Denali Park Backcountry Landscape

Aug. 10, 2010  What a most memorable day.  Charlie and I head out with our bus tickets to check out Denali's back country flora and fauna in this 6 million acre park and preserve.  A lottery only allows private vehicles to travel the full 92 miles of unpaved road a few days in the year.  Aside from that, it's park and tour buses only.  We had the best view, as no one claimed the front seat, even as we arrived last on the 6:45am bus to Wonder Lake.  The landscape quickly changed from Taiga to Tundra the further & higher up we drove through the Alaska Range.  Never have we seen such vistas and a plethora of green radiating from the earth.  We soaked in Denali's alpine tundra landscape, which has been home to Athabascan Indians for thousands of years.

 Front of the bus!  We had thee best views!

Mt. McKinley/Denali, soaring at 20,320 feet, the highest peak in North America.  The only view we got of the peaks at 7 am.  The rest of the stay, they were shrouded in clouds.

 Sun rays peaking.  Heavenly views of tundra at Denali National Park.

Dramatic and vast open country.

The best landscape we've seen on this trip.  View from a short hike at Eielson Center.

Dew drops on the grassy tundra.

 Charlie and the views, and the awesome walking stick he whittled from birch, complete with bear bell. haha. (Charlie wanted me to add, he carved this from a birch tree he chopped down, all by himself, oh so vain.)

Our brilliant bus driver, Cissy, drove us 85 miles into the back roads to Wonder Lake.