Alaska. We flew into Anchorage and spent a couple of nights before taking the train to Denali National Park to see Mount McKinley. We spent two nights outside Denali and then rode the train back to Anchorage to finish our trip. We went to church in Anchorage and then after lunch, I dropped the girls off at the mall and I went to play golf. This was part of my quest to play golf in all fifty states. Later that afternoon we went to see the Saving Private Ryan movie. I noticed when we were waiting to enter the theater and the people who had just seen the movie were leaving, that it felt like you were leaving a funeral. The people were unusally somber and some were ... read more