Wild Wildlife in Denali

 By Sarah Ann

Sunday, August 15th

We left our cabin bright and early at 6am. Here in Alaska, it is literally bright out at 6! We caught the 7am transit bus. The transit bus is one of the main things to do in Denali because only busses are allowed deep into the park. This is in an effort to “keep Denali wild.” The bus is a way to see the scenery and to see the animals. The big five of Denali are caribou, moose, sheep, wolves, and bears. It’s really rare to see wolves, but I was hoping to see the other four (we’ve already seen moose).

The bus stopped at rest stopped all along the route. They were beautiful!

At a rest stop

Here's me with antlers they had at another rest stop. Turns out all of Santa’s reindeer are female. Caribou are the only species in the deer family where both the males and females grow antlers. Only the females have antlers in December though, so Donnor’s a girl!

In the end, we did see four of the big five!

We saw a bear on the way there, a bear on the way back, and then another one close up on the way back! All were grizzlies. On the way back though, Christian decided he had “seen too much nature.” When we saw wildlife, like this bear, he refused to look and turned his head out the other window. 

We saw one moose. 

There were tons of caribou! Imagine having tons of wild reindeer roaming around.

The bus ride went to the Eielson Visitor Center. We did a hike there. These last two photos are from that hike. It was raining, but definitely worth it, because it was gorgeous!