Up at the crack of dawn again - 05.45! Thank God it's not the actual crack of dawn, today the sun set at 12.20a.m. and rose at 03.48a.m.!
We're up early to get to the front of the queue for the tour bus round Denali NP. The best seats are left side rear. We made it with lots of time to spare, but it was a lovely morning so hay ho! Our bus driver for the day was to be Matt who turned out to be a really interesting guy and told us lots about the park and countryside. The bus is an old school type bus but really good for this sort of thing as every seat has an opening window. The first 16 miles were over normal road and the other 50 miles over rough track. The other people on the bus were all very friendly and we left full of anticipation. This was to be rewarded quite soon with our first sighting of the day - a Caribou, reindeer to us Europeans. This caused great excitement and the bus was buzzing. At the first comfort stop I was photographing the river then turned round and saw a Lynx calmly walking across the car park, this was only seen by a few and soon disappeared into the undergrowth, I managed to get a shot but a post got in the way. This was a major achievement as Lynx are quite rare and elusive. Eat your heart out Bellamy!
A little further on and Fern shouted out "BEAR", sure enough there was a Grizzly, we watched it eat for quite a while. It is really a great feeling seeing these animals in their natural surroundings. As we drove through an area of steep cliffs we spotted some Dall sheep feeding, these stay up high to feed where you would think there was no nutrition. As the bus climbed out of the tree belt we went up some road with a precipitous drop on our side, here we saw a Golden Eagle soaring the thermals at the same level as the bus. By this time we were all getting a bit blasé and paid scant regard to a Fox which was scurrying away with some food in its mouth.
After our 66 mile drive we were glad to reach our destination, Eielson Centre. There were some magnificent views from here and we had a picnic lunch with a spectacular backdrop of Mount MacKinley (20,320 - USA highest) shrouded in snow and cloud. We had decided to return on the same bus as we liked the driver and also it was very cold at Eielson - softies! The return was also interesting as we saw two more Grizzlies at separate locations then a large Caribou ran down a hill onto the road and we followed for about 1/4 mile until it jumped into some bushes and away.
During this entire journey we were treated to some remarkable scenery and it is very hard to convey the space that this place occupies - it is simply vast even though it is only the third largest NP in the USA. No prize for who can name the largest NP in the comments below.
This was a wonderful day and one which will linger in our memories hopefully longer than the usual two day span.
We're up early to get to the front of the queue for the tour bus round Denali NP. The best seats are left side rear. We made it with lots of time to spare, but it was a lovely morning so hay ho! Our bus driver for the day was to be Matt who turned out to be a really interesting guy and told us lots about the park and countryside. The bus is an old school type bus but really good for this sort of thing as every seat has an opening window. The first 16 miles were over normal road and the other 50 miles over rough track. The other people on the bus were all very friendly and we left full of anticipation. This was to be rewarded quite soon with our first sighting of the day - a Caribou, reindeer to us Europeans. This caused great excitement and the bus was buzzing. At the first comfort stop I was photographing the river then turned round and saw a Lynx calmly walking across the car park, this was only seen by a few and soon disappeared into the undergrowth, I managed to get a shot but a post got in the way. This was a major achievement as Lynx are quite rare and elusive. Eat your heart out Bellamy!
A little further on and Fern shouted out "BEAR", sure enough there was a Grizzly, we watched it eat for quite a while. It is really a great feeling seeing these animals in their natural surroundings. As we drove through an area of steep cliffs we spotted some Dall sheep feeding, these stay up high to feed where you would think there was no nutrition. As the bus climbed out of the tree belt we went up some road with a precipitous drop on our side, here we saw a Golden Eagle soaring the thermals at the same level as the bus. By this time we were all getting a bit blasé and paid scant regard to a Fox which was scurrying away with some food in its mouth.
After our 66 mile drive we were glad to reach our destination, Eielson Centre. There were some magnificent views from here and we had a picnic lunch with a spectacular backdrop of Mount MacKinley (20,320 - USA highest) shrouded in snow and cloud. We had decided to return on the same bus as we liked the driver and also it was very cold at Eielson - softies! The return was also interesting as we saw two more Grizzlies at separate locations then a large Caribou ran down a hill onto the road and we followed for about 1/4 mile until it jumped into some bushes and away.
During this entire journey we were treated to some remarkable scenery and it is very hard to convey the space that this place occupies - it is simply vast even though it is only the third largest NP in the USA. No prize for who can name the largest NP in the comments below.
This was a wonderful day and one which will linger in our memories hopefully longer than the usual two day span.
Overheard some American discussing the merits of a place where you can get dressed up in furs and posed sitting on the back of a Moose. This photograph would obviously make and excellent Christmas card - it was only to be decided how many to order. They can leave one speechless!
http://www.oldsourdoughstudio.com/oss-photos.html
Matthew
ReplyDeleteYou have gone too far now. I have been a bit suspicious about some of your photos. Bears, deer, eagles etc dont just come out by chance when you bus/car stops.Not to put too fine a point on it some of them looked stuffed!I would like to see a picture of yogi holding a copy of todays newspaper or better still in a grapple with one of the Eileens like Andy Robbins used to.
Having said all that your most recent picture of a "Lynx calmly walking ..." and you cant even see the head, and you were the only one to see it, is a step too far. It is clearly some sort Labrador.
Anyway it sounds like your having a fantastic time and I hope it continues.
Love to Eileen.
Kenneth