Saturday, June 12, we left the Fairbanks area and went south to the Denali National Park area. After checking into the Grizzley Bear Campground we went into the Park. We drove about 15 miles into the park which is as far as private vehicles are allowed. We did see a moose in the bushes eating.
We stopped at the Visitor's Center and watched a movie of beautiful pictures of the Park in all seasons of the year. We purchased tickets for public transportation into the Park on Sunday.
This morning, Sunday,we got up early to get to the transportation center of the park to catch the 8am bus to the Eielson Visitor's Center 66 miles into the park. It was rainy and fog hung on the mountains.
The windows of the bus were soon covered with road dirt making being able to see out the windows difficult.
After about 2 hours of travel we stopped at a rest area where squeegees were available so the windows were cleaned, and since the rain had stopped, remained fairly clean for the remainder of the trip. On the way to the Visitor's Center we saw Golden Eagles,
a Ptarmigan and Dall Sheep. We had hoped to see more. The return trip was better. Shortly after leaving the Visitor Center we saw a Brown (Grizzley) Bear up on a hill beside the road.
Then we saw a couple of herds of Caribou,
more Dall Sheep,
a bull Moose
and then 3 Brown Bears- a sow with 2 cubs.
The trip took 8 hours. We packed a lunch as there is no where to get food in the park. After returning to our car and leaving the park we saw another moose along the road. It was a good day for seeing wildlife and, as the weather improved, it was a good day for taking in the beauty of the Park.
