Today we're doing the Tundra Wilderness Tour of Denali Park. It's a 62-mile (one way, 124 total miles) narrated drive through the park to look at scenery and wildlife. We got a pretty late start. Our depart time wasn't until 7:45. The bus was late and then when it arrived, the driver said there as something wrong with the bus, so we had to wait for a new one. So we didn't leave until after 8:30.
In the 1980s when they completed the highway to Denali Park, they had the foresight to worry about the effect of all the traffic on the park, so they prohibited private car traffic past mile 15 on the park road and developed a bus system for getting around the park. There are some free shuttles in the closest areas, paid buses for taking people into campgrounds, and paid buses that do tours through the park. They said other national parks are now considering this system. It certainly meant that there wasn't a lot of traffic on the road we went on in spite of the number of people at the park.
The bus we were on was a school bus. It had slightly more comfortable seats, but they were very narrow. The road is only paved for the first 15 miles, the rest is gravel and dirt. So it was a cramped bumpy long ride.
The bus driver talked the whole time she was driving. She told us about the history of the park and about the animals and their habits, as well as telling us about the plants we were seeing. We stopped every couple of hours or so for restroom breaks and to look at the view. I've posted photos of some of the animals we saw.
The road goes through a couple of mountain passes, including Polychrome Pass. It's called Polychrome because the mountains around are very colorful here, shades of green and red. The road was narrow and winding, and dropped off sharply on the side. On the way out we were on the drop off side. I thought that was pretty scary, but at least I could look out the window and see there were a couple of feet clearance. I thought it would be better driving on the upside, but there it looked like she was driving right off into space every time she went around a corner. We were glad when we got off the pass.
One of the most interesting things she said was that the seasons of spring, summer, and fall go very quickly. When the green comes in the spring, it seems to happen overnight. It was July 1st when we went through, but she pointed out how some of the shrubs are beginning to yellow as they move towards fall already.
We saw boreal forests and tundra as well as the spaces between. The landscape was beautiful, With broad flat valleys threaded with streams and colorful hills and mountains on the sides, some topped with glaciers. We didn't see a whole lot of animals, but we did see a grizzly bear, two moose, two caribou, Dall sheep, and a ptarmigan family. All but the ptarmigan family were so far away that you had to use binoculars to really see them. The Dall sheep were basically just dots on the mountaintops. I've posted photos, blown up significantly.
There were two spots for viewing of the north side of Denali Mountain. The first one we couldn't see anything. At the second viewpoint near the end of the road, we could see one flank of the mountain.
At one stop, they had a park bookstore that was in a big tent. We were amused to see a giftshop all the way out here in the wilderness. It was very windy every time we stopped. It was so strong in spots that I had a hard time holding the camera steady for photos! But we didn't have trouble with mosquitos. I expect they can't fly in that wind.
I'm glad we did the tour, but it was a really long drive in an uncomfortable vehicle, with constant talking and the feeling that you had to watch carefully every minute, which gave me a headache. We didn't see that many animals, the tour that left early saw herds of caribou and golden eagles. I think if we had gone out earlier, it might have been better. We were there in the middle of the day.
The other thing that disappointed me was that we didn't get back until almost 5pm, so we still didn't get a chance to hike in the park. We did have the bus tour drop us off at the visitor center so we could watch the video at the center and walk around a bit more. So I guess we'll have to come back to really experience Denali Park.
The video at the visitor didn't give much information about the park, but luckily we'd already had eight hours of that. It was beautiful photography and very little narration.
We managed to get the right shuttle back to the lodge. We had dinner at the restaurant (both of us had steaks), worked on our blogs, and went to bed.
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