Fun in the Midnight Sun: Looking for Long Legs and Big Racks

6-14-13

On Friday we woke at 5:00 in order to catch the bus into Denali at 6:30. This 13 ½ hour tour took us to Kantishna, which is 92.3 miles into the deepest part of the park accessible by road.

Almost immediately we started seeing wild life and that continued throughout the day. Throughout the day we saw 3 bears, 2 fox, probably two dozen moose, many ground squirrels, a ptarmigan, goats, sheep, and caribou. Our bus driver told us over and over how unusual it was to see so much wild life. He said it was like we were having a wild life exhibition. And, for the second day in a row, we saw the summit of Denali.

Our road into the park started out paved and ended up gravel. It started out two lanes, sorta, and ended up OMG there’s another vehicle on the road! Some of the curves were hairpin; all the roads had mountain on one side and 1000 foot drop-off on the other side. Terry and I sat at the front of the bus and the driver would get right up to the edge of the curve before he would make the turn. It was a wee bit tedious. When we did meet another vehicle, one vehicle would have to stop in order for the other to pass by.

Denali is another world. I can’t put it any other way. I can’t even begin to describe its beauty. I’ll just have to show you in pictures, and even then they won’t do justice. But I’ll try to give some examples.

Throughout the ride, we saw what looks like rock river beds. It would be lots of rock in a dry river bed. Except fingers would be carved out and trails of water would be flowing out or through these fingers. This water would be gray and the water would be flowing pretty fast. The rivers were called braided rivers because they looked like a woman’s braided hair. The rivers are caused by glacial melt. The grey color is caused by the sediment and rock that is crushed as the glacier melts.

The big valleys are called glacial scrubs. They were created as the glacier retreated. The valleys are HUGE. They stretch for miles and miles and are very wide.

The bears we saw were right up next to the road. They were grizzlies, blonde in color. They paid us no attention at all, but just kept on eating. They were really big! Our bus driver told us the bears really like to eat the ground squirrels. He referred to the ground squirrels as being a power bar for the bear.

One of the fox we saw was walking down the middle of the road. The wildlife has the right of way in the park, so naturally, we followed the fox. He couldn’t make up his mind where he wanted to go. He’d go aways, change his mind and go to the other side of the road, then back to the other side. Finally he scooted off.

Same way with a caribou. She was trotting up the road, bleating the whole time. Her mouth was wide open calling for somebody. We followed her quite a ways before something spooked her and she trotted off.

The moose are strange animals. Long legs, big antlers on the males, a big hump-looking thing on the shoulders and brown in color. The younger males have nubs where the antlers will eventually grow. Supposedly they are not smart. From what we’ve read throughout our traveling, many of them are killed on the highway each year. Every sign I saw warning about slowing down for moose, each one had no less than 100 killed on a particular stretch of road so far this year. The adults we saw stood at least six feet tall at the shoulder. They would be eating beside the roads, or walking down the middle of the road. Interesting animals, too, I might add. Something intriguing about them.

Our driver told us about a group of descendants of the original climbers of Denali who are in the process of climbing the mountain now. There is a National Geographic crew with them. The people are taking the old route/original route up the mountain. They should reach the summit in about 4-5 weeks. They left for their journey somewhere around June 9^th or 10^th. I will try to find it when we get home and follow their journey. It’s supposed to be a dangerous route.

In order to remember this guy, I have to mention the ranger that came on board to tell us a little about the park. His name was Ranger Andy. He at one time did some work for Jimmy Carter and was real proud of his job. He was a little shrimp of a man and we got real tickled how he talked to us like we were school children. He told us there is a green house on the park run by some of the workers. They grown him kale and lettuce for him to eat.

Our day in the park was as big a day as our day in Kenai, but in a whole ‘nother way. I just wish I could take pictures with my eyes and teleport them to you. Our country we live in is amazingly beautiful.