July 20, 2010

July 20, 2010

What an amazing day it was today!! We booked an 8 hour bus tour of Denali National Park. You are only allowed to drive so far into the park and to go any further you need to take a bus. They can’t promise you will see wildlife, so we decided to book the 7a.m departure in hopes of spotting at least a few of the animals. Yes, I was up and at it by 5 a.m.!!! We had a great bus driver/tour guide who made the trip really enjoyable. As she put it we hit a grand slam on the views! We saw 12 grizzly bears, 4 moose, some caribou, many Dall sheep, a few golden eagles, and 7 wolves! And to top it off we were able to see Mt. McKinley! On the way there we watched a young Grizzly bear being chased down the mountain side by 7 wolves! He ran right down in front of our bus with the wolves right behind him. He managed to escape, but Paul say probably only for a while, eventually they would get him! One of the wolves walked right past our bus right on the road, he was only feet away from our window. Then on the way home we were crossing a bridge and there was a mother grizzly with 2 babies along side the road. She was trying to get them to the other side of the water, but it was pretty rapid, so she decided to cross the bridge. She and her babies walked down the center of the road right across the bridge, all the while she was trying to keep the cubs together as they wanted to wrestle and play with each other. i kind of know how she felt!! Been there done that! Once again we were right there up close. It was such an incredible experience. Viewing Mt. McKinley was also really beautiful. I understand that it is a rarity to get to see it and we weren’t sure it was going to clear up, but it did. Mt. Mckinley is the highest mountain in North America.

Afterwards the girls got their National Parks passport stamped and we called it a day! An extraordinary day!