Gotta start this days post off with a big “happy birthday from the land of the midnight sun mom!”
And now for today’s update......you know those times when you can’t decide if you’re more exhausted or excited? Well, that was us this afternoon when we got back from our Denali Backcountry Adventures adventure.
It had been an early start....a VERY early start when the alarm cock rang in the RV at 4:30 this morning ....and it had been a VERY short night in the Denali Bluffs parking lot that we’d called home for the night. But heh....we were excited about what the day had to offer and so we crawled out of our respective beds and readied ourselves for the day ahead. We had to hoof it up the hill to the Bluffs lobby but remember....it never gets dark here so 5 a.m. is kind of like midday. By the time we’d finished our early morning breakfast in the Bluffs cafe (yes, they’re open this early in the morning) we were both ready to crawl back into bed but the bus was about to arrive and so we sucked it up and gave our “excited” button another charge.
Mikey was our bus driver and Lynda and I were lucky enough to get the seats right at the front of the bus. We were very grateful to each have gotten our own seat as the seats on this bus are small and that wheel well is in the wrong place to be able to put your feet anywhere and the wall in front of your knees is close but heh....we could see out of the windshield and that to me was more important than anything! That meant I was less likely to feel car sick for the entire 13 hours AND that we’d get to see whatever animals we found right from the front of the bus. Wahoo! There were 35 people on the bus....way more than we’re used to travelling with!
You have to be on a bus to be allowed to drive very far into the park. This helps on many fronts but most importantly....it helps to keep the park (and it’s inhabitants) safe’ish from humans. People can hike (and camp) in the park but they have to have a permit and so anyone who goes to that much trouble to get in there is less likely to leave their footprint behind. Bus drivers are tasked with policing their guests about not having any food outside the bus etc. Having said that....at our first rest stop one of the bus drivers wasn’t policing her people at all....she was giving them cookies to have with their drink right out in the parking lot! Our driver actually had to go and say something to her (he is supposed to report her). She apologized and said she didn’t know which makes no sense at all as even we were aware of the care and attention paid to not disturbing the natural habitat and even crumbs of human food waste can cause wild animals to be affected in a negative way. But back to the trip.....that would take us to the end of the road....92 miles deep into Denali Park.
Denali used to be called Mt McKinley and that name was changed back in the early 80’s to the original name that had been given the mountain by the First Nations people who have lived in this area for 7500+ years. Denali is the only mountain named just Denali (no Mount in front of it) and it is recognized as being one of the tallest mountains in the world. There are four ways mountains are measured (I cannot remember what they are) and Denali is one of them.
Within minutes of being on the bus and even before we were inside the park gates we spotted our first moose. It was actually two moose - a cow and a calf that was likely just one month old. The only thing that could have made this any better would have been if they were standing in a shallow pond munching on reeds and grasses as seeing that image IRL is on my bucket list. It wasn’t long before we came across moose number two. This young female was even closer than the first two. She was standing right on the side of the road alone (literally just 2 meters from our bus) chowing down on the leaves of small trees. She was old enough to have a calf but she was alone which meant that either her calf was hiding somewhere we couldn’t see close by or that she’d lost her calf already this spring (a very common reality as wolf and bear are always on the look out for young calves at this time of year). Next was a den of foxes on the hillside near the road (far enough that you could see them with the naked eye but where binoculars really made seeing them that much more fun). The kits were playing and tumbling around outside their den while mom looked on protectively. Then there was a young bull moose in the bushes off to our left and then not too long after a male grizzly right on the road in front of us. He was impressive enough to see up close like this but when someone on our bus spied 3 more bear just off to our left it got a whole bunch more interesting! The three off to our left was a sow (female) and her two cubs (likely born last year from the look of their size). It is currently mating season and so the boars (males) are constantly in search of a female. The problem comes when females still have cubs with them as they will NOT