Today we went on a Denali tundra wilderness excursion. The industrial strength school bus took us 42 miles south on Park Rd. No farther because of reconstruction where a landslide made the road unsafe. Not a landslide exactly, but an area of moving rock and ice, a rock glacier.
The terrain ranged from forested areas in lower altitudes to tundra, mostly low ground cover and various shrubs but sparse trees.
“Braided” rivers like this cross the landscape. Fed from snow and glacier run off, this one is really near the peak of its volume. They never fill that rocky area. This one was occupied by a glacier for millennia, but it was completely melted several decades ago.
The line across the mountain on the right is Park Rd. The V between the near and distant ranges is where one would see Denali, absolutely towering over the closer mountains. On a clear day. Today was not one of those days.
On our way in to the Denali area yesterday, we did get a glimpse of the mountain. This pic is from about 100 miles out. Even this far away it dwarfs all the ranges before it. Crazy, huh?
The geology here fascinates me.
Wildlife seen: caribou. Full disclosure: this was maybe a quarter mile away. We did not have a camera with a telephoto lens. The bus has screens fed from a video camera the tour guide uses to zoom way in to sightings. “Stop! Something at nine o’clock!”
Gets you up close and personal.
Momma grizzly and cubs about a half mile away. Just dots moving around the mountainside to the unaided eye.
Also spotted were one moose, many Dall sheep, ravens in a nest built under a bridge, red and Arctic ground squirrels. Oh, and mosquitoes.
Hats off to our tour guide/bus driver, Nan. Super knowledgeable about the park’s flora and fauna, she’s a retired school teacher from Texas. Obviously a teacher at heart, when a guest had a question about a shrub growing on the side of the road, Nan said “well, come on!”, brought her over to said plant and answered all her questions. Gotta love true educators with that kind of passion, even in retirement.