6/30 – 7/6/2016 – Spent our first two days in Denali driving
through the park taking some pictures, browsing the local shops, and sampling
the local fare, love the pizza….Lower 48 Pizza with Reindeer Sausage, ground
Elk, red peppers, and mozzarella, very
delicious. We were going to sample the
“Deadliest Catch” Pizza with 1 ½ lb of King Crab Legs but $60 for a pizza
seemed a bit of a stretch.
We will head
into Denali on Saturday for two days in Riley Campground and then two days in
Savage Campground, to bond with nature,
hike the trails, and take a bus tour deep into Denali.
On Saturday we decided to do a couple of hikes and although
we didn’t see any wildlife, we did see some pretty sights and enjoyed the fresh
air. The first hike took us along Hines
and Riley Creek and they were running pretty heavy as we have had a lot of rain
over the past two days. These are all
glacier fed creeks and there are no fish due to the heavy silt in the water
from the glaciers, the water is actually gray from all of the sediment.
The second hike was around Horseshoe Lake and along the
Nenana River which feeds the mighty Yukon that flows to the Bering Sea. No wildlife here either, but there were
several beaver dams in the area, and a great deal of beaver activity evidenced
by all of the downed trees.
Sunday we took the Tundra Wilderness Tour, an 8 hour bus
tour which takes you deep into Denali to mile 62 and although it was a cool
rainy day we were treated to a plethora of wildlife. As we crossed the Savage River at mile 14,
which is as far as personal vehicles can drive into the park, we saw our first
Caribou of the trip. We also learned
that the area around Savage River was closed to hikers and tenters due to a
Grizzly Bear problem. It appears that
last week this Grizzly encountered some hikers who were frightened and threw a
day pack to scare off the bear, which is not the correct thing to do, as the
bear proceeded to tear open the pack and consume a couple cans of soda and some
candy. When a bear associates food with
human contact, it becomes a dangerous animal.
The protocol was to capture the bear, which took a couple of days,
recondition the bear by shooting bean bags and rubber bullets at the bear when
it sees a human, release him back into the wild, and observe him in the area
for a few days. When all seemed to be
ok, they reopened the area on Saturday, but the bear charged several groups of
hikers and eventually attacked one of them, fortunately the woman was not
seriously injured, but did require treatment at the hospital in Anchorage. Unfortunately for the bear, he will now be
tracked down and killed. That being
said, we continued on our journey into the wilderness where around the corner
we saw a golden eagle sitting on top of a tree.
Denali is home to the largest population of golden eagles in North
America whose diet consists mainly of ground squirrels and arctic hares, unlike
their cousins the bald eagle that are not found in this area since there are no
fish. We next came across a herd of Dall
sheep high in the mountains and several more Caribou, but the best was yet to come. At almost the end of our 62 mile trek, we
finally saw our first Grizzly bear feasting on some vegetation while keeping an
eye on a herd of Caribou some distance on the other side of the road. He was very cooperative and stayed in the
same spot for quite some time, even after we made our turnaround; he was still
there napping on our return trip. We did
spot another Grizzly bear on the way back, which was a very light brown color,
almost blonde, but was too far and blended into the scenery too well to get a
picture. We were quite pleased with all
of the animals we saw today, and got a special surprise as we were approaching
our drop off point with a Cow Moose with two calves just grazing by the
Visitors Center causing a real traffic jam.
Our only disappointment on the day was that since it was so overcast,
Denali (formerly Mt McKinley) was not visible, but they say only 30% of the
350,000 to 400,000 annual visitors are lucky enough to see the peak each year.
Monday, with a bit of apprehension, we head to our next
campground (Savage) which just happens to be in the vicinity where the Grizzly
bear has been attacking hikers, now only hard sided campers are allowed in the
campground until the bear is put down, no worries we won’t be hiking nearby. We finished our visit to Denali NP with a few
more hikes near the Visitors Center and a stop at the Park Headquarters to
visit the mushing demonstration and the Alaskan Huskies that are an integral part
of Denali NP. These dogs are the main
transportation for the park rangers in the winter to ensure the safety and
security of the park, with each dog averaging about 3000 miles each winter
pulling the sleds. We still have not
seen the “Great One” but have not given up as we will still be in view of the
park as we travel south towards Anchorage over the next couple days.
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