Alaska- Denali National Park

August 15 – Grizzly Highway

Keeping with the theme of a morning weather report… Today was one of the worst. We received a weather alert for 1-2” of rain including threats of mudslides and landslides. Not a good start.

Our plans for the day were already locked in at a solid eight hours. We had 10:00 tickets to ride the bus into Denali National Park; the only way in and out, outside of a bush plane or a pack raft. The ride is done in an old converted school bus making a few stops along the dirt road for a bathroom break if need be but there was nothing else available ie, water, food, etc.

The skies were spitting at 10:00 however the cloud layer allowed for some vistas and while we couldn’t see any peaks, we could see that the mountains had received their first dusting of snow overnight. The temperature this morning was a balmy 43 degrees, not what we had expected but at least we were prepared for it. Last week it was 85 degrees.

Our bus driver, Dale, has been driving for 27 years. He was a bit gruff but there was some humor thrown in; he did however take covid precautions very seriously and was on top of any mask slackers. He made the rules clear and simple – keep your hands and heads inside the bus at all times, if we come across an animal we need to stay quiet and bear spray and guns need to be inside your packs.

The initial 30 plus miles was uneventful but everything changed soon thereafter. The cloud layers lifted allowing us to see across the valleys, the rain stopped and there was sunshine lighting up the distant hills and mountains.

The first animals we encountered was a small herd of caribou. These caribou had HUGE racks, really incredible in fact. Caribou are cool in that both the male and female have antlers, the only member of the deer family that do, but the females antlers are generally smaller and more irregular. Based on that, these caribou were clearly male!

The next big moment we had was at an area called Polychrome Pass. This is an area of the park that is both scenically beautiful but also geologically impressive. It is an area of massive rockslides that frequently causes problems for engineers. Today, there was some heavy machinery up there trying to stabilize a section of the road that is only wide enough for one bus (yes. I kid you not. And the busses don’t use any radio to communicate so if you come around a corner and meet another bus… trust me… it’s more than scary). The road is sliding down the mountain- in 2018 alone it dropped 12 feet over the course of the year due to shrinking permafrost. Just a few weeks ago the road was shut for hours as the road slumped, stranding busses for hours on both sides.

The colors and vistas at Polychrome Pass are amazing but again, it was all very limited in its scope. I could however easily see the valley floor below over the road edge that was maybe 2 feet from the bus- I can assure you I did some controlled breathing to get through it. Holy cow, this road made the road up to Machu Picchu look like a walk in the park. I am absolutely amazed this is a road in America.

Denali National Park’s vastness was certainly made evident as we drove on. It is the third largest national park at roughly 6,000,000 acres (about the size of New Hampshire).

Our first bear encounter happened maybe 2 1/2 hours in. A large grizzly foraging on blueberries a few hundred yards off the road. We stopped to watch it for quite some time; Dale having to remind the group in the back to stay quiet and keep their hands in the window. Jenny was thrilled, even if it was a bit far away. Crazy thing was recognizing how big these bears are but how tiny it was sitting there in the immensity of Denali NP.

The last stop and turn around was Eileson Visitor Center, closed still from covid. This is where you should get an incredible view of Denali Mountain but by now it was raining and getting foggy. What we did see which was pretty cool was Muldrow Glacier now in an historic surge which began last year; it is currently moving between 30-60 feet per day! We could make out the glacier and the new surge of broken and blackened ice chunks.

By the time the bus left it was raining pretty good and the windows were mud coated reducing visibility to near zero. I was so bummed that all of the incredible views and the one thing Jenny had asked to do in Alaska, to see Denali, wasn’t to be. All this glorious wilderness was only partially available to the eye – very frustrating but that’s nature and that’s Alaska. Jenny did point out we had seen a bear and that had made her happy.

Dale had narrated the whole ride up but had said he wouldn’t be doing so on the return. He said sometimes taking in nature in silence is much better so we looked forward to doing just that; however the family group in the back had no intentions of it. They talked and talked and talked – loudly. Billy and Jenny put their ear buds in while the woman sitting g across the aisle from me rolled her eyes.

As we summited a hill we found two busses stopped; they were looking at bears. We pulled up but couldn’t see them as we were blocked in by the other busses. Dale patiently waited and waited while everyone grew a bit frustrated until the busses left giving us a perfect view of a mama and her two year old cub foraging for blueberries. They were much closer than the other bear and as we sat and watched (with Dale constantly having to tell the group in the back to quiet down and not put their hands out the window), we were thrilled! The bears continued to move closer and closer and just about this time I heard something hit the ground outside the bus. I turned back to hear this guy (the one guy who has needed constant reminders) say he had dropped his phone outside the window. I couldn’t help but crack up, and then tell Jenny who also began to crack up followed by Billy. The bears were literally maybe 20 feet off the front of the bus – we were in row 2 with row 1 being blocked off so we had a perfect view!

At this point, the guy in the back had to make the walk of shame up to tell Dale his phone was laying on the ground. It was all very comical as there were two grizzlies right there ( not to mention a mama with her cub- a no go) so did he think Dale was going to open the bus doors and say sure, go get it?

We continued to watch the bears until they crossed right in front of us and then quickly disappeared over a ridge on the other side. Wow! Wow! Wow! It was beyond amazing and we were beyond ecstatic. It certainly made up for the incredibly crappy weather we have had!

I was glad to see that the road at Polychrome Pass was still intact and prayed it remained that way while we crossed back over – at only twenty feet wide with a sheer 500 foot drop off, hairpin turns in driving rain I hung my head low, breathed hard and received a consoling pat from Jenny.

One last stop and I got out to clean the windows so we could see better. Jenny joined me as we wiped and wiped. Dale came around the bus with a squeegee to help out and turned to me and said, “I hope you don’t find this offensive or strange but your daughter is stunningly beautiful. I hope you don’t mind me saying so. My mother always told me to tell it like I see it, so I just did.” I, of course, told him no offense at all and told him she is just as stunningly beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside.

The clean windows only lasted for maybe a mile and the remainder of the two hours felt like a suicide mission with the family constantly talking, at one point the mother asking her children if they wanted to play 20 questions- both myself and the lady next to me verbally said, “Oh God. No.” She went on to suggest they should play “the quiet game.” She turned to me and said, “This is what happens when kids are hooked on electronics; they need constant entertainment when there are none available.”

In the end, the eight hours was worth it. I had concerns Jenny and I would get horribly motion sick but we were OK. The views we did see were incredible and the bears were fantastic. Jenny said she would just have to come back – to finish a hike and to see Denali.