Alaska (cont)

Off to Denali!
One road plunges into the 6 million acres of national park and wilderness that is Denali. You are not permitted to travel most of the road in your own car, so you must get on a shuttle bus to really see the park. They wanted to preserve the wilderness as much as possible. We were off early to be sure we got on a decent bus. We managed to get tickets for an 11 hour bus, and off we went at 9 AM.

We were a little unsure what to make of the hiking in the park. When I read descriptions, I was unsure about how much hiking I could do there. There are no trails, and you hike on the permafrost of the tundra. At times it can be really muddy, but perhaps that is early in the year (we did not have issues). The procedure is to tell the driver to stop, and you just hop off and walk where you want (except for some areas closed for habitat preservation). The hiking philosophy is counter to what I have learned in any other Nat'l Park. Usually, going off trail is verboten. They do not want you to damage the fragile plants and cause more erosion, and they want to minimize the impact overall. It is amazing how fast soil can erode. I remember when they used to cut new mountain biking trails in Michigan, and within 2 weeks they were all sandy! At Denali, they tell you not to follow eachother, rather walk alongside eachother. They do not want trail to form and people to frequent one area. Trails would impact the wilderness. So that took some getting used to! So we planned on taking the bus as far as we could, and then taking a hike somewhere on the way back.
On the bus, we were all supposed to scan for wildlife. There were many eyes that could spot things so our driver could keep the bus on the occasionally treacherous road. If you saw something, you were supposed to yell, "STOP", then tell what you thought it was and provide directions (like on a clock). The driver would help spot it and turn off the engine. We were supposed to be silent so everyone could experience the sounds as well as the sights. They also are adamant about avoiding habituation of the animals to our presence. Thankfully Mike, K, A, and myself were on the bus. I often call Mike "Ahab" for his incredible persistance when he wants to spot wildlife. Mike found many of the animals we saw on the bus (even a bear about 500 feet down from a cliff we were on walking on a riverbed). Some old lady kept trying (which is more than I can say for anyone else on the bus, we were the only ones yelling to stop), but whenever she yelled "STOP" in her wavering voice, it was usually a crow or a backpacker. She was paying attention and looking though. There were people on other buses who were asleep! I do not get that one. We saw 6 Grizzly bears, a whole lot of Caribou, huge Moose, a cool fox, loons,Kestrels, eagles, and dall sheep, and maybe some wolves (our driver on the way back got us all jacked up about maybe seeing wolves, but then kept driving without explanation, A said she saw them though).

We planned on hiking this one area, but we were distracted and did not get off the bus. About 30 seconds later we rounded the corner and there was a huge Grizz about 30 yards off the road. He was huge with a fat, round belly. We were glad we did not get off there. We got off the bus a few miles later. We hiked a ridge next to the road and followed a river bank back. It was really cool to hike on that terrain, but we were concerned bears may follow us due to all the blueberries we were stomping on. Since our time was limited, we returned to the road and hiked there to meet a bus (there were only a few buses returning, and we did not want to miss them). In the distance, we saw a tour bus that was stopped for a long time. We looked in the direction everyone was gazing, and there we spotted a mother grizzly and her 2 teenage cubs in the valley below. She was blonde and stood up to sniff and look in our direction. She checked us out and went on her merry way. I think she was about 1/4-1/2 miles away. It is disconcerting to be out there with such big bears, but I felt better that I could see them. They also seemed way more interested in the berries they were feasting on (bumper crop this year, we also picked handfuls). Supposedly all the berries are edible in the park. Some were really happy when our shuttle finally arrived! The tour buses could care less when the passed, they just waved at us happily.
Our bus trip lasted 13 hours, and it was getting dark when we left the park. It was one the best days I have had.