Life at the Leingangs': Alaska - Day Twenty: 5016.1 miles to Healy, AK

Up to this point (except for our cruise, which we pre-booked 3 days in advance and saved a TON of money) we we're really doing this trip on a by-the-seat-of-our-pants mentality. It was so freeing. No schedules tying us down, we could do what we wanted when we wanted where we wanted and if it didn't work out it obviously just wasn't meant to be.

I guess Denali National Park really doesn't work that way. They only allow cars into the park for the first 15 miles, after that you have to walk or take the park bus system. Turns out those buses fill up. Who would have known you'd have to make reservations weeks/months in advance to visit a national park??? You can get some of the last minute spaces, but they are full almost as soon as they are available a few days before. Crazy!

We really wanted to go, so we figured our best bet was to get there for the first buses that depart at 6am. That means getting up early. And getting up that early apparently meant it would also be cold! It was only 44 when we got in the van to leave. That was the coldest temp we'd seen yet!

Roads in Alaska are pretty sparse and there are even fewer cars on the road at about 5am. But there are moose. We saw one! She just moved too fast to get a pic... :(

We arrived at the Wilderness Access Center at 5:50am to find out that we would have to wait until 7am to find out if we could get on a bus that day. We grabbed some snacks and waited patiently for the booth to open. Turns out the first available seats (there weren't many) wasn't until 10am.

No problem... We grabbed our bear bell and spray and hiked out to Horseshoe Lake and the Nenana River. The nice thing about hiking that early is you have the place basically to yourself and you get great parking! :)

Then to kill some more time, we wandered over to the Visitors' Center and back to the WAC.

There are three kinds of buses at Denali: tan buses (These are the official tour buses), green buses (These buses are just old school buses that take you to whatever destination you've chosen to go in the park, they stop for wildlife viewing and will drop you off wherever/whenever you want. Then you just walk back to the road, put out your thumb and catch a ride on the next space-available green bus to your ticketed destination or back to the WAC), and camper buses (These are green buses with several back seats removed for your backpacking gear for those with backcountry permits only).

We chose the green bus to Eielson Visitors' Center, 66 miles and an 8-hour round trip.

The first campground/trail stop at Savage River was closed due to the fact that they were hunting for a grizzly who had an unfortunate encounter with a hiker after having another unfortunate encounter with people who fed him. It's true what they say, "a fed bear is a dead bear." Once they associate people with free food, it's hard to break them of the habit. :(

The scenery was very nice but it is hard to stay awake on a green bus that is warm and bouncing along the road...

After about 90 minutes of driving, we made our first rest stop at the Teklanika River. Our poor driver was watching us file out of the bus and whispered to another driver standing near by, "We need to see some animals soon." We must not have looked too thrilled...

Then our driver got his wish: a ptarmigan on the side of the road. Not exciting, but it was something...

Then one of the passengers spotted something on a patch of snow...

A caribou cooling off a bit from the sun...

That woke us up a bit and everyone began watching more intently out the window.

It wasn't long until we spotted another caribou. This one was well hidden in the brush and was first mistaken for a bear, until he lifted his head a bit...

Then the scenery turned a bit more mountainous as we neared the infamous Polychrome Pass. When you get there, you totally understand why they don't let private vehicles on the road. Narrow, winding, steep, drop-off cliffs, buses full of tourists driving very fast. People would die!

Second stop: Toklat River Rest Stop...

Chris decided to check out these hills using the telescope and he found something perched on the very top of the hill on the left...

Someone thought he was the king of the hill. And I suppose he was right...

Can you spy the mountain goat sitting on the peak?

Shortly after our rest stop we got our first look at a real honest-to-goodness grizzly bear. Turned out there were three grizzly bears!

Then we saw another one. And she had two cubs!

First we saw one...

Then the second one caught up...

If you get too distracted, mama bear will leave you behind...

The road climbed again as we got closer to Eielson...

As soon as the bus stopped the trail up to the ridge caught our eye...

We had to go! So we bid our bus adieu and started up the trail...

It didn't take long before I began to regret my decision. It was a hard, steep trail up the hill but it was the going down that I wasn't looking forward to...

It seemed to go up forever...

And then we made it!

The Alpine Trail is 1 mile up with a 1000 foot elevation gain and one of the few designated trails in the park. When you get a backcountry permit, you are free to hike/camp wherever you would like. And from the top we could see about a thousand wondrous places we wanted to explore! Next time...

Denali even decided to come out for a bit...

The only wildlife we saw on the way up were the arctic ground squirrels. And they were everywhere and often underfoot. Not fun when you're going down...

Then just before we reached the bottom we saw something running down the road. It was a fox with an arctic ground squirrel in his mouth!

I'm not sure if it was because it was getting late in the day or just her personality, but our second bus driver wasn't going to let anything slow her down! It was quite an exciting ride back to the WAC! She said she wouldn't be stopping but even she couldn't resist a bear...

Or the caribou standing in the road...

Or these sheep...

Or this mama grizzly and her cubs...

By the time we got back to the van we were exhausted and hungry! Time for dinner at the 49th State Brewing Company. Apparently everyone else thought so, too. The place was hopping! But the food was fantastic!