Friday, June 29
Today was much like yesterday, though our bus ride into the
park was eight hours. There’s only one
road in the park, so we decided to go for it again today; yesterday’s wildlife
viewing was so great that we wanted to see more.
We rode out to the Eielson Visitors Center and were rewarded
with many grizzly bear sightings en route, including one of a mamma and her two
cubs. They were close by and the cubs seemed to be curious about us, so they
kept standing up to check us out; it was fabulous! Jim and Donna went for an
afternoon hike while Tom and Mel headed back to the park entry area. En route, we saw more bears and lots of
caribou, in small groups, a large herd, and a couple up close and
personal. This is the way we like our
wildlife experiences -- close, but safely cocooned in a large bus!
Denali is huge, but almost all of it is backcountry -- true
wilderness – and the emphasis is definitely on letting the wildlife be
wild. The feeling is that, if the animals
do not think of humans as either
dangerous or as sources of food, they will not see us as threatening or
attractive, and will pretty much live and let live. It seems to be working; no
human has ever been killed by a bear in Denali.
Nevertheless, it still felt pretty good to have all that bus around us!
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