Denali National Park and Preserve

Today we took a six and a half hour bus tour of the Denali National Park.

This Park and Preserve was established in 1917 as Mount McKinkey National Park. It was renamed Denali in 1980. The mountain was officially renamed Denali in 2015. This park and preserve covers 6 million miles. Yesterday we had beautiful views from above...today we had views from below (so to speak)! One of the first things that happened to us was that we found ourselves on the wrong bus...as the driver pulled away from the depot, she started to talk about the 8 hour ride we were going to experience...uh oh! We had purchased tickets for the 6 and half hour ride. The driver said that we might be able to switch to the correct bus at the first rest stop. All I could think about was our poor dog Sammy being left alone for over 9 hours...not a happy thought...but it all worked out well since we were able to make the switch. As I was getting on the bus, this young woman looks at me and calls me by name...I did not recognize her at first since she was wearing a baseball cap....she introduced herself and it wound up being Rebecca who we work with at Lebel and Harriman's back home in Falmouth. She, her husband, and daughter were visiting family who live in Anchorage. Well, we all had a great laugh and caught up about our vacations. What a coincidence, don't you think? Here is a picture of us

During our travels, we saw a couple of owls flying in the distance, a moose and calf in the distance, but no bears, sheep, or elk/caribou to speak of which was disappointing. It was interesting to see the terrain of the park by bus juxtaposed to the views we had yesterday. The rivers were all a result of the glacier melt. The Toklat River was one of the largest we had seen.