24-08-2013 Saturday - Denali to Anchorage.

 Today we go from Denali to Anchorage.


















After the last couple of days of drizzle/rain the sky is blue, with a few clouds around.










 





We stopped at the side of the road to get a picture of Mount McKinley (Denali).  Apparently we are now part of an elite group that get to see the mountain clearly, normally it is covered in cloud.


 





An igloo motel that is now abandoned.





 



McKinley View Lodge - snack stop. A verandah out the side was where you were again able to get fantastic views.





 






 













 It was a bit cooler but the sun was certainly out.









Talkeetna - Claudia(our tour guide)'s home town.





















 
This was a dusting of snow on the mountain range that had happened overnight.



















This is where we had a bite of lunch - our assignment was to find out who the mayor of the town was - we weren't expecting it to be a cat!  They don't have an official mayor as they are part of a borough.



I did suggest John & Steven could share this burger but they got something else.
 
 
 
 
 











 


An ice cream stop further up the road. We didn't have one as we had had one with lunch - this time the surprise of our next stop didn't work in our favour (or was that flavour?).















 




The Iditarod Trail Race Headquarters.   The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race is an annual long-distance sled dog race run in early March from Anchorage to Nome. Mushers and a team of 16 dogs, of which at least 6 must be on the towline at the finish line, cover the distance in 9-15 days or more.

 


Us taking a ride on a dog sled buggy, "driven" by a previous Iditarod winner.  His team came in 6th this year.




 










 



Steven with another four legged friend.






 




Dawn with one as well. Steven's puppy - no Steven it is not really your puppy - posed beautifully while his sister was a bit quieter and shier.









Some architecture in Anchorage.





 

Where we are staying.  This really was a 'suite' with separate lounge area to the bed room with a door dividing.

 

We were tired and so just had a quick walk around a couple of blocks and found a Thai restaurant for dinner.  Steven didn't even bother and went without.  We did some work on the blog (always end up staying up later than we mean to but were keen to get it up-to-date as you don't always know if you will have internet access at the next place.)  John set up the camera in Steven's room to take 30 minute exposures all night in hope of capturing the Aurora Borealis.

23-08-2013 Friday - Denali

Today, Chris kindly did a shuttle run for us:

On the hour, pick up/drop off from Grizzly,
20 past, pick up/drop off Denali Visitor centre,
40 past, pick up/drop off Denali "down town"




A bit drizzly/rainy today.





On the way we saw this moose cow.













Then not too much longer this one as well.


Claudia had informed us before we left this morning that "there are moose in Denali"....She was right:).  Like some of our other times the guides would tell us there were animals and we would really start to doubt - but so far they have all been right and we have seen them eventually.


The front area of the visitors centre. We started to look around, but went in to hear a talk by Ranger Alyssa about the park & the changing landscape - we as individuals can make a difference - was the main theme.

We also watched a movie about the park.













Some of the pictures of the animal section.































We caught Chris's shuttle to Denali Down Town & got something to eat. We caught the last shuttle back to the grizzly.









At ~2:30pm we were picked up in a bus by ranger Becky Irish for the Stony Overlook tour into Denali Park in a ranger bus. - full of information.

The deal was if you saw something you had to yell "stop" and she would stop the bus and pull into a better position.  She then got out her high powered video camera and would zoom in so even though sometimes they looked like dots on the horizon we could pull down the screens (above our heads here in this picture) and see a close up - also helped if you were having trouble spotting where the animal was as she would pull back too so we could get our bearings.



We saw a young Moose....










With it's mother.












Scenery again.












Then a Bull Moose














Giving us the eye....
























Teklanika Rest area view.







3 Dall sheep, way up on a hill.













A grizzly bear...way off in the distance.






























4 Dall sheep in the distance...












Brian helpfully pointing them out on the monitor :P












We saw some Caribou .... quite close to the bus.

























We saw a Grizzly Bear.... quite close to the bus.












Snow capped mountains in the haze.












The state of the bus after the drive on ~50 miles of gravel road - Becky "cleaned" down the windows at every stop - they got dirty very quickly as it was raining on and off and the mud just kept flicking up.










Luckily we didn't look like this and were nice and dry.

A very enjoyable tour and amazing how some people were able to pick out the animals through the muddy windows - some had binoculars to help - but still...