Denali Redux

We catch our bus into Denali about 1:30 to begin our 8-hour tour.

There have been improvements since we did this over ten years ago with Andrew and Kevin – the bus is more comfortable and the road is in better shape, although still mostly gravel.  Flat screen monitors flip down to display images from the driver’s spotting telescope, helping us to locate and see animals.  Unfortunately it is still a single rough road for 60+ miles, at which point the bus turns around and brings you come back.

A stink of a show put on by Princess Cruises in Denali; food was liked by most but not me.

Evening view from our campground near Denali.

Our driver is good, although Larry remarks that the only animal she spotted was a caribou, and that was because she almost ran over it.  Over the course of the drive out we see four of the Big Five: grizzlies, dall sheep, caribou, moose, but no wolf.  We briefly and barely saw Mount McKinley 10 years ago, but not today.   Only 30% of visitors ever see McKinley.

She made me do it.

Our driver cleans the windows.

Near the end of the road the weather worsens and our vision begins to fail.  On the return our spotting and enthusiasm lessens.   We are back after 8 PM and the NorCal Eight end up in a fairly good pizza place for dinner in the rather tacky commercial district.

Later, inevitably, we hear of others in our caravan that saw many animals and took only the low-cost shuttle, rather than the tour.  But we also hear about Nick and Alicia, our State Department couple that that fled Chicken early because of their dust misery; while parked at a ranger station, a motorhome (not one of ours) backed in to their truck, damaging all of one side.   The truck is drivable and fortunately the motorhome driver stuck around to exchange insurance information.  

We also are hearing reports that a motorhome (not one of ours) went of the road edge near Chicken just after we left, with serious injuries to the four occupants.