The Wilderness

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We have just returned from our 8 hour bus ride into the wilderness of Denali.  53 miles on the only road into the National park.  Then turn around and return.  The bus driver is the tour guide.  We had Clay Walker as our driver.  He is now starting his 17th year driving the tour bus in Denali.  He lives year around near the park.  He knows the park well, and has a good eye to spot animals.  We had a very good day.  We saw: lots of Caribou, several groups of Dall Mountain Sheep, 4 Grizzly, 2 Red Fox, a Great Horn Owl with owlets, hundreds of snowshoe hares, (there is huge numbers of them and they are eating themselves out of house and home.), a Golden Eagle, several Ptarmigan (Alaska State Bird).   Then there is the incredible scenery.  We were on three rivers, and several of small mountains of the Alaskan Range.  The bad news is that it was cloudy and we could not see Denali itself.  But we saw it the other day.  And of course it had to snow just to keep me from moving herel.

So pictures.  Only took 89 today.  I will be putting all here.  ha ha ha.

But there are the Bears, two of them.  Very strange for Grizzlies.  They may be a mother and three year old cub, they may be a pair, or siblings.  They don't know which of the three choices are true.

Then there is the Caribou.  Mary wanted to see caribou, and we saw lots of them.