Day 09 - 08/28/25 - Denali

 This morning started the earliest the trip with our alarms going off at 4:45 AM. We had to catch our tour at 6 AM so we quickly dressed and then walked up to the lobby where there is a coffee shop and we used our breakfast voucher to purchase breakfast items there. We only used one voucher which was worth $25 and bought some fruit, some sodas and some cheese and a couple hard-boiled eggs. We had our breakfast in the lobby while waiting for the tour bus to arrive. It was prompt and Peter our driver for the day Greeted us just before six. Most of the bus was from our tour group, but he also picked up a few passengers over at the princess Lodge to fill out the bus which was 40 people.


Essentially, the tour drives the highway through the park the first part of which is paved, and the bulk of it is not using converted school buses. The driver is equipped with a high-powered camera which is electronically connected to viewing screen so that if any wildlife has spotted, he can focus the camera on that item and everyone on the bus can see it. It turned out we had a fellow named Jon who is really good at spotting game and he spotted virtually everything that we saw that day.


Our first encounter were moose, and those were followed by Caribou, Tarmigan, and then a grizzly bear & cub and more  caribou and moose, and finally we reached the end of the road that can be driven for now about 47 miles out. A few years ago, there was a major landslide which took out the road beyond where we were able to drive and a new bridge that covers the slide area is in the final stages of being completed. It is expected to be back in service around the year 2027. Meanwhile, nobody gets to go into the area beyond where we turned around except for the workers working on the bridge. I think it will be interesting to be able to go on a tour that goes into the deeper parts of the park past the new bridge and see what it's like for an area that has had no essential human presence for at least four years. That might mean another trip up here.


We then headed back and stopped to watch bears and moose, but we did not see any Dahl sheep like last year. Just before reaching the guard station a mother and 2 2 year-old cubs were ambling their way down the road and Peter turned the motor off and we just glided down the road behind them until the bus lost air pressure and he had to start the engine . We had a good 15 to 20 minutes of bear viewing right up close and personal. It's by far the best bear viewing we've ever seen.




                        Mother Grizzly Bear


Soon we were back at the lodge where we used Angela's voucher to purchase lunch consisting of a couple turkey sandwiches, and a few miscellaneous items. We sat in the lobby and ate our lunch and I was unable to download my pictures using the Wi-Fi system because the house Wi-Fi was overpowering the Wi-Fi between my camera and my phone. So I excused myself and took a shuttle back to our cabin where I tried it also to download the pictures. But I was unsuccessful. So I gathered my things up and hopped on a shuttle and told the driver that I was going to ride around and download my pictures so that I wouldn't have the site's Wi-Fi interfering with my low power Wi-Fi on my camera. That worked well and I rejoined Angela where we decided on dinner arrangements and I booked reservations at Carson's in the Denali Square area of America. Typically we use the second meal over at the Princess complex as we know the facilities.  However  I've decided to try out Karsten's for the first time.


A sled dog company brought Alaskan sled dog husky puppies to the lodge between 2 & 4 and we enjoyed holding and petting them.  They were about 6 weeks old.



Karsten's was quite good for dinner.  The halibut was quite good.  Afterwards we returned to our room to finish packing and go to bed early as we have to be up before 7am to put out our luggage.


It was a great day in Denali!

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