Wildlife, Scenery and Stories in Alaska's Denali National Park

Forty pairs of eyes scanned the countryside looking for movement, any movement. With binoculars and cameras at the ready, we hoped for a bear or a moose, but we were willing to settle for some Dall sheep high up the mountain. Not a passenger aboard the bus maintained a semblance of composure. We scurried like kids from one side to the other, eager to be the first to announce the next sighting. Such was my introduction to the Tundra Wilderness Tour, a six- to eight-hour excursion into Denali National Park, one of the highlights of my Gray Line Adventure Tour through southern Alaska

Denali National Park is larger than the state of Massachusetts and tenderly watched over by Mount McKinley (called Mount Denali — "the high one" — by the locals), at more than 20,000 feet the highest mountain in North America.

On an African safari the goal is to spot the Big Five — lion, leopard, rhino, elephant and Cape buffalo. In Alaska, the concept is the same but the names are different: moose, bear, wolf, caribou and Dall sheep. So when we initially stopped to see a rabbit, which our guide called a snowshoe hare, I thought, "This is not a good sign." In truth, it's impossible to decipher accurately what lies ahead in the distance. Snow fills are mistaken for sheep, large boulders for bears. Hopes rise and are dashed, and the guide takes refuge in another snowshoe hare.

Denali National Park is watched over by Mount McKinley, which at more than 20,000 feet, is the highest mountain in North America. PHOTO: Arthur Chapman

But this is a tour for the long haul — and participants aren't likely to be disappointed. Even more impressive, our driver/guide, John Miller, with infectious enthusiasm, kept up a constant patter covering vegetation, history, animal lore, Alaskan peccadilloes, personal experiences and other tantalizing tidbits for almost seven hours — and kept it interesting. The running commentary that accompanied his driving along narrow, winding roads clutching the mountainside while he rapidly gazed right and left for any movement that might indicate animal activity, was a heroic act of multitasking.

And there was always something to see. Over the course of the tour, we spotted numerous Dall sheep, occasional moose, caribou (AKA reindeer), the ubiquitous snowshoe hares, of course, and other native wildlife. And should the animals play hard to get for a period of time, just lifting our eyes to the proverbial snow-capped mountains in the distance was enough to keep us enthralled until the next native creature revealed itself.

Because the bus was so big, the sound of recognition traveled like a wave from front to back — and there was always the risk that the animal the front had viewed was gone by the time the back of the bus caught up. On the off chance we missed the mama moose and her calf or the Dall sheep straddling a steep slope, close-up images from the driver's video camera magically appeared on the TV screens lowered above the seats in the bus.

I was torn between resenting seeing my "in the wild" Alaskan wildlife resembling a Discovery Channel documentary and feeling grateful I could see them at all — and close-up at that.

In truth, I was in it for the bears. Earlier in the trip, I had discovered that we were there too early (June instead of July) for the running of the salmon and, therefore, too early for the bears to gather around the streams just waiting for those happily spawning salmon to fly into their mouths. My own mouth had been watering at the very thought of watching such a spectacle.

So once in Denali, I hoped to finally get my chance to see bears. Miller kept re-assuring us we would certainly see grizzlies, but by hour No. 6, when only a glimpse of brown had been seen once in the far distance, he finally, guiltily, sorrowfully, very apologetically acknowledged that maybe we wouldn't this trip.

And then suddenly the cry went out. Waves of wows traveled along the bus as a mama and two cubs came into view. "Hallelujah," cried one excited passenger; "Thank goodness! We paid $5,000 to see that critter," noted another. Miller admitted he was getting quite nervous. Only 20 times in 18 seasons had he not seen a bear. It was far away and it clearly wasn't catching any fish, but I did feel some sense of vindication.

At the end of the trip, Miller played back the video that captured the highlights of our bus trip from hare to bear and all the other denizens of Denali in between: the many Dall sheep, mama moose with twins, caribou, golden eagle, ground squirrels, ptarmigans (the state bird) and, of course, the bears. We just missed Alaska's Big Five by one wolf. Not surprisingly, like the ubiquitous gift shop at the end of every museum tour, the video was for sale.

Denali was only one stop on the Gray Line Escorted Alaska Explorer Tour. There were also glaciers and mountains and gold-mining history and native cultures and whale-watching tours and frontier towns and backcountry plus myriad experiences I've had nowhere else. In the process, I learned to appreciate not only America's last frontier but also the hardy, independent-minded people who inhabit it.

Still, next time I want to see more bears.

For more information, visit www.graylinealaska.com.

-Fyllis Hockman
Fyllis Hockman is a freelance travel writer. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
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