A Grizzly Adventure Part 1: Denali National Park

Just when I thought the trip couldn’t get any better, amazingly it did. In fact, the last two weeks of the trip include many of the highlights of the whole trip. Our experience in Denali National Park was awe-inspiring. This is one of the places in the world that is still truly wild wilderness. There is so much to show and tell about our adventure.

We arrived at Savage River Campground just before mile 15 on the park road around 2:00 on Sunday after attending church in the Healy Branch. I was glad we arrived early because with our size of rigs we could not have fit in several of the campsites and the sites with a reservation are still first come first serve. Even navigating around the campground was a challenge with our size rig. Dad and mom had an even more difficult time with their being longer than us. Mile 15 is where private vehicles have to turn around (unless you have a special permit for camping–we did for the three days after this).

RESERVATIONS ARE A MUST. The Riley Creek Campground was full and all the other campgrounds we stayed at also filled up each night. There may have been some openings at Savage River and Teklanika River campgrounds, but they filled up too. I was so glad we made reservations clear back in January.

After settling into our camp, we quickly returned back to the front of the park to catch the 4:30 Canine Ranger program. Denali is the only National Park that uses sled dogs to patrol and protect the park in the winter time. This started from the very beginning of the park when it was created in 1917. They are still a vital part of running the park in the winter. We had the experience with the sled dogs at the Iditarod Trail Headquarters in Wasilla a few weeks before, but I was struck again by how excited the dogs got when it was time to run. In the video below you can see the dog that didn’t have their turn to run all jumping around. It is like they were saying, “Pick me! Pick me!” They were completely silent and laying around lazily until the ranger had us all clap as the signal and then the dogs in the yard went nuts–barking, running around, jumping super high in the air, jumping up and down off their dog houses. These are amazing animals and they just love to run. The dogs that were selected couldn’t wait to get going as you can see in the video. And once they were off, those dogs became absolutely quiet and focused while the dogs in the yard kept barking. So cool!!!

After the canine ranger demonstration we visited the visitor center and enjoyed the great exhibits they have there about the animals in the park and the people who have lived in the park area for thousands of years. I was amazed at the resourcefulness of the people and their ability to figure out a use for every little piece of a Caribou.

Monday morning began early because we had booked the 12 hour Kantishna Bus Tour and had to drive 20 minutes back to the bus depot to catch our tour bus at 6:30 am. On our way to the bus depot, we saw the only bull moose we saw in Denali. It was a fairly young bull so the antlers were not that big, but it was a bull. He had a female with him. It was the middle of rutting season for the moose, so the bulls were occupied fitting for the females.

The Kantishna bus tour takes you all the way to the end of the park road at mile 92 in the mining town of Kantishna. They only way to get there is by bus or with a special permit given for certain purposes. In Denali, they implemented a bus system past mile 15 decades ago and I have to say that it was a brilliant idea. They have the tour buses which are the tan ones (on the left below), the transit buses which are green (on the right) and run back and forth all day and the private lodges in Kantishna also operate buses for their clientele. You can hop on and off as you see fit and as there is room, as long as you have an initial pass.

They also have strict rules on the buses. When wildlife is spotted, the bus stops, turns off the motor and the passengers are to stay absolutely quiet and no part of the body or camera can protrude outside of the window. If it does, the bus driver is instructed to drive on. Because they have done this strictly, the wildlife hang around the road way more than anywhere else and it is perfectly safe because the people are in the bus. After visiting Denali and visiting Yellowstone several times, Denali is hands down the better way to view the wildlife and there are way more wildlife near the road and in some cases on the road. On this tour, our first animals were a mother and baby moose eating along the side of the road.

We saw incredible vistas that make up Denali national park. There is just amazing view after amazing view. The road was planned to ensure that the visitor had access to the amazing areas of the park. As a result, it was built along the side of at least two mountains. One is called Polychrome Pass and the views were incredible. It is called Polychrome for a reason with all the beautiful rock coloring. We had the added benefit of it being fall on the tundra so we had fall colors (this was the end of August by the way).

We saw vista after amazing vista as we drove along the gravel road.

