Today was a top wildlife watching day and made the 4.20am start worthwhile!

So I got up super early and met the others at the van at 5am so we could drive to the Wilderness Access Centre to catch the 6am bus to the Eilsen Visitor Centre in the middle of Denali National Park. Denali is different to Yellowstone as you can only get into the park in a park bus!

The journey to the centre took four hours with a couple of stops on the way to look at the view. But it wasn't just a case of getting to the centre we were also wildlife spotting on the way. The first spot was a hawk owl but unfortuantly I only got to see a photo of this on someone's camera as it was on the other side of the bus. But on the journey we saw fall sheep and then a black wolf moving along a ridge and then chasing 2 caribou out but they quickly clocked him and ran away so the wolf gave up on the hunt!! Then we drove further along and saw 3 grizzly bears, a mum with 2 cubs. Along the way we also saw more caribou, a golden eagle being chased by an owl, ground squirrels, ptarmigan and another wolf this time grey and really quite close. And then to finish the journey we saw another golden eagle being chased by 2 smaller birds.

After all this excitement we arrived at the centre, but not before having to navigate the narrow winding roads which at one point had a single track with a 700ft drop - not for the faint hearted. But thankfully we all made it in one piece. Our bus driver was really good for this part of the trip, not only on the wildlife spotting front but also for the information and stories he told. When we arrived at the centre we set out on the trail up the hill to get a better view of the Denali range. Unfortunately we didn't get to see Mount Denali as it was quite smoky as there was a fire outside the park. Despite this we took the trek up a very steep hill to the top where we looked for marmot - they were there I just couldn't see them!! The climb was the equivalent to 94 flights of stairs and I must say that I actually felt that this was the case. It was a long way up!! After taking some photos of the view and me at the top to prove I had made it, we started our descent and rewarded ourselves with lunch after watching the short film about climbing Denali. After watching the film and climbing our little mountain I have decided that I won't attempt to climb it just yet!!

From here we got back on the bus and started to make our way back to the Wilderness Access Centre. Our driver on the way back wasn't as good as the one on the way out. He did like his stories but they seemed to go on much longer than they needed and he really didn't seem too interested in spotting wildlife. Despite this on the way back to the centre we spotted a number of caribou (one of which came charging down the road towards us), lots of ptarmigan (generally because they seemed to like the middle of the road) and two eagles being chased by smaller birds. Then to top it off we saw the three bears again (no Goldilocks though) and got the most amazing views of them eating and rummaging in the trees.

When we arrived back at the WAC we were all a little tired but at the same time on a high from what we had seen.

When we got back to the cabins I looked at my photos and then we went to dinner before returning to our cabins for an early night!