Day 20--Denali National Park

There's Mt. McKinley.  See it?

Okay, this is what?  the sixth national park on this trip so far?  We made the 6:15 bus departure and spent the next 11 hours riding out to Wonder Lake and back.  When we got on the bus, the driver informed us that HER job was to get us safely out to Wonder Lake and safely back.  OUR job was to look for wildlife.  She would be glad to stop so we could snap pictures or simply observe the animals, but she would be watching the road and wouldn't be able to help us look for wildlife.  But as a matter of fact, all but two of the wildlife sightings for the rest of the day were hers.  She could look at a hillside and tell "something isn't just right."  And it would be a bear taking a nap halfway up.  Turns out she had been driving that bus for seventeen summers.  So not only was she familiar with the road, she knew all the terrain like it was her home neighborhood.  The bus trip covers 92 miles out to the lake and every one of them back in again.

We didn't see much in the way of wildlife:  a moose, early in the morning, munching on shrubby growth in a lake; a couple of grizzlies taking naps; a few elk;  and, on the way back, a herd of caribou, which we had not seen prior to today.  We did spot a golden eagle resting on a rocky ridge, and there were arctic ground squirrels scurrying across the road from time to time. Oh, yeah, the pavement runs out about 15 miles from the visitors' center, so most of the trip was on a gravel road, the only road in the park.  The mountain--Denali, or Mt. McKinley--was visible not long after we left the visitors' center, but the clouds soon overtook the summit, and we lost sight of it.  Other mountains in the area were spectacular, and we saw much that was impressive.  The point of going to Wonder Lake was that we would be able, theoretically, to get the best views of the mountain.  You can find pictures posted on the web of Mt. McKinley reflected in the water of Wonder Lake.  Alas, not only was the summit of Denali covered in clouds, most of the rest of the mountain was, as well.  And to obscure our views further, clouds rolled in where we were and it began to rain intermittently.  Wonder Lake being the halfway point of the trip, we ate the lunch we brought with us (no food concessions anywhere except the visitors' center) and tried to keep it from the pesky gray jays that wanted us to share with them.  (We had been warned about them, and told not to feed them.)  After a few minutes' rest, we climbed back on the bus and started back for the visitors' center.  We were disappointed that we hadn't been able to see the mountain for very long, but as the bus driver said, we saw it as almost everyone does:  not at all or in our case barely at all.  We were also disappointed that we had not seen more wildlife, but then, it's a big park with millions of acres, and the animals don't have to show themselves to tourists.  They have plenty of square miles of wilderness to live in.  The rangers indicate that they really don't want the animals to become accustomed to tourists, because they are living in a natural state now, and humans would introduce changes to their state and that would probably be dangerous for the animals (and sometimes for humans, too).  The jays at Wonder Lake are a good example of the effects of humans on the birds' behavior.

We returned to the RV park, with the rain settling in steadily, and it kept up a steady pattering on the roof all night long.