What is to be said? It is beautiful. We arrived at the park on Saturday morning and registered. Before leaving the building we met Cool Judy, a fellow SKP. We talked with her about site placement and then we went looking for a site. They don’t assign you a site. We were listed as an A site because we were close to 40 foot RV. So we were driving around the first loop looking for an open site. Before we were finished we located Tom and Paula Nankivell, who are fellow Chapter 20 members. We found a site big enough for us just two sites down from them. So, we set up and had a quick lunch. As we were finishing Tom and Paula came down and we had a great afternoon visiting and comparing notes on our travels. Soon after they left, Judy came over and we visited with her also.
You can only drive about fifteen miles into the park in a private vehicle. So about 9 PM on Saturday Tom and Paula picked us up and we drove to the Savage River Rest Stop looking for some wildlife. We did see some birds, a caribou , a snowshoe rabbit and a double rainbow, but no a lot of other wildlife until we got back. Then just a little way from the campground we saw a female moose munching leaves by the side of the road. She was quite close to the road and was very unconcerned about all of the traffic stopping to take her picture.
Sunday morning was quiet and then we got ready for our bus tour through Denali. We had opted for the more expensive bus tour and I think it was worth the money. We had a tour bus that was a pretty quiet ride and the seats were more comfortable than school bus seats. Plus the driver had a video camera and when we spotted wildlife he could zoom in on it and it was projected onto overhead video screens on the bus. That helped everyone on the bus to be able to see the animals.
We spotted: Dall sheep, caribou, wolves, a ground squirrel, a fox, a moose and calf, golden eagles, a harrier hawk, magpie and a collard pika. AND of course, we were able to see Mt. McKinley, so we are members of the 30% club of people that travel to Alaska and actually see Denali.
We spotted a lot of the wildlife on the way out to Stony HIll, which is as far as our tour went. While we were at Stony Hill everyone spotted a lone wolf and watched him for quite a while. Then everyone was busy taking pictures of the mountain. On our way back we saw the wolf again and tracked him for about five miles. It was great. He finally got tired or us and just stopped and lay down in the grass and disappeared. However, not more than about five or six miles up the road we encountered a whole wolf pack traveling toward us. There were four in the pack and it was obvious that two were young. We got to watch them for quite a ways as well. We were told by the bus driver to stay very quiet because they do not want the wolves to become accustomed to the sound of a human voice. They were walking up the road and passed right by the left side of the bus.
Things were going great until we were about one hour from home base. We stopped for our last rest stop and when the driver attempted to start the bus it was obvious to all of us that something was amiss. Sure enough, he had shred a serpentine belt on the engine and had to radio in for a ‘rescue bus’. We were on the 2:30 PM bus, scheduled to return at about 10:30 PM. Well, we caught one of the shuttle busses going back to the park, so we returned home about 11:30 PM. Phil took this picture so that you could see what it looked like when we got home.
You’ll notice that there is not much difference between this picture and the one that he took when we got there on Saturday afternoon!Here are some of the animals that we saw:
Caribou on the mountain. He was posing for us!
Two of the Wolf Pack
Lone wolf from Stony Hill
Raven in the brush
We couldn’t get pictures of all of them. The Dall sheep looked like little white dots on the mountain they were so high up. I spotted two golden eagles circling overhead on the way back that I don’t think anyone else spotted. Here is a picture of one of the hairpin turns on the way, Phil was sitting in the window seat, not me!
We explored the Visitors Center and it was outstanding. They had a diorama about the wildlife and history of the park that was two stories tall. They also had a video about the different seasons in Denali NP that we purchased to bring home. Pictures cannot do the park justice, the video is better.Sad to say, we missed the SKP Happy Hour that day, but we did visit with Tom and Paula again before we all left on Monday morning. They have recently upgraded their RV and it is lovely. However, the only thing that I really wish we had on this trip is the one piece windshield. It is so much nicer for viewing and taking pictures without the center seam and windshield wipers in the middle of the windshield.
The next three days were very quiet. We went to Denali State Park, Denali North. It is suppose to be one of the best places to view Denali. Well, the mountain never came out to play for us. Denali was totally socked in with clouds the whole time we were there. Plus, there was no cell coverage or air card coverage while we were there either, plus we were boondocking. (That is no electricity, water or sewer for you non-RVers) We went for a ride one morning and took the computer but we could not locate any hot spots. So, for the holiday weekend we are in Talkeetna AK at the Camper Park. I had made reservations ahead, happy to have electric and water, as there are limited full hook up sites. Well, when we got here we found that the lovely man that runs this place had set aside one of the FHU sites for us. Yippee! I can do as much laundry as I want, we can shower and wash dishes, and we can use real plates and glasses. There are also three couples that we know that are traveling through Alaska from South to North, so we met them in our travels from North to South. We will spend some time this weekend comparing notes and telling lies, of course. Life is good!! I will close this week with a picture of Denali. It is not great, hopefully there will be some better ones to follow.
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