Into the Park

We had reservations for the 7 AM shuttle bus into the park, so even taking advantage of our three hour jet lag it was a bit of a scramble to get there on time. Fortunately, the bus was about 20 minutes late. No, they aren’t owned by an airline; the buses will stop for wildlife viewing. You’re encouraged to shout “STOP!” and the driver will screech to a halt. Then it sounds like the White House press room with all the cameras going off! So, the buses often run a bit behind.

It was a cool and pleasant – but dusty – drive to Eielson Visitor Center, punctuated by our animal stops. Thanks to Mike Longfellow for letting me borrow his 70-300mm zoom with image stabilization, or 90% of my animal photos would have come to naught.

My favorite stop on the way in was Polychrome Pass, so named for the type of rocks in that area. Very colorful, and exciting too – the pass is carved into the cliff face with no railings, and is just barely two buses wide. The mountains of the Alaska Range were visible across the valley, and in fact a stunning photo from this very place was featured on Bing’s home page not more than a few weeks ago.

To our delight, when we got to the Visitor Center the smoke from much of the northern wildfires had cleared AND it was an otherwise clear day (it’s said that Denali is only visible about 30% of the time through the clouds that form around it). It was just terrific being out there, and a reminder of how BIG the mountain is and how small we are. There two peaks adjacent to Denali, and the most insignificant of them is the same height of the mighty Rainer.

As I mentioned, on the return trip we hopped off the bus at both the pass and a drainage just west of it that allowed us down into the valley a short distance. As I’ve always said it makes a HUGE difference to get out and away from the masses (though the masses were quite small in this case) to have a sense of what the place is really all about. Unlike any park in the lower 48, Denali really is Wilderness punctuated by little dots, little outposts of civilization.

If you are planning to take a shuttle bus into Denali, here are a few tips.

• The better valley views are on the left side of the bus, as the road generally hugs the mountains to the right. But you might see animals upslope as well.
• If you get a handicap-equipped bus, if you sit in the back row, you can move to the very back to shoot photos. It’s about a 5 foot area with big windows that probably won’t have anyone else, and you can move back and forth to both sides to shoot.
• The drawback? The farther back in the bus you go, the dustier it gets. Protect your equipment.
• No food or water on the bus, so be prepared!

My trip photo album will be posted at http://picasaweb.google.com/sean.deuby; I’ll put my very best photos also on http://flickr.com/photos/shorinsean.

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