The Tundra Wilderness

Denali:  "The Great One"

Mark down this date:  May 30, 2019 at Denali National Park & Wilderness Area where the sky was blue, the clouds were few and The Great One was on display all day.  We absolutely could not have picked a better day to be here. We were warned it is very unusual to catch sight of the top and we dared not hope for such a day.  It was simply glorious and the majesty of this mountain makes it hard to take your eyes off it.  We were surprised by the huge size of the mountain and can't remember the size of the base but it is immense. The two peaks you see here are 2 miles apart! Both peaks are attempted for climbing, but the percentage of climbers who are successful is very small.  A successful ascent takes 21-30 days. It's pretty obvious that any groups near the top today tried to get there in this weather.  BTW this is our favorite picture we got today, but we easily have 50 more of Denali to remind us of this great day.

We took the tundra wilderness tour today which is by bus and takes most of the day. Our tour was #4 and left the park station at 6:40am with a very full bus. I believe there were 16 such tours today offered by the park service. This is a popular tour! It is hard to turn from Mt Denali at times, but there is so much more to see and learn about. Like all national parks we see, this one became a favorite right away.  It's a little hard to explain and/or understand how such a majestic place can, at the same time, appear so fragile. The park now covers 6 million acres (since the 1970's) and the mountain ranges are huge.  The tree line here is at 3000 feet (vs 10-11,000 in CO) so the mountains appear very exposed.  The ecological balance here is constantly studied -- that is, the predator-prey relationships. We found it all fascinating.

And we did see wildlife all day, especially caribou today. We saw so many of those we began to pass up stopping! We saw moose: a really cute scene where the mother was eating and her twin babies were chasing each other in play. We saw golden eagle, ptarmigan, a marsh hawk and gyr falcon. There were many groupings of dall sheep: either all rams together or the ewes with baby lambs. It was so obvious all day how the young must be protected from predators. One disappointment was not spotting grizzlies as we had expected. Also wolves are prevelent here, but we really did not expect to see them during the daytime.

And the scenery: glaciers, glacier-melt silt streams, mud flats, wildflowers just popping up, so many varieties of trees with the Aspens just beginning to leaf out, expanse everywhere -- and, of course, Mt Denali showing up around so many curves. In summary: spectacular.