DENALI NATIONAL PARK ALASKA Located centrally in Alaska ... · dominated by 20,310-ft.( 6130...

DENALI NATIONAL PARK ALASKA Located centrally in Alaska, Denali National Park includes 6 million acres of Alaska’s interior wilderness that spans the Alaska Range from east to west. The subarctic landscape is dominated by 20,310-ft.( 6130 meters) high Denali (fka Mount McKinley), North America’s tallest peak. With terrain of tundra, spruce forest and glaciers, the park is home to wildlife including grizzly bears, wolves, moose, caribou and Dall sheep. It is heavily visited during the summer months, but also regulated to control access of the single road that bisects the park. There is a wilderness area that still seems so wild. Denali has become a safe haven for wildlife. I have been fortunate to have explored Denali three times over the past 4 decades. The first trip was in the spring of 1971 after my first year in graduate school in wildlife Science at the University of Washington. I was not yet funded with my grant, so I spent the summer exploring in Denali, and had brought a friend and his brother from Minnesota whom I had worked with for the USFS in Idaho in 1970. Amazing three months, hiking, studying the lichen complex on the tundra, and finally returned when the snows hit in mid September. I was amazed to see the abundance of wildlife, especially grizzly in which I had three very close and scary encounters. One sow with her cubs charged me after I was extremely cautious to avoid her in thick willow, and another bear had come upon my tent at night on the Toklat River, and sniffed my tent, shaking the ground as the bear left. I was in the fetal position praying the bear was not interested. My food was cached 75 meters away. I was fortunate to have seen wolves, wolverine, lynx, so much wildlife that most do not get to see. I remember waking up in the morning again on the Toklat River highlands, the dwarf birch bright red from the fall colors, and had a black wolf sitting outside my tent 30 meters away just looking at my tent. It stayed when I stuck my head out the tent door, then slowly ambled off. I returned guiding a trip at Camp Denali in 1982, enjoying the wonderful family that had developed log guesthouses deep within the park. I returned with my children as a single parent dad in 2001, having explored the area this time by bus, and hiking. The kids and I saw caribou up close, grizzly bear digging out parka squirrels that made us all laugh. The bear couldn’t catch the squirrels. Seeing a wolf up close, then watching a red fox that had caught three ptarmigan try to stuff all three in its mouth, drop one, then come back for it, only to drop another. I remember too all of us biking together along the road past the savage river campground, experiencing the warm evening sun and Denali rising majestically above the tundra. These are memories I will never forget, and will share. Children and I exploring 2001

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Transcript of DENALI NATIONAL PARK ALASKA Located centrally in Alaska ... · dominated by 20,310-ft.( 6130...

DENALI NATIONAL PARK ALASKA

Located centrally in Alaska, Denali National Park includes 6 million acres of Alaska’s interior wilderness that spans the Alaska Range from east to west. The subarctic landscape is dominated by 20,310-ft.( 6130 meters) high Denali (fka Mount McKinley), North America’s tallest peak. With terrain of tundra, spruce forest and glaciers, the park is home to wildlife including grizzly bears, wolves, moose, caribou and Dall sheep. It is heavily visited during the summer months, but also regulated to control access of the single road that bisects the park. There is a wilderness area that still seems so wild. Denali has become a safe haven for wildlife. I have been fortunate to have explored Denali three times over the past 4 decades. The first trip was in the spring of 1971 after my first year in graduate school in wildlife Science at the University of Washington. I was not yet funded with my grant, so I spent the summer exploring in Denali, and had brought a friend and his brother from Minnesota whom I had worked with for the USFS in Idaho in 1970. Amazing three months, hiking, studying the lichen complex on the tundra, and finally returned when the snows hit in mid September. I was amazed to see the abundance of wildlife, especially grizzly in which I had three very close and scary encounters. One sow with her cubs charged me after I was extremely cautious to avoid her in thick willow, and another bear had come upon my tent at night on the Toklat River, and sniffed my tent, shaking the ground as the bear left. I was in the fetal position praying the bear was not interested. My food was cached 75 meters away. I was fortunate to have seen wolves, wolverine, lynx, so much wildlife that most do not get to see. I remember waking up in the morning again on the Toklat River highlands, the dwarf birch bright red from the fall colors, and had a black wolf sitting outside my tent 30 meters away just looking at my tent. It stayed when I stuck my head out the tent door, then slowly ambled off. I returned guiding a trip at Camp Denali in 1982, enjoying the wonderful family that had developed log guesthouses deep within the park. I returned with my children as a single parent dad in 2001, having explored the area this time by bus, and hiking. The kids and I saw caribou up close, grizzly bear digging out parka squirrels that made us all laugh. The bear couldn’t catch the squirrels. Seeing a wolf up close, then watching a red fox that had caught three ptarmigan try to stuff all three in its mouth, drop one, then come back for it, only to drop another. I remember too all of us biking together along the road past the savage river campground, experiencing the warm evening sun and Denali rising majestically above the tundra. These are memories I will never forget, and will share.

Children and I exploring 2001