Bob and Ann in Alaska 2009

We were up very early this morning. We had a continental breakfast in the Courtyard Cafe when it opened at 4:30. Then we boarded our Denali Tundra Wilderness Tour bus at our appointed time of 5:20. We didn't mind the early departure because our theory was that the wildlife would be awake and not be scared off by the later hoardes of tourists. Our large tan bus was navigated by a naturalist/driver. He had a sound system so that he could tell us about the animals, scenery and history of the park. The bus also had drop-down video screens. The driver used a video camera to zoom in on the animals and show them on these screens. This was a really nice feature, especially when the wildlife was far away.

Ptarmigan

The weather was overcast, cool and a little hazy from the nearby fires. We drove from the lodge, past the visitor's center and into the park. As soon as we passed the main gate, the road became gravel. It was fairly smooth, though. Once we got into the park, we immediately spotted wildlife. Two moose walked across the road in front of us. As we were watching them, a ptarmigan appeared next to the bus. Later we saw caribou and bear cubs. We stopped at Teklanika River for our second rest break. It was here that the driver gave us some snacks and hot chocolate that was poured from a spout on the outside of the bus. This was a well-equiped bus!

Grizzly

Very soon after leaving the rest stop, we stopped after spotting a large grizzly with her cub bounding after her. They came down the hill to the side of out bus and crossed the road behind us. We got a good look at them.

We continued on farther into the park past the Toklat River to Polychrome Lookout where we anticipated seeing Denali. It was too cloudy today to see it so we just stopped for awhile, looked at the scenery and turned around for our journay back to the chalet. On the way, we stopped at the Teklanika River rest stop, ate our lunch and visited the gift shop. Then it was onward back to the chalet. We saw more wildlife on the way including caribou and a coyote.

Ann and Ellen decided to walk over to the visitors' center when we got back to the chalet. I got caught up on photos, blogs, email, etc. at the main lodge. Later, we all got together again and had a good dinner in the main dining room. Because of the very late sunset, we have been a little disoriented about time. It was hard to judge when we should go to bed. Because we were up very early this morning, we had no problems getting to sleep at a decent hour.