Day 31

Denali National Park.

The alarm belts out the tune "Born in the U.S.A,it 5.45am and within the hour we be off on our next adventure ,exploring the park. We have asked around and we think we may see moose ,grizzly, caribou and dall sheep. Again the pickUp is on time and away we go , we are just 5 minutes into the park, and there it is a female moose no more than 20metres away ,tick off one of the big 4. An hr had passed when the call stop, rang out , there on the left of the bus was not 1, not 2 but 3 grizzles. Well you can imagine my camera was shooting as if it had a mind of it's own, some really good shots, some that needed deleting, everyone on board was excited.We continue our trip into the depth of the park, we hadn't gone far when stop, rang out yet again, would you believe there was another full grown grizzly on his own, the guide thought this was a male. Again trying to get shots, a bit harder as he was in the scrub. Move on as lunch is at the end of the road, a place called Kantishna Roadhouse which is 95 miles away. The bus continued ,the guide continued then in the middle of her talk yet again, yes you are right grizzly ,the buses fifth sighting within an hour. This bear was bigger than the last ,Huge blonde grizzly bear. These bear look and act very powerful. Nothing could match this but after two regulation toilet stops, the call we all love to hear stop, this time no bear but a bull and cow moose, this bull was big, gigantic, dark in colour with big antlers, and the cow was big and tan in colour, click,click goes my camera,magic.

All the time we tried for these animal photos and here they are.

The journey goes quiet as sightings are slow,when our guide calls out OMG Denali might show herself, the cloud is clearing,and as if the script was written for this bus, all the clouds parted and there before our eyes stood the great Denali summits ,north and south. This a one in one hundred occurrence and we are part of it. We take a few minutes to digest what has happened, then onward . We spot over a dozen Dall sheep, some bird life and then as it has done so many times in Alaska ,it started to rain. Lucky for us we were at the roadhouse, our lunch was waiting. Here we had a 2hr break ,then we started the return journey. unfortunately the return trip was not as eventful with only the spotting of a golden eagle and two more moose to talk about. The golden Eagle was so majestic as flew along side the bus before landing on the mountains edge, although he looks brown, when the sun hits his feather a golden glow appears, yes the sunshine has returned.

So we leave Denali tomorrow for Fairbanks and hopefully the excitement will match today. There is only 4days remaining in this amazing dream come true tour of Canada-Alaska. The time has flown ,so I will see you maybe tomorrow as again it is a moving day. Everyone take care,

John and Shirley