Denali National Park

One of the most anticipated stops on our Alaska trip was Denali National Park. As I mentioned before, Kathy and I are primarily wildlife photographers. We'll take pictures of almost anything but animals are our favorites. For those of you not familiar with Denali, it's a wilderness park with over 6 million acres of land and only 1 road. The road is 92 miles long and only the first 15 miles are open to private vehicles. Beyond that point you must be on a park bus or other "authorized vehicle". The first 15 miles are paved and the rest is gravel, sometimes very rough. It's quite an experience. The road gets real narrow in some spots and is just cut into the hillside. It's interesting when you meet an oncoming bus on one of the narrow sections of road. One bus sometimes has to back up to a wider section of road so the other can pass. As dicey as it seems, they claim that no buses have been lost along that road since the early 80s. All drivers receive training at the beginning of each season. Some drivers have been doing this for more then 30 years and they still receive the same annual training as the rookies.

We spent a week camped inside the park (Riley Creek Campground) without water, electricity, phone or Internet. It was one of the only times we went without Internet service while we were in Alaska. The following pictures are the result of spending 5 long, uncomfortable days on the park buses driving around looking for animals. A couple of our days were 13+ hours on the bus. I hope you enjoy these pictures as much as we enjoyed taking them.

Well, we finally made it to Denali National Park. Yippee!! Bring on the bears.

This is one of the buses we spent our time on. This one belongs to a private company, not the national park. They are allowed to drive on the park road because they own a lodge deep inside the park. The lodge existed before the land became part of the park so they were allowed to continue to operate it. They drove us to their lodge for a nice lunch, they also provided snacks during all our stops. They were really accommodating when it came time to stop for pictures.

OK, let's start with some birds and then we'll get to the large mammals, rodents and scenery.

These are Mew Gulls. There are 2 reasons I'm showing pictures of Gulls. First, look at nests they are sitting on. They build their nest on bare gravel exposed to the elements and predators. This is part of a river bed. It seems like a dumb place to build a nest but gulls are not exactly the sharpest pencils in the box. The second reason I showed this, why are gulls in a wilderness park hundreds of miles from the ocean??

Nice Bald Eagle. He (or she) was sitting on a hillside along the road. We drove by this spot on 5 different days and this eagle was always there. There must have been good hunting in the area.

Another Bald Eagle. This one looks a little more natural sitting on a rock.

This is a Magpie. They're very common in the western US and in Alaska. Although very common, they're also pretty birds. I especially like the blue vest. This one was squawking at some tourists for a handout.

How about a Golden Eagle. These are actually bigger than the Bald Eagle.

Here's an immature Golden Eagle. Like the Bald Eagle, they don't get their adult plumage for a few years.
These are Harlequin Ducks. It's not a great picture but I like their colors. These 2 were taking a mid day nap.

This is a Willow Ptarmigan (the "P" is silent, it's pronounced tar ma gin). It's the Alaska state bird. They turn snow white in the winter to give them some camouflage. You can still see some white feathers on its underbelly. This one is a male. You can tell by his bright red eyebrow.

This is one of the reasons I came to Denali NP. This is a Dall Sheep. They are also called Thin horn Sheep because their horns are thinner than the bighorn sheep in the lower 48. This one is a ram (male). He keeps those horns for life and they get longer each year. Denali NP was originally created in 1907 to protect the Dall Sheep from over hunting.

Here's a classic big horn sheep pose. I couldn't resist this one. The Dall Sheep is one of 4 varieties of big horn sheep in North America. Kathy and I have now photographed all 4. I'll include pictures of the 4 different big horns at the end of this post for anyone who's interested.

This is a nice shot of the Toklat River and surrounding valley. It gives you a good idea of what this section of the park looks like.

This is Polychrome Valley and the Toklat River. Photo was taken from Polychrome Pass, probably 1000 ft above the valley floor, along that narrow road I spoke about. That's the Alaska Mountain Range in the background.

Here's another shot of Polychrome. I liked the little yellow flowers on the ground so I laid on that cold, hard arctic ground to get this picture. A guy nearby thought I fell down so he tried to help me up...
This is the best picture I got of Mt. McKinley during our week in the park. It's the highest point in North America at 20320 ft. Photo was taken from the Eielson visitors center, 66 miles inside the park. McKinley is the white patch just to the right of center, above the American flag. You can only see the bottom half of the mountain because of cloud cover created by the mountain.

Here's a tidbit for you Siemens folks. The Eielson visitors center was completely rebuilt a couple years ago. It is outfitted with solar panels, a micro hydroelectric generator, a conventional generator, and a control system all designed by Siemens. Siemens had a nice little educational display that explained the system and how it mixes power from the solar and hydro sources with the conventional generator. After reading that I was almost homesick for Jupiter and my old job at Siemens .... NOT!!!

