July 20, 2017
Up at 4 AM to get ready for our “game drive” today aboard the bus into Denali National Park. Our bus departed the Wilderness Access Center at 6:00 AM so we were a little groggy until we saw the first animal. A male and female moose crossed the road in front of the bus with no time for a photo but Amy got one.
The drive was 15 miles on paved road then it got bumpy.
Dirt road from there for 48 miles to the Eielson Visitor Center, then back. We did get a glimpse of the north peak of Denali (Mount McKinley) from about 90 miles away. We were told that only about 30% of visitors see Denali so we were lucky because when we got to Eielson it was completely covered by clouds and the shape could not be seen.
During our drives out and back we saw lots of grizzly bears
short-ear owl
black wolf (we saw two grey wolves but no photos)
several caribou and Dall sheep, but no photos. Most of the animals were far away and it is a lot easier to photograph from the Unity than from a bus with 52 others trying to get photos. One section of the drive was really interesting in that we were on the side going out that hung over the cliff edge at one point where there was a 700 foot vertical drop.
Another photo from even further back we had made a photo at the beginning of the Alaska Highway at Dawson Creek of our group.
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