Alaska 2012: Day 14 of 22 (Denali To Anchorage)

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We drove a short distance from the Riley Creek Campground to the Denali Wilderness Access Center, which is where the tour buses depart

All photos for this day

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Denali National Park

Lots of tour options - we went on the 7-8 hour Tundra Wilderness Tour

First views of Mt McKinley

Our bus driver\tour guide was very knowledgeable and did a great job

Ptarmigan the Alaskan state bird

Bathroom break

Caribou

Resting in the snow

Break for a quick hike

Complimentary snack box - pretty small. Luckily we brought additional sandwiches.

Native Alaskan stuff - reindeer sausage, Alaska chips, etc

Adam and Helen claimed the back seat and Adam laid out

Ground squirrels

Looks like a painting

A little restless being couped up on a long bus ride. This was as far as we went on our tour - about 55 miles on Denali Park Road

3 brown bears sleeping on the hillside

Having fun with some of animal horns

That thing is heavy and it's only half of what the moose carried around on its head

Another brown bear

Almost everybody goes on these tours hoping\expecting to see animals and I guess that's how they have to sell the tours, but the park is so big and you spend so much time and cover so much area that you really expect to see more animals than you do and even when you do see animals they're usually so far away that you have to use binoculars. It's kind of ridiculous. The tour is long and you're likely to see some animals, but the tour is really more about the diversity of the landscape.

The road seems like it should be one way, but as we found when we met other buses passing us on our way back, two buses can fit side by side - barely! I was looking over the side and couldn't see ground. The driver just kept talking as if everything was normal. She told us about how the people that clear the snow in the Spring don't have any markers to help them know where the edges are and often hang the tracks of their machines off the edges. 

Moose

We were sad that we got back too late to see the sled dog demonstration

Denali Visitor Center

Bear scat through the seasons

Nice movie

Pika

Fannie Quigley, our server at the Cabin Nite Dinner Theater

We hiked back to the Wilderness Access Center

We got back to our RV at the Wilderness Access Center and then drove north a short way to the town of Healy because Kelley told us it was a nice drive. It was a pretty drive with some nice gorges.

Helen and I talked about stopping for some beer battered halibut, another thing Helen "owns" and kept mentioning. I pulled over to try one place but the lot was full so I found another place to park - about half a mile away. By then the kids were asleep and Helen didn't want to wake them. It was one of those, I'm trying to get you what you want and now you nixed it, so I'm moving on until you tell me otherwise.

I ended up driving all the way back to Anchorage while everyone slept. The drive would have been pretty smooth, but we hit a big traffic jam in Willow because they were paving the highway. We ended up getting back to Kelley's about 1:30 am. We were surprised to find Jason and Laine cooking and preparing things for the camping trip we were going on next.