mate if they do. The result is that the male will kill the cubs to be able to mate with the female but the female will defend her cubs soooo it can get very very ugly! This female had her cubs right beside her and was constantly standing up to check on the exact whereabouts of this male who was in her “area”. This was one of those times when it might have been a very good thing that there are humans in this park as the bus in front of us was causing the boar to keep moving forward down the road (unintentionally for sure as they are VERY intentional about not interfering with wildlife in the park and it is highly doubtful that they would even be aware of the sow and cubs off to our left). In the end the male moved on and the other three could breathe easier. There were two small and one very large herds of caribou off to our left and then there was another fox den with kits playing outside for us to enjoy. Next there was another lone fox right on the road who even posed for our cameras before he made himself scarce on the hillside beside us. There were a couple of snow hares (rabbits) and too many to count ground squirrels. We saw eagles and ravens and flora and fauna and geologic phenomena at every turn. All of the broad valleys in Denali were carved out by glaciers and there are little kettle lakes dotting the surface of these valleys as there are still chunks of glacial ice under there melting and creating these perfect “little” puddle-like lakes. The valleys are also riddled with braided rivers that wind their way through the millions of tons of gravel deposits left in the glaciers wake. There were plenty of planned rest stops and so the 6 hour trip in to the lodge (where we’d stop for lunch) went pretty quickly until the last hour or so....that last hour was LONG! During lunch Matt came in to talk to us all about another option we could consider....Denali Air Taxi was available to take anyone who wanted to fly back with them (for a fee of course). I was immediately interested in finding out more....Lynda not so much but with just a few minutes to think about it she was game to listen too. In the end we were able to cut a deal with Matt for a 2 for 1 fare (ssshhhhh - don’t tell anybody) and so as we waved goodbye to Mikey and the 33 guests he had left on his bus we hopped aboard a van for the ride up to the airstrip. We’d be flying back with a family of 3 who’d come up on an earlier bus and our pilot for the one hour flight would be Chris. The six of us climbed aboard this tiny plane (I got to be co-pilot and it was packed by the time we were all in there!) and we were off. The first thing Chris pointed out was a wooded area that contains nothing much more than “moose and mosquitos”. He said there are so many mosquitos there that on average a moose will lose one quart (about a litre) of blood every day to mosquitos! I believe it! There were soooo many mosquitos at the lodge that I can imagine it would become unbearable before you learned to live with it. We hadn’t been able to see much of Denali at all on the way into the lodge due to low clouds and mist but boy oh boy...did we get a show on the way back out! In fact, Chris was able to take us right up to the north face of the main glacier that makes its home on the side of Denali. At that point we were at about 6600 feet and up close and personal with a wall of white! It was AMAZING! We also saw another 35 mile long glacier from the air. This one is on the valley floor and is black in colour! We could clearly see all the valleys that the glaciers had carved out over the millennia and the residual lakes too. We felt like we could almost reach out and touch some of the mountaintops we were so close and so we kept an eye out for dal sheep along the way too but it was the scenery that took our breath away. The trip into the park had been about the animals and the trip out was about the topography. At two different times we were literally over a rainbow! There were two other planes in the air at the same time as us and so we were also able to see them flying about in our same vicinity as well.
We made it back to our hotel lobby before 5 pm....a little more than 3 hours ahead of the scheduled arrival of our bus AND we’d had the best adventure ever! In fact we’d checked into our room, had dinner and a couple of drinks and still our bus wasn’t back. To make this story that much sweeter...I was out of the shower and in my p.j.’s by 7:20....and still our bus wasn’t back! Yep....it was a good decision for the experience of it and it was a good decision for the timelines too!
It’s now almost midnight....I’ve slept for a few hours as I literally fell into bed as soon as I got out of the shower and when I woke up a little bit ago figured I’d better get this memory captured as there will be more adventures to report on tomorrow. As well, I wanted to take advantage of the rarely available wifi while we have it! :-)
Till next time,
L & L
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