Denali: Wildlife Bus Trip to End of Park 08/08/2009
Our park tour bus picked us up a the TEK Campground at 8:55 AM for our trip to to the end of the park road into Denali National Park. The park road is 90 miles long but TEK campground is aleady at mile 29. The trip was a total of 120 miles. We returned about 7 PM. We stopped for rest breaks and at points of interest about once an hour.
Anytime someone spotted wildlife, they yelled out for the bus driver to stop. Many times the bus driver spotted the wildlife first. We stopped often! Half way to the end of the park, the bus driver told us we had seen more grizzlies than any trip he could remember.
The weather was partly cloudy. We had expected showers which never happened.
We saw Dahl sheep, Moose, Wolf, Fox, Caribou, Arctic ground squirrels and of course Grizzlies. We saw just about all of most people have on their wish lists.
We saw quite a lot of wildlife in an area called Sable Pass.
We intended to meet Emmitt Peters, a guide at the Kantishna Road House. Emmitt is the son of Edna Peters, who was married by Fred’s Uncle in Ruby – a small isolated village on the Yukon River. Emmitt was aslo baptised by Fr. Ron Dunfey. We thought that the bus would stop near the Kantishna Road House. It didn’t. If we knew more about the bus and how it operated as we do now, we may have met Emmitt.