Alask Part 2 - The Animals

Denali National Park has some amazing animals. Anything that can survive Alaska in the winter outside is just plain amazing anyway. On our tour we apparently saw many rare sights. One park ranger even described the day we toured as “epic” in animal sightings.

First we saw a moose.  It was our only moose sighting and he was in the trees. It was the first animal we saw as well and I wasn’t prepared with the camera.  I really only saw his backside and he was a big animal.   Wouldn’t want to bump into him on the trails.  The next things we spotted were Dall Sheep.  They were really tiny white dots on the mountainside. They stay up high on the mountain cliffs and have great balance.  Unfortunately our camera doesn’t zoom very far so our picture is of tiny white dots.  We joked that if we didn’t take vacations like this we could afford to buy a really nice camera. ;)

Animal sightings were spread out.   I’m sure there were tons in the bush we just couldn’t see. Lots of snowshoe hare would hop from the side of the road into the bush as we came by and so did several kinds of birds and ground squirrel.  At our first rest stop we could see a bear in the riverbed about a mile away.  Later we saw a grizzly and her cub eating berries.
At our second rest stop there was a little book store so Wes and I went in to warm up and look around.   About five minutes later the rest of the group came in exclaiming that they had just seen a wolf walking down the street.  We missed it, but apparently it was a great sighting as it is rare to see a wolf.  

There were many caribou as the herds were starting to form for winter.  I found out that caribou and moose lose their antlers so if you are in Alaska the first of summer the antlers are just small stubbs.  By August they are much bigger and you can really see them good.
We got a good look at some beaver dams and two beavers building their lodge for winter.   The lodges and beaver were much bigger than I thought.  We also saw a wood frog.  Somehow our driver saw this tiny thing hop across the road and he stopped all excited. It’s the only amphibian in Alaska.  They actually freeze up in winter then come back to life.  

The most exciting scene was when a fox was chasing a bear!  The fox apparently wanted the bear to move away from the fox den.  So the fox would get close to the bear enticing the bear to chase him.   The bear just wanted to eat berries in peace.  He would lunge at the fox then go back to eating a little further away.   This kept on for awhile as we watched.  The bear ended up on the other side of the ridge from where we first saw it, but the fox was still working to move it along.  We were all surprised we didn’t see the bear eat the fox!

It was a good day for animal spotting.  However like the driver said this isn’t Disney and animals aren’t just lined up on the side of the road.  For every big animal we spotted we probably sat in the bus and rode for about an hour or more.  Our driver said he was relieved that we saw a bear so soon because sometimes they go all day and don’t see some of the big animals.  There’s a lot of pressure on the poor guy then.