All we saw of Denali the mountain was a little piece of a shoulder. Nothing like what we saw a few days earlier at the State park.

Not only was the scenery amazing, but we also saw amazing wildlife, much of which was close to the road. We saw many caribou. Here are some of the best photos. I learned that males and females have antlers, so you can not tell the difference very easily. The females antlers have a little bit different form on the part that hangs over their nose–they call it the shovel. The three below that are close up are male I believe.

Denali National Park was originally established to protect the Dall Sheep. They were being hunted at a rate of 2000 per year to feed all the miners in the area at Kantishna and elsewhere. The estimated size of the Denali herd of Dall Sheep today is 2000 so they just barely got the protections in place in time. From the bus, the Dall Sheep are normally way high up on the very steep sides of the tops of the mountains. We saw a lot of them, but only a few were close enough for decent pictures and a video.

We saw some golden eagles as well. They are absolutely huge birds. The tour guide who is a naturalist was full of information and let us know that they don’t see bald eagles in Denali like other parts of Alaska. That makes sense because there really are not very many fish in Denali, and bald eagles a fishers.

We were there at the perfect time of year to see Grizzly Bears because the bears were in a state called hyperphagia where they are eating constantly to put on weight before hybernation. The berries were in season, particularly the low-bush cranberry aka lingonberry. I never thought of bears as grazers, but they were out on the tundra grazing away on berries. They can eat around 220,000 berries a day. I believe it, because they never stop, except to find a new patch. They also dig for other food as well. That is one of the reasons a grizzly has the huge paws they have and the hump on their back. It is the muscles for digging. From Teklanika campground to the Toklat river is the main area for grizzly bears, particularly Sable Pass. We saw seven grizzly bears on this tour.

We stopped for a few minutes at Eielson Visitor Center at mile 66 for a break and there were more incredible views. When Denali is visible, it would be off of dad’s left shoulder in the picture on the left, but it was hiding out as usual.

We saw another rather amazing animal in Denali up close at the Eielson Visitor Center–the Arctic Ground Squirrel. It has adapted to the cold winters by hibernating for about 8 months. They basically die or freeze by slowing down their metabolic rate and the fluids reach about 29 degrees fahrenheit–below freezing. They do wake up for about 12 days during winter to warm themselves back up, but it is an absolutely amazing adaptation. Plus they are super cute.

According to our tour guide and the rangers, we were super lucky and saw one black bear as well on the shores of Wonder Lake.

We made it to the end of the road, mile 92.5 which is the old mining town of Kantishna. Today there are still people who live here and the run lodges and other things. There is a bush plane airport located in town, so you either fly in and out, or you have to get a special permit to drive in and out on the park road with all the buses.

Kantishna mining was booming in the early part of the 20th century. The ranger shared the story of an amazing frontierswoman named Fannie Quigley. She and her husband settled in Kantishna and mined there for many years. She was a small framed woman, but man she was tough. She would mine, hunt, gather, fish, garden, chop wood and anything else she had to do to survive. There is a story that she had been tracking a moose and killed it, but it was very late in the day and she knew she would not get back that night. So she cut open the moose, climbed in and survived the frigid conditions until morning and then hauled the moose home. And you thought George Lucas came up with that idea. I wonder if he had that inspiration for Star Wars after hearing about Fannie Quigley. She was amazing. Even when her husband left and went to California, Fannie stayed in Kantishna until she died. For her later years, she ordered a small cabin from the Sears and Roebuck Company and she was very hospitable to anyone who came into town. She was said to make the best blueberry pie. What an amazing woman!!! She did all this during a time when Alaska was “not a place for a woman.” I have great respect for her ingenuity, perseverance and true grit.

What an amazing tour!!!! It was well worth the money and I highly recommend it. As we returned to the bus depot, we saw a few volunteer dog walkers out walking or running with the canine rangers. What a fun job that would be! They have to volunteer three hours a week to do this. Once at the depot, we were exhausted but very awed with the day. But it wasn’t the end of this amazing day.

On the way home, we saw a double rainbow. Stay tuned for part two, because our grizzly adventure gets even better after we move to Teklanika River Campground for our three final days in the park.