Denali

Denali National Park

Finally, we made it to Denali! Mt. McKinley is the tallest mountain from bottom to top in the world. Mt. Everest comes in second, but the elevation it starts at is higher so technically its the tallest in the world. Whatever. We were just so excited to finally make the trip out there to see it. It's a five hour drive and just our luck, rainstorms the whole way up. It was supposed to be snowing on us when we first arrived, but the snow didn't come until later. We set up camp next to the Nenana River and checked out the little town of Denali.

Enjoying some hot chocolate

We walked to the visitor center, but it was closed until tomorrow so we walked around town.

The river we were going to raft the next day

While wandering around on the bike path, we ran into the first of many many moose to come

The official sign

The next day was packed for us. We had booked a Canyon Run river rafting tour which had 3-4 class rapids at 7:00 am. A few hours after that we had an eight hour bus ride through the park scheduled. The day was cold and rainy and the clouds pretty much destroyed our chance of seeing anything let alone Mt. McKinley. We hoped for a break and went white water rafting. Because there were only two of us that wanted to paddle, they hooked us up with another couple and we got to sit and hold tight instead of helping at all. Boring!

All decked out head to toe in dry suits and about three layers of clothes. We still froze!

Getting ready

I charmed my way into taking over the oars for a few minutes even though its against the policy. Bahahahaha! A little batting of the eyelashes goes a long ways. ;)

The couple we rode with got hit with every rapid right in the face. Aaron yelled at me afterwards for laughing so hard-apparently that is impolite. 

Our bus ride was narrated and fun to hear all the wildlife stories that had happened to people throughout the years in the park. Most of the information was for tourists though and I was glad I brought a book. Our guide treated us the same way one might a three year old, so I wish we would have done the shuttle (non narrated, but you get on and off where ever you want), but Aaron really liked the tour bus feel. Plus they gave us snacks (back to the three year old mindset). It snowed on us pretty hard near the top of the trail so we didn't get to see much in way of mountains or views, but we did get to see a lot of wildlife, some very up close. We saw a white wolf, red fox, dall sheep, caribou, bull moose, moose, grizzlies, and lots of little newborn babies. It was a long day but really fun.

Three blonde grizzlies up on the mountain digging for potato root

Bull moose

Another grizzly got scared by the bus and took off up the mountain

These guys ran right next to the bus. It was cool to see them up close.

Red fox

Mama and baby moose in the road

 Brand new babies

Caribou wear these each year

Back in town

We went right to sleep and as we were driving home the south side of Denali in the State Park was a perfect day. To go from snowy to sunny was sure weird. So we did get to see Mt. McKinley after all!

Looking through a scope to see the top