Alaska Trip: Day Four, Chuckwagon Breakfast & Denali National Park

080915

Sunday

7:30 am

Whaaat? 

The plan was to have a leisurely morning & to live stream our home church's Sunday morning service. When we received our welcome packet last night we said, There must be some mistake - we booked a chuckwagon DINNER, not breakfast! sigh... Not our mistake but no refunds so off we go!

New friends Mike & Marge

Our boss of a cook!

Number three wannabe musher photo.

Our teamsters & guide, students here for summer work from
Florida, Serbia & oh dear I can't remember will have to ask G tomorrow, lol...

1:50 pm we head out to Denali National Park!

Once again, God put on a spectacular show for us, with 11 grizzly bears, over two dozen caribou, willow ptarmigans, ground squirrels, Dall's sheep (at a great distance), golden eagles, magpies...

Unfortunately, I had one of those "You can NOT be serious" moments. 

When we arrived at the park I realized I didn't have my long zoom lens with me... 

I was almost sick...

Many of the best photos were taken by G with our little pocket Nikon Coolpix.

I made sure to lug that lens EVERYWHERE for the remainder of our trip.

Bull moose greeted us almost at the entrance to the park.

Caribou

Grizzly!

Dall's sheep near the top of the mountain ridge (see the tiny white dots?) 

Black-billed Magpie

Two more grizzlies - could be mom & a cub as they tend to travel together.

Spectacular scenery

Yes - that's our road at the edge of the landslide-looking place!
And we saw this before we were driving on it...
I love how it looks like gold spilling down the hill side :~)

Unfortunately we didn't get a glimpse of the colossus.
Denali kept herself swathed in mystery...

Great pic by G of a caribou.

Golden eagle - there were three at one point.
Their wingspan is even longer than a bald eagle's at over 7 feet.

Two more caribou on top of a ridge.

We all thought that this would play out like an Animal Planet show...

But they just kept chowing down on veggies.
(They weren't as close together as they appear.)

 High entertainment from the grizzly.

Willow ptarmigan

Mama moose & twin babies, although one is hidden.
Perfect way to end our journey through Denali!

We got back so late that the hotel restaurant had to re-open to feed us.
Off to Fairbanks in the morning!