Denali

Denali. Everyone we meet tells us that we must got to Denali. We have arrived. There are two types of buses that go into the park. The green shuttle bus, run by the park and the beige tour bus. The biggest difference between them is the price and the fact that the beige buses serve a box lunch (mystery meat, crackers and chips). The beige bus costs about $90 more than the shuttle and for that I can buy a much nicer lunch that has identifiable meat.

We started at the Wilderness Access Center. The helpful people there told us about the two buses. Since my biggest interest is moose (mooses?) I asked them where I could go to see them. They told me that the best time to view the moose was after 5:00 and the best place was in the first 13 miles of the park road. Cars are allowed to drive the road for the first 13 miles....

At mile 10, we saw two bull moose! Hurray! There are actually real, non domestic moose in Alaska. I took lots of pictures as did the 3 bus loads and 7 car loads of people at the moose-jam.

On the way back out of the park, I saw Mike in The Road Less Traveled van. He is a wealth of information. His advice, which was confirmed by another lady is to not take either of the buses. He said that if we see bears they will be far away and not suitable to photograph and I already had seen bears. I met Mike and Brenda by the side of the road while we were both photographing bears. He also told me that we should see the dog sled demonstration (free) at 10:00am and the 1:00pm ranger walking tour at the Information center. He had seen lots of beautiful rocks and lots of bear, lynx and moose prints in the second of the 3 washes in the first 13 miles of the park road. So that is our itinerary for tomorrow. Wash walk, dog sled, ranger talk and then on to Fairbanks.

I have now had three people tell me that I MUST go north of Fairbanks. Mike went all the way to the Artic Ocean and swam in the sea! It is only 2 hours north of Fairbanks to get to the Arctic Circle but much further to get to the ocean....I will at least get to the Artic Circle tomorrow or maybe the day after.