Alaska!! Part Two--Denali National Park

One of the main reasons we flew to Alaska instead of taking a cruise is that I wanted to go to Denali National Park. It was an amazing place.

Besides the hope of seeing Mount McKinley (recently renamed Denali) was chance to see lots of wildlife, which we did. Below is a caribou.

We saw many grizzly bears as we spent the day driving the park.

The bus driver/guide stopped the bus frequently if anyone spotted wildlife.

The only way to go into the heart of the park is on buses run by the park service. We paid extra to have a tundra tour and guide.

As the bus came around a corner we saw these two moose in the stream. They bolted as soon as they saw us, which is why I got a picture of their backsides.

Because no POV's are allowed in the park past a certain point, the wildlife is not accustomed to people and roam freely.

We definitely felt like we got our money's worth in terms of seeing the wildlife of Alaska. Unfortunately, it was too cloudy to see Mount McKinley.

Most of the bears didn't get this close to the buses.

It was interesting to go through Denali National park the weekend after we'd driven through Glacier National park in Montana. The park in Alaska was more tundra and Glacier was mostly mountains.

These mountain sheep live mostly in the area of Denali.

This fireweed was very pretty and growing all alongside the roads. We tried some fireweed flavored ice cream in one of the towns we stopped in on the way home from the park.

We saw a whole heard of caribou crossing in the valley below our bus.

This type of landscape was fairly common, so not nearly as picturesque as Glacier was.

This was a fun little cafe we went to for lunch on our way to Denali. We loved the flowers and the location next to a babbling brook.

  As we were driving back to Anchorage we caught just a glimpse of the top of Mount McKinley. Guess it was better than nothing!!