Thursday, July 21, 2011

Day 36- Tundra Touring

We have to be at the bus by 8:00AM and it’s twelve miles from here towards the park entrance. Carl doesn’t understand why we have to travel there when the bus is going right past our campground. I don’t have any answers for him and I don’t make the rules. I can’t believe our luck. For two days in a row, the skies are a brilliant blue with almost no clouds. McKinley is quite visible and this bodes well for our tour. If the mountain is visible, the bus will travel an extra 9 miles from Teklanika Rest Stop to Stony Hill for an up close and personal look at the mountain from only 30 miles away. And, it looks as if we may get that opportunity. When the bus arrives to pick up at the Wilderness Access Center, there are already about 30 people on board who were picked up at their hotel. I am growling inside and to myself. Our driver, Bob, tells us he subscribes to the 5% club, the number of visitors who get to see the mountain from top to bottom. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. While I’m at it, I have another set of fingers crossed for wildlife sightings. Bob is a character who guarantees we will see wildlife and no more than 5 miles up the road, he slams on the brakes for an Arctic Ground Squirrel. Some of us see the humor while others think it’s going to be one very long day. His animal finding skills are shown in a better light when he spots a bull caribou feeding in the willows on the left side of the bus. Did I mention that’s where I’m sitting? All we can see of him is the upper tines of his antlers and his back, the shrubs are so thick and tall. The caribou wears a tracking collar and promptly comes up out of the willows and crosses the road directly in front of the bus. We are all encouraged to yell “stop” whenever we see an animal or even if we think we see an animal. Bob tells us how 48 sets of eyes hunting are better than his one pair because he is driving the bus after all. Later in the day we’ll find out why this is so important. After we travel through the official gate at mile 15, I spot a bull moose browsing in a lush meadow down below us by some 100 yards or so. My voice croaks out a stop and sure enough, Bob gets the bus stopped pretty quickly. Now 47 cameras are all trying to get a photo of MY bull moose. The visibility window isn’t that large so Bob moves the bus. Now, the people in the back can get a shot but it also meant I didn’t get the shot I needed. What are you going to do? The bus climbs higher, leaving moose habitat, threads it’s way through a narrow band of thick Spruce called the Igloo Forest and entered what Bob calls prime grizzly country. Just before we get there though, we had to travel through a bottleneck between two mountains called Polychrome Pass. Off to the left of the bus are some pretty steep rocky outcroppings, high up from the valley floor, and there enjoying themselves in the pre-noon sunshine are a small bachelor herd of Dall Sheep. It just so happens the road brings us pretty much even with their high perch. The day continues with another caribou sighting as well as a couple of off road grizzly sightings. Bob brings the bus around the next bend and stops dead in the middle of the road. Coming at us, taking her half of the road out of the middle is a gorgeous blond grizzly sow with two tiny cubs, not more than 5 months old, in tow. We are all cautioned to be very quiet, keep all fingers and faces inside the bus as well as our camera lenses. Another tour bus arrived on the scene from the other way and I find myself holding my breath. I’m worried the arrival of the second bus will change Mama’s mind about traveling on the road. If the bear stays on her current path, it will bring her directly by my side of the bus. Mother Nature smiles on us all. The sow continues walking past the bus but the cubs are very skittish and dash into the fairly tall shrubs on the side of the road. I catch one of them peaking up over to find out if we’re still there or maybe it was to find out where mom was. It was a truly magical moment. Bob says he’s done 2400 of these tours over the years and it’s only the third or fourth time, a grizzly sow has brought her cubs that close to the bus. In the course of our travels we crossed 4 braided glacial rivers, the Savage, Sanctuary, Teklanika and the Toklat. We can easily see this from our high vantage point but it’s still amazing to see how the river changes it’s own course through the years, sometimes going this way and depositing more silt and rock so that the next year it finds an easier path to take. We have a marvelous view of jagged snow covered peaks, all above 7,500 feet. One of these impressive mountains, Pendleton, is home to the three Polychrome glaciers. Even from our distant vantage point miles away, we can see evidences of their receding path by the moraine left behind. Some day these ancient ice rivers will disappear leaving miles of shattered rock and scarred mountain sides in their wake. I can’t describe just how I felt when I finally got to Stony Hill to see the entire 20,000 plus feet of Mt McKinley but the country gal who finds herself in New York City, staring up at the super tall buildings with her mouth open in awe is a good start. A small bank of clouds had begun to move in which, in my opinion, gave the massif an air of mystery as well as some contrast. Welcome to the 5% club, Carl and Valerie! The ride back was more or less anticlimactic. Bob decides we have been much too quiet and wants to play a game called Gee and Haw. He’s going to close his eyes and we’re going to tell him by those two commands how to steer the bus. That woke us all up. We saw another bull moose, much larger than the first but also much farther from the road as well as another couple of grizzlies, also further away from us. There was a quick and distant sighting of a golden eagle and we got to experience Bob’s excellent driving skills on the very narrow and twisting park road. Most of the 47 miles the bus covered today wasn’t wide enough for two buses to pass. It takes nerves of steel to continue calmly answering questions, explaining what we are experiencing and keeping us on the road and not into the side of an oncoming bus or over the steep drop off to the right. Bob explains there are rules of the road. Actually Bob explains a great many things to us. He proved himself to be an extremely knowledgeable and capable individual. We found out he’s an avid hiker and photographer which explains some of the little things he said like the sky being blown out behind the sheep or the cloud layer making for an interesting contrast. These are things a photographer would think of. The bus, on schedule, was almost back to civilization when there in the road directly in front of us was the biggest Caribou buck I’ve ever seen. He has a massive rack which is totally covered in velvet and still soft. You can see the upper palms flexing as he trots down the road. A car approached from the other direction and the bull decided to turn around and head in our direction. When he saw our bus, you could see his frustration. He pawed at the ground and shook that massive rack from side to side. The next time I hear the comment, “What a rack on that one!” Big Boy is what I’ll be thinking off. Somewhere during the 8 ½ hour day, I tweaked my left knee which is now painful and swollen. Carl fixed supper for us and after a couple of hours, it’s time to head off to the nightly ranger talk. Tonight, the subject is squirrels and how all four of the species that live in the park have a very important link in the food chain as well as the ecosystem that is Denali. While we were sitting there, a Grey Jay tried to fly in and steal the Ranger’s stuffed Arctic Ground squirrel. That got everyone laughing and it had just proved the Ranger’s point. But no matter how important the squirrels are as a food source, it can’t be very much fun knowing everyone is out to get you, literally.

No comments: