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Published: September 9th 2017
Well here goes!
This will be our first blog So bear with us. OK you have already noticed the poor spelling but there is a reason for that...OK it's obvious! I will take you back a few days first and get to the bear facts later.
We started our trip last Friday night and headed to Vancouver where we had a lay over and onto to anchorage vis Seattle arriving into Seattle at midnight Friday. We pretty much operated on autopilot once we hit Vancouver as we were both really pooped from the flight but we managed to navigate two airporats and arrived OK. The next morning we picke up our hire car and headed north to Denali national park via a small town called Palmer where the Alaska state fair was on. So when in Alaska why not visit the state fair. They had the usual stuff going on like displays of giant 30 kilo cabbages, 500 kilo pumpkins and just to mix it up a bit, lumberjacks displaying their skills on log rolling in the water and scaling trees at breakneck speed with spikes attached to their feet. We managed to get out of there without eating
one hotdog or stick of candy floss so all good.
We then drive for over 3 hours north to Denali NP and stopped at our accomodation for the next four nights at the mountain morning hostel and cabins whee we checked in and much to Steph's horror found that we had hostel style showers and toilets rather than attached to our cabin!! Ops I guess I should ave showed her the itinerary before we left but in my even earlier the itinerary has been out for months it's not my fault she trusts me!
We headed into Denali NP the next day for a trip to the end of the park road. Denali NP does not allow private cars on the roads in the park and you must take one of many old school buses which are the only vehicles allowed. It sounds a bit rough but in actual fact is an amazing way to get around. Once you have got on the bus you can get off anywhere you like and just flag down the one and get on to your destination. this means that the more adventurous people can get off and do a bit of
back country hiking before going back to the We boarded our bus and headed into the park and within a very short space of time a moose on the side of the road. This is the moose rutting season at the moment so our driver warned us that if you are in foot be very careful if you see moose because the males are very cranky and are likely to charge you. It was at this point that I was thankful I had left my Visa card at home back at the cabin! The road starts off as tar seal but with in a very short time becomes gravel and is extremely thin which means that when you meet a bus going the other way one always needs to pull over to let the other pass.
As we got further into the park we had sighting of Dall sheep, which are the local mountain goat, but these were just white specks on the side of the hills so not particularly good views were had. The colours in the park we amazing with the trees just starting to change for winter so we're fiery red and yellow and the tundra
grass was bright red. The landscape in Denali is very variable with a huge mountain range running along the southern side of the park and hills on the north side and what they call “Tundra grass” in between. It was very similar to what you find in Central Otago but in a much grander size.
Everyone on the bus was watching out the windows for any sign of wildlife and also watching the road ahead because if a bus ahead was stopped chances are that they are stopped looking at some sort of wildlife. We had spoken to a couple the evening before and they had seen 9 grizzly bear the day they went into the park so we were hopeful of seeing some as well. Apparently the bear hang around on the Tundra grass areas as these are where the berry bushes are and are what they are stocking up on before the winter hibernation.
We entered an area call Polychrome valley where the bus climbs up and up until it we were travelling along a road similar to the Skippers canyon which cliffs on one side and sheer drops on the other and just wide enough
for one bus at a time! Once you get your head around the road conditions you keep reminding yourself that this area is also renowned for bear sightings because of the amount of berry bushes down the banks. So consequently you are always looking down these banks and cliffs looking for any sign of movement which may be bear. Unfortunately the downside is that you are constantly reminded that one false move by the driver or meeting another bus could make the situation very interesting!!
We were real lucky because as the driver was slowing around a tight corner the cry went out ”BEAR!!” and the bus came to an immediate stop. Down the bank right beside us was a mother Grizzly with her yearling cub foraging for food and gorging herself on berries. We sat for about five minutes just watching them wandering around turning over rocks and sitting in briar patching eating before the driver said that she had to move on but the next leg stretching stop was about 100 metres away and we could easily walk back to continue viewing them! Are you crazy?
Now before you answer that question of course you don't
know our driver but unfortunately you do know me….so when we stopped I wandered at a slow pace reminiscent of Husain Bolt back down the road for another look at Mum and baby. Of course I kept a safe distance and hey..how fast can a bear really run?
We were spoilt the first day in the park with sightings of about 10 Bears including the the one already mentioned, Mum and two cubs and a couple of big males. All these bear were about 75 metres away from the bus so the views were very good. The bears this time of the year are putting on weight as quickly as possible and their fur is thickening up for winter and so takes on quite a blonde colour as oppose to the dark brown.
As I mentioned earlier Mount Denali only appears on an average of one in every three days so about 30% of the people who visit have a chance of seeing it as it is often unobstructed by low cloud but as luck would have it we had a clear view of it for the whole day so we can officially call our self members of
the 30% club.
We headed out of the park after 13 hours of driving up the road and back and headed back to our cabin completely whacked, as we were still struggling with a bit of jet lag from the day before, and prepared our pack for the following day when I had booked us a campsite right at the end of the road in a place called Wonderlake.
The next day we again headed into the park but this time in a bus specially redesigned for campers as it has the back seating area removed so that tents and gear could be placed there and on this day it had our proud yellow Macpac tent ready for adventure. The drive through the park to Wonderlake was pretty average with only seeing 6 bear, 3 moose, 17 Dall sheep, 5 caribou and 2 lions. OK I got carried away and exaggerated….we only saw 15 Dall sheep.
When we arrived at the campground we found a site with an unobstructed view of Mount Denali..oh by the way we are now part of the 60% club as the mountain had been completely visible all day. We set up our tent and then went for a walk up to a water tower on a nearby hill to see if we could find any wildlife. Once back at the camp we read that a mother bear and cub have been active in the camp area so be careful (this was not the type of sign which was designed to give Steph a good nights sleep.
After going for a few walks during the late afternoon we headed off to our tent for the last look of Mount Denali out of the front tent flap and tucked into our sleeping bags warm and toasty….well maybe warm and toasty is a mild exaggeration as we both wore our beanies to bed and our sleeping bags pulled tightly up over our faces…No gain without pain for the most amazing “room with a view” ever!
We awoke the next morning (much to Steph's delight as we hadn't been a late night snack for one of the local bears) to unobstructed views of Mount Denali (make that the 90% club) and caught the early 8am bus out arriving back to our cabin in the late afternoon. On the way out we were once again treated to amazing wildlife encounters of more bears and just when I thought it couldn't get any better I saw a wolf right in the middle of the road….this place is something else!
As we were nearing the park entrance the rain started to fall and the weather packed in for the night with high winds and torrential rain.
We arrived safely back to the cabin for our last night and Steph and I both agreed that this was probably the best National park we had ever visited for all round wildlife and scenery.
Well this has been a bit of an epistle so I will sign off and will try to post a blog again when we are into our Alaskan cruise later this week.
road and flagging down a bus again. Anyway we had a 13 hour trip planned to the end of the road which started at 7.30am
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Bruce Leaning
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Denali..
Sounds like fun..makes our little walk at Whatapu look rather pathetic .. I'm pleased you survived the Bears..Sounds like great camping especially with a bear proof tent..Steph is very brace ..Jennie and I would not even contemplate camping anywhere in the USA let alone a Bear Park.. The photos look great (as usual).. Thanks for keeping us informed..(we had a good laugh at your spelling (big fingers small screen???)... All the best Bruce & Jennie