The Great Mountain

Today was Denali NP day. We got up early, 5am or so, and got ready to go. it was a clear cool morning. the car thermometer read 32 degree...not sure if it was really that cold...maybe. we drove north to the park, and got on our bus which left at 630am.

the weather was unbelievable today. we had clear blue skies until around noon or 1pm. we had wicked good view of mt. mckinley. our bus driver said we only get days like this around 10 days each summer. so we really lucked out. she said two days ago, you could hardly see the mnt. yesterday you could see about 2/3 of the mnt, but not the top. we loved the views. i took tons of pics, none of which will do it justice. i'll have to stitch some of them together. maybe i'll try to post some pics tonight. we traveled all the way to wonder lake which is as far as you can go into the park on the road. the view wasn't as good there and it had clouded over and the summit was no longer visible. luckily we had great views all day long before then.

other than seeing denali, we saw a fair amount of wildlife as well. we saw caribou, a fox, arctic ground squirrels, dall sheep, moose (he was standing in a pond, ducking his head under for 10 seconds at a time, and coming up with some sort of roots or something), some type of falcon, and plenty of grizzlies. we probably had 20 different sightings. it actually got to the point where it wasn't exciting to see them any more! =)

at lunch time, we had some birds fly right up to us. my dad naturally tossed some bread. i teased him that feeding wildlife was a no-no. some more birds came and ate more bread my dad was tossing. next thing i know, one of the SOB's dive bombs me from behind and tries to steal the rest of my sandwich right out of my hand! hah...sucker...he didn't get it! =) my dad had a good laugh at that. but i had the last laugh. my dad was feeding a bird some pringles on the bench in front of us. the bird took those, then hopped right next to my dad, stole the remaining stack of pringles, and flew off with them. hah...

the bus ride was all day long. we didn't get back til like 730 pm. had some dinner, now were just chilling and planning. twas a good day. i'm gonna work no pics now...

tomorrow is flight-seeing day over denali. we're praying it'll be as clear as it was today!!!!!!!