Mother's Day Trip to Denali (One Day Early)

It's that time of year when everyone wants to be outside and soak in some sunshine because we haven't been able to enjoy the outdoors with skin exposed in quite some time! Yes, this is the time of year, when the palest skin you've ever seen begins being shown. It's a wonder we don't all blind each other just walking down the steet, and for many, it's the favorite time of year.

To catch up on our Vitamin D, I decided to take Mette and Kieran to Denali National Park for some Mother's Day fun in the sun because Max was out of town for work and because the Park Road was open to private vehicles for the first 30 miles. (As you may or may not know, for most of the open road season, the Park Road is closed to private vehicles and you may only drive through the park on one of the Denali buses. They don't want anybody having an accident while looking at the scenery, hitting any wildlife, or messing anything else up.)

Although pretty hazy, the mountain was visible if you looked close. Can you see it in this picture? You may have to click on the picture to blow it up to get a better look.


We saw some people we knew, Kevin and Andi, shortly after entering the park, so we stopped to talk.


While hanging out talking, a man pulled up and pointed out a mama grizzly bear with her two cubs walking around by the river below us. The five of us obviously weren't very good at sighting wildlife, so we were glad to check bears off of our list early in the day. Of course, it was a lot more fun to watch them through the binoculars since you could barely see them with the naked eye.


ZOOMED IN (again you might have to click on the picture to see the bears better)


On the way to Mile 30, the only animal of note, aside from the bears, was a ptarmagin, unless you count the other birds we saw, but I wasn't looking up. Mile 30 marks Teklanika River, where we turned around and headed back to the park entrance.


On the way back out of the park, we added another animal to our list, an Arctic Ground Squirrel. OK, it's a good thing the guy pointed the bears out because obviously the rest of our animal sightings were less than thrilling, unless of course you count the moose running toward the highway while we were driving back to Fairbanks. Luckily he was smart enough to turn around and head back into the spruce trees.