WOW, Denali National Park

The morning after we arrived we were up for a 6:30 AM bus tour though the park. This is the standard wild life tour and the same one we took in 2013 on the Princess land and sea cruise.

This tour was much better, we were able to see much more wildlife.










 

Shortly after we arrived in the park we saw this
big fellow. The driver had just mentioned that it was rare to see a bull moose. There were fewer bulls and they were much more solitary.

In addition to this guy we saw three additional moose, one more bull and two cows. It's the beginning of fall here. the colors are starting to turn and the rut has begone. It had been a very dry July and August many of the plants and trees were just turning brown but we do see a little color here and there.

Next on our list was caribou. In addition to this guy we saw so many caribou the bus driver stopped stopping for them. I lost count as well but an educated guess would be more than 15 and less that 20. Many of them were too far away to get pictures even with my telephoto lens.










Grizzly bears were the next ones we came across. There was a mother bear with two cubs. They were on the opposite side of the bus and along way away. I was able to get a look through the telephoto lens but taking pic's didn't work. We were able to view the through our binoculars and it was quite fun watching the cubs play.

A short while later we came across this guy just wandering across the tundra. In addition to these three we saw three additional bears and got good looks through the binoculars. In 2013 we did not see a single bear in the park.

These are Dall Sheep, image taken from the screens on the bus. The driver had a video camera with a long lens.  With the naked eye these were just white dots very high up the mountain side. We saw two groups like this. I was a little disappointed we could get closer.

Mt Denali 2019

This is where Mt Denali is supposed to be, but the weather just did not cooperate.

Mt Denali 2013

Just thought I would throw this in there, 2013 trip was better.

The bus tour was just over 7 1/2 hours and we traveled nearly 65 miles. It was a long day but very much worth it.

This was just day one, much more to come. Stay tuned for part 2.