SOLTESWEB.NET    ALASKA TRIP 2005 - JUNE Page 7


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Thursday, June 23

Well. it wasn't a clear day.  It started raining this morning, and we had light showers until about 3 pm.  We registered at Denali National Park and visited the visitor center and info area before driving the 29 miles to our campground.  We saw wide beautiful expanses of valleys backed by majestic mountains.  There were clouds around Mt McKinley (maybe tomorrow?) .  We made preparations for our 4-night, 5-day stay, here.

Friday, June 24 - The Denali Bus Trip

We signed up for a bus trip that took us 56 miles further into the park.  It was raining when we caught the bus at 8:25 am.   Mike Low, our driver, has been driving here for 20 years so we were well informed about what we were seeing. The scenery was wonderful and diverse; the rain on and off.  Mountain glaciers, glacial river flats and tundra (but McKinley hid all day).  The great thing was that we saw all sorts of animals.  Here is our list of animals seen today: hoary muskrat, cross fox, ground squirrels, gyrfalcon nest with 3-4 chicks, 3 golden eagles, 20 or so caribou, 30+ dall sheep, and best of all, grizzly bears! We saw a mom and 2 cubs (both going and coming), a mom and 2 cubs (again both going and coming), two cubs wrestling and having a great time, then finally a cub alone about 30 feet from the bus on a small rise.  We will attend a campfire program tonight on northern lights, and are talking about taking another bus trip tomorrow.

Here is just some of what we saw today:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can you imagine the vastness of what we saw?

We had fun watching this young grizzly bear who came close to the bus.

Mother grizzly and two cubs.

 

 

 

 

 

Golden eagle and caribou and....

 

Here we are at mile 85 into the park.  Do we look like happy campers?

Saturday, June 25 - Bus and Driver

We had so much fun yesterday, we took the same bus to the same destination with the same bus driver! Here are pictures of our bus and our bus driver, Mike Low.  I bet he doesn't know how famous he is, now that he is on the internet.

 

 

 

 


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