2019 Alaska - Denali

With our alarm set for 4:30 this morning, of course I woke up throughout the night. We left a window open and now I can verify that it indeed doesn't get truly dark here this time of year. At 1:30 AM it was light enough to navigate outside although in black and white instead of color.

We picked up our box lunches and boarded our bus for the 5:30 AM Tundra Wilderness Tour. Converted school buses ferry park visitors 62 miles into the Denali wilderness, only 30 miles from the end of the single road which goes deep into the park. The first 15 miles of the road are paved and are open to private vehicles. The rest of the road is well-maintained gravel and requires a hard-to-obtain special permit for private cars. By far, most people use the park buses to visit the interior behind the visitors center.

Our chatty bus driver provided a running commentary on the history, wildlife and geology of the park. (Most-repeated fact: caribou do not like the heat.) The park has been hazy with blown-in smoke from distant wildfires, and in the 80s within the last week or two. But we had a nice day in the 60s with continually brightening skies, great for wildlife viewing.

Denali was founded as Mount McKinley National Park in 1917, specifically to provide a refuge for the heavily hunted Dall sheep, the only white mountain sheep. It was expanded in 1980 to its present 6 million acres, 3 times the size of Yellowstone and roughly the size of Vermont.  Also in 1980, the park name was changed to Denali National Park, using the native American name for the namesake mountain.

Because of strict policies regarding wildlife and access to the wilderness, the animals of Denali seem largely oblivious to the humans passing through on the buses. We encountered a moose with her week old calf standing smack in the middle of the road and happily watched and waited until she meandered into the brush. We slowly followed a yearling caribou for about a half mile until our driver was able to edge around it, as the caribou was determined to stay in the roadway.

A mama bear and her two overgrown (2 1/2 years old) cubs obligingly showed up across the valley. Most female grizzlies and cubs are light colored.

There were lots of snowshoe hares, mostly in the road where they would freeze to avoid detection, which is a good strategy for the danger from birds of prey but not from buses. 

Located just 240 miles from the Arctic circle, Denali is in an extreme subarctic environment. It's considered a desert environment, with little rainfall. The glacial rivers, called braided rivers due to their constantly shifting and winding channels, are heavily graveled and silty.

Braided river

Caribou resting in the gravel river bed.

Attractive views ranged from the big to the small.

Rhyolytic mountains

Bluebells 



Our end of the road - or our tour - was Stony Hill, 30 miles from Denali. We had a good view of the lower part of the east face. 

And then as we headed back towards the park entrance, we saw the snowy twin peaks from the south side. Most visitors to Denali do not see the big mountain (at 20,310 feet, the highest peak in North America), so we were quite lucky. 

We asked to be dropped off at the park's sled dog kennels, which are a couple of miles in from the visitors center. Denali maintains about 50 Alaska Huskies, a special breed of freight dogs that are stronger and heavier than the racing dogs used in competitive dog sled events. Like all sled dogs, they love to run and pull. The special rangers use the dogs to patrol the park in the winter and haul supplies and building materials where needed.

The dogs are exercised and trained throughout the warmer months using wheeled sleds. The rangers and dogs put on demonstrations/information sessions 3 times a day. 

The dogs get their kibble in little puzzle containers that they have to play with to work the food out. They went crazy with excitement when their keepers came to get some of them to hitch to the sled. Pick me! Pick me! they barked.

After the demo, we met up with my nephew, Jaz, at the visitors center. Jaz is a backcountry seasonal ranger, working his third year at Denali. We were so happy he was able to arrange his schedule to be back in civilization for dinner tonight. We had a nice visit catching up over pizza and beer, and time for a walk in the long evening sun. It's been pretty amazing to connect here with people we know.