AK Trip - Day Seventeen - Monday, July 2nd,

Denali National Park

Leaving Fairbanks we traveled down The Parks Highway to Healy, AK, a small burg near the entrance to Denali NP. Our motel for a couple of nights was The White Moose Motel, located off the beaten path, without internet service, one channel on the tv and one phone located in the office.

We fully expected some kind of critter to stroll out of the woods that bordered the parking lot to the motel.

After checking into The White Moose, we rode over to the visitor center and booked a six hour bus tour of the park for early the next morning.Denali, although shrouded in fog and low hanging clouds the entire day, was nothing short of breathtaking. Our bus tour snaked along a death defying, one lane gravel strip that clung to the sides of the mountains. Our tour took us over the Polly Chrome Pass and on to Toklat before we returned on the same route. It is a pity the pictures posted here will not begin to do the park justice.Sheer drops of over a thousand feet were common just a few feet from our bus.Game was abundant throughout the park. We spotted two grizzlies, herds of caribou, mountain sheep, several moose, bald eagles and snowshoe hares by the thousands. (Our guide says snowshoe hares are estimated at 2500 per sq mile.) The distances were too great to take a decent wildlife shot with a snapshot camera.

"All of the animals except man know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it." ~Anonymous~