Yes that is the road, one lane, dirt, no guard rails.

Another fantastic blue sky day, 2 in a row. We were up at 5.30 to catch the 6.15 bus. It is 88 miles (142 km) to Wonder Lake, almost all the way into the park. It is an eleven hour round trip with stops along the way but all food and water must be taken in.

We had visions of Denali as a place of lush vegetation, wild animals running all over the place, dozens of different birds, and great scenic views. We certainly got the scenic views and the dominance of the snow covered mountains and great sweeping valleys at every turn. The animals and birds however were few and far between and it was a lot dryer than we expected.

The bus was an ex school bus of unknown vintage. Apparently the engine and seats are new but the rest is original.

We were very glad to hear that our driver has been doing this trip for eleven years and has successfully negotiated the road 13,465 times. Also reassuring was that each driver had to pass a rigorous driving test in the bus before every season. Even so it was breathtaking on some of the curves.

The mountains were magnificent. Denali is the tallest mountain I will ever see and we were so lucky to see it.

We did see some animals, often far away but eventually achieved a few decent photos.

Grizzly bears. We were surprised at how blonde they were.

Bull moose

Caribou

Baby grizzly

Overall we were a little underwhelmed by Denali. Seeing the mountain was spectacular as was the scenery. For us though Denali did not live up to the animal show spectacular we had read about. Maybe not so surprising when we heard that in the 6 million acres of the National Park there are 350 grizzly bears, 1500 moose and 2000 caribou.

We got back to base about 5 pm tired and hungry. No way were we cooking tonight so off to town and the highly recommended “Prospectors”. A few beers and four fabulous pizzas later we staggered home to a good nights sleep in the tent.

Doesn’t look much from the outside but that is very common in Alaska. Peter found a good beer, local Alaskan of course.

That slab of fried heart attack is an onion ring. Monster onions in Alaska!