Adventure 974: Alaska Anniversary Trip/G

Yet another blue sky day and on we trekked to the Denali Tundra. We boarded the 1:30 P.M. bus with fifty or so of our newest friends. They didn't cramp our style, but the child sized seats in the old Blue Bird bus did, especially after seven hours of windy wash boards. In all, we saw almost 30,000 acres of the park, or .05 percent of the 6 million. Nonetheless, we ventured as far as we could, and it was fabulous. We saw several ground squirrels, a gaggle of Rock Ptarmigans, all of Santa's Reindeer (except Rudolph) and many of their cousins ( At least 14 Caribou), a family of Dall sheep, and one large brown bear leaving purple scat behind as he/she trundled up the mountainside. Philip, the oldest driver in the park, was knowledgeable, patient, competent, and he had a very melodious voice. He gladly stopped the bus anytime anyone yelled, "Caribou, three o'clock." He'd back the bus or move it forward, take out the bus's camera, and then flashed whatever was sighted onto screens that dropped down for viewing. It was pretty cool. Today marked our seventh day in Alaska. We've been blessed with magnificent weather each of those days. Even today, the bus stopped to view Denali from several good angles, but we were so jaded from our experience in Talkeetna that we barely looked up. Upon our return to the Denali Cabins, we had a nice dinner, after which I spent some time soaking in the hot tub. Needless to say, life is good, especially today.

We shared a short stack of blueberry buckwheat pancakes with birch bark syrup and two eggs over easy for breakfast.  Yummy.

Art shot of the day: A plethora of spruce cones covered the ground under every tree.

Selfie of the day: Let the sun shine in.

Our conveyance for the day-not built for a guy my size. That's what I get for flunking sixth grade.

In five or six weeks this area will be covered in snow.

At the official entrance to the park, Ranger Jessica, gave us a hearty welcome.

Interestingly, the Dall sheep have their own crossing lane, which according to Phillip, they've come to use frequently. On the hour vehicles stop and wait for ten minutes.

We crossed four rivers, each of which have these braided streams which move back and forth as the current changes.

This could be Dancer or Prancer; it was hard to tell from the bus.

My camera couldn't catch up with this big brown bear, but with the naked eye we could see very well, if only briefly as the bear made steady headway up the mountainside.

These Dall sheep were so far up the mountainside they almost look like silhouettes. Pretty cool sight, though.