Savage Creek CG to Wonder Lake, DNP

Several photos stitched together to show the panorama

Day 4--Monday, July 22, 2002,

Today I was up at 4:30 and glimpsed Denali on my way to the washroom. (Actually we had first seen her on our way from Nenana to Healy.) This tallest mountain in North America at 20,320 feet is perpetually blanketed in snow and shows herself only about one-third of the time. The rest of the time she hides behind her cloak of clouds. But this morning she was "out" and magnificent, painted bright pink by the sunrise. I learned later that this phenomenon is called "alpenglow." Just a taste of what lay ahead on our day in DNP.

We caught the shuttle to Wonder Lake at 5:45 am. It is hard to even put in words our tour. The mountains are enormous, vast, and drop dead awesome. The farther into the park we traveled (mostly on a tortuous one-lane, mountain-hugging road) the larger and more awesome they became until Denali loomed white and enormous only 36 miles away across a valley. Jess and I both snapped scads of photos, but I'm sure they will not come close to painting the massiveness and beauty of this the Alaska Range and its rivers and valleys.

Dall sheep foraged high up on the green "foothills," a golden eagle hung over the valley hundreds of feet below, a ptarmigan posed beside the bus, caribou were everywhere—some of the bulls with enormous racks, and many of the does with new babies. These poor creatures are plagued by flies, so they often come up out of the brushy vegetation onto the road to get away from the flies.

We also saw two bull moose and two moose cows—the two bulls at a distance but the two cows up close. While we did not see any wolves, we did see the vast area closed for their denning and were told that they had whelped three pups this year. The Denali pack is dwindling, so this is a good sign.

Why we rode the shuttle bus rather than our bicycles

Did we, you ask, see Ursus horribilis? Yes we did see grizzlies — six of them, one a cub who ran circles around its mother. There are estimated to be about 350 grizzlies in the park, which is about the size of MA. We were told to look for golden looking "haystacks" because most of the bears in the area are very light colored. Several were at long range but one was close to the bus, and one was sprawled ala bear rug, asleep on a hillside.

All told it was a wonder-filled but long day—11 hours of riding, spotting wildlife, getting off the bus for breaks. A Dutch couple and their son were the best spotters on our bus. He credited his many spottings to his "Dutch eyes."

Wonder Lake Road

 As soon as we hit the campsite, we prepared and ate supper, and then hitched the 13 miles back down to The Mercantile (a brand new store just before the Visitor's Center) to take showers. Three days with no shower is too much. I had enough bug repellent cream moussed into my hair to make it stiff, and despite our sponge baths, we both smelled like the yukky rubber dry suits we'd worn rafting yesterday.

And now here I sit composing this update while Jess catches some shut eye, or at least tries. I woke her with a shriek a moment ago. I was writing away, eating small French roasted coffee bonbons when a grey jay—the same one who had repeatedly lit on the table and pestered us during supper—executed a successful sneak attack when it landed on my hand, stole a coffee bean out of the tin, and flew off-laughing at my startled shriek.

One P.S. that I've been meaning to add: Our BOB trailers are workhorses, but not without problems. The handle ripped off Jess's waterproof trailer bag at the airport and when the bag arrived in Fairbanks, it had several holes in it. It's now patched up with duct tape. My bag survived the flights, but the rubber lanyard that holds my cotter pin somehow broke and I lost the pin. I had a spare and have tied it to the trailer with cord. No other equipment problems so far, cross the fingers.