Venturing into the wild - with animal encounters

Yeah that first photo - only a tease as it didn't happen. We were there, but after being delayed twice the helicopter flight was called off due to bad weather. That was yesterday. Instead we went and got breakfast (see photo) and went souvenir shopping. Thankfully there were plenty of husband waiting benches :)

Today was our bus trip deep into the Denali Preserve, an 8 hour round trip with several breaks in between. This was not a tour, but rather a shuttle bus. We were told that the tour buses don't even go very far into the park and that all shuttles stop when you see wildlife so you have the opportunity to take photos. And you get this for a fraction of the tour bus price.

We departed at 8am after having had breakfast at the Salmon Bake at 7am. Of course Simone and I were hoping to catch glimpses of the wildlife that had so far eluded us, including bears, wolves, caribou, foxes and mountain sheep.

Nice glass art in the bus center.

Once again, the landscape was absolutely amazing and makes you feel really small and insignificant. At a place called Polychrome Pass the mountains were all different colours, set against the blue sky and green valleys. Stunning.

Polychrome Pass. No words.

After spotting the odd moose on our way, we finally saw our first bear! I have not cropped the photo below to show you how far away he was. We were all very excited of course and everyone took plenty of photos. Little did we know that this would be bear 1 out of 7. And just before our final destination we saw a bear about 25m away from the bus, having a good old scratch and getting ready for a nap. He/she was not bothered by the bus or the vehicles coming behind us.

 Of course I took heaps more photos but I'm only posting a few here. I love how you can see the palms of the paws and how big they are.

A little grin before bed time?

Photos from the destination surroundings. Eielson Visitor Center.
You can see how far we went on the map below. The red indicates how far you can go in your private vehicle. The bus goes much much further into the park.

These interlocked antlers were found in the wild. It is assumed that two bulls were fighting when the antlers interlocked and one pierced the eye of one bull. They both died and the remains were later found by rangers.

On the way back the bear was still asleep :)

After the trip we checked out some reflection lakes that Terry had told us about. We were lucky that the weather held up and this particular one was sheltered from the wind a bit, so it was nice and smooth.

 We grabbed an early dinner at the Salmon Bake.

These are Simone's halibut tacos. The fish was very nice, the tacos themselves not so much :(

My Denali burger met expectations.

And to finish off, a nice rainbow on the way home :) Thanks Denali, it was a great day!