Tuesday, 6 September 2011
The Wilderness of Denali
Having experience a lot of the great beauty of Alaska (including the wonderful Denali Highway), Meriam and I were not sure we wanted to cram ourselves into a school bus for 6 ½ hours in order to travel into the Denali National Park. We asked ourselves “how much better/different can it be?” However, since we were driving right by the Park, we decided to give it a try. We are most pleased we did.
There is no question that riding 6 ½ hours stuffed into a school bus was not fun. However, the scenery was like something we had never viewed before. It was quite different from Denali Highway and the rest of Alaska we had seen so far. In fact, Denali National Park reminded us somewhat of Utah! The scenery was pretty, but not outstanding. We discovered (at least for us) one comes to Denali to see the wildlife and The Mountain!
Before I go into our experience, let us recap some of the specifics of Denali. Firstly, Denali National Park encompasses three separate entities: Denali Wilderness, Denali National Park and Denali National Preserve. Each entity has its own management, managing all three together as Denali National Park. All three combined cover over 6 million acres (bigger than the State of Massachusetts) including Mt. McKinley and a good portion of the Alaska Mountain range. It was designated a National Park in 1917, being established as a game refuge. And a refuge it is. The Park is the home of 37 mammal species, including moose, bear (mostly grizzly), wolves, coyotes, caribou and Dall sheep. It also provides a home for 159 species of birds including golden eagles, hawks, artic terns, ptarmigan and grouse.
Visitors to Denali are allowed to tour only the rolling foothills, north of Mt. McKinley. A dirt road, some 100 miles long, makes it way from the Park entrance through these foothills. Except for a few special exceptions, all tourists must ride a bus over this dirt road. However, if one desires, he can disembark the bus at any time, hike as far and long as he desires, and then catch another bus to continue his trip (or return to Park headquarters.) When someone on the bus spots wildlife he yells “stop” whereupon the driver stops the bus and everyone onboard jams up against the windows, stuffing their cameras out the window for a picture. We then progress on until the next “stop” is shouted out.
The road we traveled on was originally created in the mid-1920s as a way for the visitor to get a closer view of Mt. McKinley. It has been improved since then but basically serves the original purpose. Throughout the accompanying photographs, we attempted to give you differing views of the changing face of McKinley. Combine these photographs with previous ones we have posted and you can get a good feel for the highest peak in North America. When taking these photographs, the closest approach we make to McKinley was 33 miles from its base.
Our first view of wildlife was a lone coyote on a hill, silhouetted on the skyline. We then came across Dall sheep, great vistas and grizzly bear. At one point we stopped for a particular landscape view and Meriam said “I think I hear wolves howling!” I responded “No, that’s just the wind.” Well, guess who was wrong! Off to our right, on the side of a hill, was a pack of wolves! We counted a total of 12. The bus driver said this was his first sighting, having driven the bus every day for the entire summer. What luck and what an experience! We must have watched them for at least 15 minutes as they milled around together. Time forced us to continue on. Oh hum… More bears, more vistas, more great views of Mt. McKinley until we reached our turnaround point at Eielson Visitor Center about 66 miles into the park. After a 30 minute stop, we began our return.
As I mentioned, we could get off the bus at any point along the road. Meriam and I had planned to do this. However, two things discouraged this desire. First, it was really cold and windy. Although it was partly cloudy, we suspect the wind chill factor was probably 30-35 degrees. We were not dressed for this cold of temperature. Second, it had not rained recently and walking the road would expose us to clouds of dust stirred up by the passage of numerous buses as they came and went. So, we remained on the bus till we arrived at our campground. But all was not lost. On the return trip we saw more bear, more Dall sheep and more vistas. Needless to say we were not bored!
After the bus ride, we retired to our camper for the day. Tomorrow we are scheduled to leave Denali but first we are taking a short hike and then attending a demonstration of the Park’s sled dogs!
