Denali National Park has about six million acres. One road goes into the park that is 91 miles long. Private vehicles can only drive the first 15 miles unless they are camped further in. Then they receive a pass to go in and out one time. Past Savage River, you must take a park shuttle or bus tour to go further.
To see as much of the park and learn as much as we could, we signed up for the all-day Kantishna Experience tour. Shuttles go to Kantishna, the end of the line, but don't include the narration, ranger tour or lunch. Both take 12-13 hours. Ugh...
Buses leave from the Wilderness Center near the entrance to the park. We snagged prime seats up front opposite the driver so we had both a windshield view and a side view. Our driver, Laurie, had a PhD in biology and several years driving the park so was knowledgeable about the park. She had to be to talk to us for that length of time! We had restroom stops every one and one-half hours or so plus we stopped for wildlife, though we didn't get out for wildlife.
We had a glorious sunny day. We got excellent views of Denali. But that meant, wildlife was scarcer than it might have been otherwise because it was so warm. Also, seeing wildlife is a little bit of luck. If you are there when that bear crosses the road, what a sight. A bus coming along a few minutes later may only see the bushes moving or nothing at all. (Ptarmigan to the right.)
We saw one bear. We could kinda sorta tell it was a bear but the photos look like golden dots. George had his 28-105 mm lens on his Nikon D70. He has debated getting a longer lenses, but then the panoramic photos don't come out well and, for many shots and the big lenses, you need a tripod. It's a trade off. So the photos I've included are zoomed in on and cropped. They bring back the memory of seeing that animal.
For me, most thrilling was seeing three foxes hunting. George caught this one mid-air as he jumped on some sort of little critter. He had just finished munching on a meal before that. The other thrill for me was seeing golden eagles. I may have seen a golden eagle in the wild but did not know what I was seeing so that doesn't count. I've seen plenty of bald eagles, condors and vultures but these were the first confirmed golden eagles.
The landscape changed as we traveled. Wide river beds with only small streams flowing swiftly, filled with water gray from glacial silt with tall mountains rising on either side. Sometimes the mountains were bare - above timberline, which is around 3,000 feet this far north. Sometimes they were rocky, other times smooth. Kodachrome Pass had a medley of colors. And then, of course, we sometimes saw Denali - snow covered and awesome.
Denali is certainly one of the highlights of our trip for me. It would be fun to work here and have a whole summer to experience the park. I say that when we had mostly 70 degree days. Last summer, Laurie told us they had only two days that even reached 70! We were lucky. Still one bus trip through the park only left me wanting more. The number of vehicle trips in the park per year are limited to protect the wildlife and environment. Even if you had time to take more trips, it isn't cheap to take even the shuttle and costs would quickly add up if you took more than one. I'm glad we could do this one experience. Jaimie Hall Bruzenak Photos by George Bruzenak
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