Alaska Sojourn: It’s Denali Day

Denali is a well known national park in Alaska. Because of its more remote location, it is not visited as much as some parks in the lower 48. When people do visit, they most likely visit for one of two reasons. First they want to see Denali, the mountain. As the highest mountain in the United States, it is obviously worthy of a visit. The second reason is visitors want to see animals, big animals like moose, bear, or caribou. My take on this comes from an informal survey my daughter did. In looking at reviews of the park, those who had seen some wildlife rated the park higher than those who did not. It would seem animals matter.

So how did our visit to Denali stack up against this criteria? We’ll see soon enough as we review our visit. First it’s important to understand that unlike most national parks, visitors don’t just drive through the park to see the sights at various viewpoints. Using their own vehicles, visitors can only travel 13 miles into the park. To travel farther, one needs to book a bus tour. Even that can prove a bit of a challenge. Despite booking six weeks ahead of time, our only option was the most expensive guided bus tour.

Our tour was to start at 6:40 am. It was scheduled for seven to eight hours. Since we were staying two hours south of the park, that meant a very early morning and drive so that we could arrive on time. The good news is that at 4:30 in the morning there is very little traffic on the road, and because it’s summer, it’s not that dark. The other good news for us is that in the morning the wildlife seems to be more active. On our drive to the park we saw a wolf on the side of the road. Later we saw two large mammals cross the road ahead of us. We weren’t close enough to identify them exactly, but we think they were moose.

Arriving at the park in time, we eventually boarded our bus. The bus is a converted school bus. The conversion was to put in plush, comfortable seats. However, the width and the distance from the previous rows seemed still related to the school bus. It felt pretty cramped. Most people had backpacks with snacks or lunches with them, and there wasn’t much room, no pockets in the seat in front of you. There were overhead racks if someone wanted to use them. I really lucked out. My wife and daughter sat together so I fully expected to be seated with a stranger on a full bus, but no one sat with me giving me a little extra room.

Our guide was a friendly and very knowledgeable woman who had been guiding tours for about 14 years. She had a wealth of knowledge she was able to share throughout our day.

The tour travels over 60 miles into the park. The first part is on a paved road and went pretty quickly. I began to wonder why this trip would go for nearly eight hours. However once the paved section ended, and we began to travel the gravel road, we definitely slowed down.

As the guide began to talk about various topics, she was always looking around to see if she could spot any wildlife for us to look at. There was another bus just ahead of us, and when it stopped, she would stop and indicate we needed to try and find what that bus had discovered. However, each time that happened; we came up with nothing. Either the animal had moved out of sight, or they really hadn’t seen anything.

We had a rest stop after about an hour, and then continued on. She jumped out ahead of the other buses hoping to be the first to see anything of interest. That plan didn’t go so well either. She would see something off in the distance, but on closer examination it would prove to be a rock or a patch of dried grass. However, she remained upbeat that we would eventually find something. The morning had started out quite overcast and cool. She told us this was better weather for animals to move around as many had not shed their winter coats yet. They would avoid being out on a warm, sunny day.

As we continued to climb, we came to what is my favorite part of the park. Here the mountains have a variety of colors to them because of the iron content of the soil. They are called the Polychromatic Mountains because of their many colors. The mountains spread out in all directions. It’s a very beautiful and unique section of mountains.

Now, however, we would encounter the scariest part of the trip. We traveled a section of road which on one side the cliff went straight down. There was no guard rail of any kind. It was a little nerve wracking as buses were coming and going and passing each other here so at times the bus would seem to go as far as possible to the edge to let another bus pass. This is not for those who don’t like heights. Don’t look down.

Past this point we had another rest stop. This time by the Tolkat River. The river bed is quite wide and filled with a lot of gravel which apparently comes from the melting of the glaciers that pushes the gravel down into the river beds.

From here we would make the final push to the end of the road for our trip and the view of Denali. But first we would finally see some animals. Here there was an area of low tundra that eventually ascended into some hills. Someone on the bus shouted that they could see some bears. Someone else shouted they could see caribou. I, on the other hand, could see nothing. People were explaining where to look, and I could not identify where they were talking about. The guide has use of a very powerful camera on the bus. She was able to use it to zoom in on the animals and then show it on small TV screens that folded down from the ceiling of the bus. It was pretty cool technology.

Seeing the image on the screen helped me identify some of the location markers like a patch of snow so I eventually figured out where these animals were. I could see them with my naked eye, but they were dots. That’s it. Dots on the landscape. I have a moderately powerful zoom lens on my camera so I tried to zoom in on the caribou. I could just make them out in the photo. The guide’s photos were fairly clear so I could see the two bears ambling about and the caribou eating on the screen, but in the real world, they were dots. The picture below my daughter took shows the challenge of seeing the wildlife.

We finally began to move on, but someone spotted another herd of caribou, and this one was on the move. Because they were moving they were a little easier for me to see, but still any details were lost. They were just moving dots.

After sending time checking out the animals, we finally reached Denali. Surprise, surprise, it was mostly covered in clouds. We could see some areas of snow particularly at the base, but not the peaks of the mountain. I have heard various expectations about how often one can see Denali. One person said once every three days. Another person wrote once every ten days. I don’t know, but I wasn’t really surprised that the mountain was hiding. I would have been more surprised if we could have seen her full glory.

At this point we turned around and began our journey back. We stopped again to check in with the bears and the caribou to see what they were up to. The bears were more active, and I could again see their movement if not the details of their appearance.

By this time, I have to admit, our early morning start was beginning to catch up with me. I was feeling disappointed that our viewing of the wildlife was so distant. I was tired and beginning to feel uninterested in what we were doing. It is obviously not the fault of the tour that animals are not closer to the bus. They can’t control nature. However, I could relate to those who rated the park lower when they didn’t see any wildlife. Even though I had “seen” wildlife, I didn’t really feel like I had seen them.

We did see one more important animal on the way back which is the golden eagle. It has a large wingspan and is related to the bald eagle. One was flying over one of the areas we drove by.

On the way back we stopped at a spot to take pictures of the Polychromatic Mountains. It was good to get out and take pictures. Most of my early pictures of the mountains were taken while the bus was moving and through the dirty window so I didn’t feel like they were very successful. When we stopped for the animals we opened the windows for a clear shot, but the mountain pictures were not always taken under the best of circumstances.

We made it back to the base at about 2:30 pm, nearly an eight hour trip. The guide hinted at her appreciation for tips, so we gave her one. That part bothers me some. This trip was not inexpensive so it seems they should be able to pay their employees enough that they don’t need to ask for tips, but it seems most guides have come to expect that.

Tired and hungry after our long day, we finally found a nice place for a late lunch and then began our two hour trip back to our accommodations for the night. We will continue south from there.

While aspects of Denali were a disappointment to me, I still found it to be a beautiful and amazing location. To see the colorful mountains and scenery is a powerful reminder of our Creator. It also reminds me that I am not in control of our world. I could not make the animals come close for an Instagram photo. That’s beyond my ability. Nature has a way of making us realize how small and insignificant we really are, and that’s a good thing.