This moose cow (female) was taking a bath and didn't seem to mind having her picture taken. She had a young calf hidden in the brush up the embankment behind her but we couldn't get a shot of it. They stay really well hidden while mom feeds.

This is a different moose cow. We saw many, many moose in Denali. They are really common.

Here's Bullwinkle! We saw a group of 3 big bull moose browsing along the roadside on one of our bus rides. They were so close I had to take off my long telephoto lens and switch to a shorter one. A full grown mature bull moose grows to over 1500 lbs. up here. No wonder they call them the Monarch of the North. They are truly an impressive animal. Dumb looking but impressive.

These are Arctic Poppies. They only bloom for about 2 weeks in the summer so we were lucky to be there at the right time.

What would a trip to the arctic be without caribou. This is a male browsing on vegetation. Unlike other animals with antlers, both male and female caribous have antlers. The male's are larger and fall off in the winter (like deer, moose, elk). Pregnant females retain their antlers during the winter. Biologist think it's so they can protect their food from males that would push them away.

Here are 3 male caribou in more familiar surroundings. Caribou spend a lot of time around snow to keep the mosquitoes away. A caribou can lose 1-2 pints of blood a day from mosquito bites. They are also bothered by bott flies that fly up their nose and lay eggs. When the eggs hatch the larva burrow into the caribou's nasal passages and feed until they mature into flies. And you guys in Florida thought you had bug problems!!!

This is the rare Florida Caribou. It was really difficult to get this shot. Actually those Caribou antlers were really heavy. I read somewhere that a male caribou's neck muscles double in size during the spring and summer as their antlers grow.

Our grizzly bear encounters in Denali were a big disappointment. We saw several bears on each bus trip but they were all very far away. I shot this with a long telephoto and I still had to crop it and clean it up a little in Photoshop to make it presentable. It still isn't very sharp but I wanted to show some bears. Don't worry though. A couple weeks after this was taken we went to Katmai Natl Park to get up close and personal with the massive coastal brown bears. We were not disappointed. It was easily the highlight of this entire trip. I shot nearly 500 pictures in an afternoon. My camera was smoking!! I'll post those pictures and the story of that adventure as soon as I can.

For some reason the bears love to chew on this sign. The park service replaced the old sign just a few weeks before this was taken. Look how badly chewed up it is in just a couple weeks.

During the winter the road in Denali isn't plowed but the rangers still have to patrol the park. Motor vehicles (snowmobiles) are not allowed in the park. The rangers resort to the same mode of transportation that's been used since the park was created in 1907, dog sleds. They can patrol in temperatures down to -30F. They give a nice little lecture and demo with a sled on wheels. They only use 6 dogs for the demo because the sled would go too fast with more dogs. They use 10 or more dogs for winter patrol because the sled is heavy with supplies. The dogs are extremely friendly and the rangers encourage people to pet and play with them.

Arctic Hare. This guy turns snow white (like the Ptarmigan) in the winter for camouflage. They are the primary food source for the lynx (cat, little bigger than a bobcat). There has been an explosion in the hare population in recent years so there are a lot of lynx in the park this year. We never saw a single one!! The hare population is running a 10 year cycle and is getting ready to crash so there will be less lynx in the future.

We saw this red fox trotting down the road. He looks a little straggly because his summer fur hasn't completely grown in.

What would Dennis' pictures be without a couple good rodent shots. This little guy is an Arctic Ground Squirrel. They are very common in the park and quite photogenic. It is a true hibrenator. During winter they go underground, slow their heartrate to something like 4 beats a minute, and lower their body temp to 26F.

OK, this is the last rodent shot. It's a Hoary Marmot. He just walked up to the side of the bus to check us out. It's about the size of a small dog.

I thought this would be a good parting shot. This is a Grey Wolf, also called Timber Wolf. There are only about 60 wolves currently in Denali and they are spread out over 6 million acres so we were very, very lucky to see this one. We were told that there is a den close by with new pups. I'm sure this one was a lookout. He was laying in some low brush along the road, very sinister. I really love the way he was looking at the camera. Nice doggy...

BONUS PICTURES

For anyone who's interested here are pictures of the four different varities of big horn sheep in North America. I'll start in the south and work my way north.

These 2 guys are Desert Bighorn Sheep. They are found in the arid mountains of Arizona and New Mexico (and probably northern Mexico). Notice the extremely long ears compared to the other bighorn sheep. In the interest of full disclosure, this photo was taken at an animal rehab facility. These animals were not photographed in the wild. Someday I'll get one in the wild.

These are Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep. They have a very wide range through Colorodo, Wyoming, Montana, and up into the Canadian Rockies.

This is a Stone Sheep. They range through the extreme northern Rocky Mountains in Canada. This was the hardest bighorn to find.

Once again, here is the Dall Sheep. The most northern of the bighorn sheep.