Denali National Park - Day 2

On day 2, I took a bus tour to Wonder Lake, which is 85 miles inside Denali National Park. This is nearly as far as you can go, with only one stop, Kantishna, lying beyond. It is at the end of the road at mile post 89. This was an eleven hour bus tour and with the weather clear, the scenery was spectacular. I am posting lots of photos so everyone can see a little glimpse of what I saw.

The highlight of the day was being able to see all 20,320 feet of Mt McKinley without any clouds obstructing the upper peaks. It is rare to get to see the entire mountain, and from what we were told, only a small percentage of the visitors are so lucky. I shot photos of the mountain from 4 or 5 different locations along the Denali Park Road, but I will post my two favorites. The photo above is a view from the first place we saw the mountain.

This bull moose was the first wildlife sighting of the day, and it actually was before we saw Mt McKinley. The moose photo I posted yesterday was a one year old moose, where this one is an adult.

I was hoping to photograph a bear close up, but the 6 or 8 grizzly bears we saw this day were too far away for a good photo. I am hoping I will see one up close before my time here is up.

The next photo is from the Teklanika River overlook at mile post 29. This is the first rest stop along the way to points deeper inside the park.
The next three photos are mountains along the way to Polychrome Overlook.



I snapped this photo of one of the tour buses going around the bend to give some perspective to the photo. The drop-off here is about 900 feet to the valley floor below. The mountains in the distance are several miles away.
This is another photo of Mt McKinley, as seen from Stony Hill, located at approximately mile post 63.

This is Wonder Lake, which was my final destination before we turned around to head back.

These remaining photos were shot on the way back.