Denali National Park

I have been a complete slacker in updating the blog for several reasons, but am finally back...pretty pathetic that July was my last entry...have had a lot go on since then, so will be updating my pictures and entries since this is basically my on-line journal of AK experiences...

Denali National Park made national headlines this summer with the unfortunate death of a backpacker, killed by a grizzly bear within the park.  It was a sad incident all-around as the suspected bear was later destroyed as well.  Fortunately, the bears we saw on our visit earlier in the summer were all from a safe distance...

Continuing with our June trip to the park...the park is 6 million acres...bigger than the state of Massachusetts.  Personal vehicles are only allowed to drive the first 15 miles into the park.  If you want to go further in...far enough to hopefully see Mt. McKinley (or as my friend's son kept calling it "Mountain McKinley"), you have to ride in one of the park buses...we were all thinking we would be in those nice air-conditioned, cushiony seated buses...but no, they are old school buses, painted forest green.

We saw this mom and baby as we drove in to the park ~ one of the closest encounters we had with wildlife...thankfully from the comfort of our own vehicle...

The park is beautiful...

Dall sheep

 Caribou

 Fox

 Denali was not visible...it's hiding in the clouds

This is at the end of our bus ride at the visitor center

Joleigh very attentive to the Park Ranger sharing information...

Getting sworn in as junior rangers...

see below...one of the bears we saw...

from V-E-R-Y F-A-R A-W-A-Y...

Truthfully, I was a little disappointed in our creature viewing from our first day in the park...I'd seen wildlife, including bears, from much closer at home in Anchorage...but the next day, we drove ourselves to the end of the road for a hike and as we neared our destination, we came across this bear...still a distance away, but much closer...

We watched him for quite awhile...mainly because he was slowly heading in the direction where we had intended to hike...so we thought it would be a good idea to see where he went first...

 The people in this car got a nice close-up

 We spoke with the people in this car after the bear had passed...they said when they rolled up their window, the bear jumped at the sound which is what you see him doing in the picture below...

We continued with a hike through the park on one of the numerous trails...

 caribou

Denali National Park is the only national park with a working dog sled team...they allow you to visit with the dogs at the kennel and they offer demonstrations at different times throughout the day.

These dogs were quite a bit larger than the dogs we saw on our dog sled ride...these guys are used for work in the park, so strength over speed is more desirable in them...they are used to get to places in the park that are not accessible by vehicles.

They breed one female each year and this year, there were 3 new pups...they were SO cute...very sleepy and very playful...

The ranger brought the team around during the demo.  When these dogs retire from being on the team, they are either used to help train the new pups or they are adopted out.  The day we were there, one of the older dogs was preparing to go to a new home in Montana. 

I think I have pictures for at least one more entry from this trip...will update again soon!