{"id":167,"date":"2015-06-05T09:27:56","date_gmt":"2015-06-05T16:27:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/alaska2015\/?p=167"},"modified":"2015-06-23T09:24:17","modified_gmt":"2015-06-23T16:24:17","slug":"denali-is-sparse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/alaska2015\/denali-is-sparse\/","title":{"rendered":"Denali is Sparse"},"content":{"rendered":"

June 5, 2015.<\/p>\n

\"that's
We decided to have breakfast at the chalet. The breakfast buffet was $18 for full buffet, or $13 for continental. They didn’t serve ala carte until 9 am, which would have prevented us from getting on our scheduled tour. Fortunately, we could get a full breakfast at the other chalet restaurant for $10.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
Our bus for the Tundra Wilderness Tour left at 8 am. They use converted old school buses. The seats are nice, but packed very close together. We had bus 151, which was the oldest in the fleet. Our driver told us that the tour would be between 6 and 12 hours, the longer time being if the bus broke down or we got stuck.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"snack
We each got a nice little snack box to eat on the bus.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"It's
We did get some nice shots of The Mountain (aka Denali, aka McKinley). We were told that it was rare to see the mountain so clear. I believed it, because within minutes, clouds rolled in and obscured the mountain.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"McKinley2.jpg\"<\/p>\n

I was surprised at how few animals we saw. When I thought about it, though, it makes sense. It is the Tundra, after all, and there isn’t much food around. In the 350,000,000 acres of the park, there are supposedly only 300 or so bears, 2000 moose, and 50 wolves. With my ordinary point-and-shoot camera, most of my animal pictures came out as mere dots.<\/p>\n

\"hint:
See the caribou?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"caribou<\/p>\n

\"hint:
Can you spot the bears?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"mother<\/p>\n

\"dall
Dall sheep.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"dall<\/p>\n

We also saw a moose, but when I reviewed the picture I took later, I couldn’t find the animal.<\/p>\n

There is only one main road going through the park, and that’s a single lane gravel road for the entire distance. The road is constantly being maintained. It doesn’t make sense to put in an asphalt road where ground heaving and -50 F winter temperatures will destroy the surface in a year.<\/p>\n

\"steep
Right around this section, the bus broke down. The engine suddenly lost power, and we were going very slowly. The driver didn’t want to risk going forward to a narrow section on a cliff, since if we broke down completely there, the rescue buses and other tours in both directions would be blocked.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n